What Steam’s Most Wanted Games Teach Us About PC Games

Steam’s diverse list of most-wanted is mostly an indicator of hobby health.

Steam has many scoreboards. The “Top Sellers” section ranks releases by total recent revenue (which explains why the $999 Valve Index regularly tops Steam’s sales chart). Steam Stats tabulates who’s playing what. And elsewhere on Steam, a crystal ball contains a list of the most-wishlisted games.

It’s a revealing, ever-changing picture into what PC gamers are excited about, or intend to buy. And though the stuff sitting at the top isn’t too surprising, this window into the future reveals at least partly the collective purchasing intentions of PC gamers.

“Steam wishlists are one of the most important pre-release metrics for PC game,” says Simon Carless, founder of GameDiscoverCo, an agency that researches game discovery. “What makes them important is that Steam account holders are willing to click on the ‘I want to be reminded about this game’ option. Obviously, a small percentage of those might be from people who are less interested, but once you start getting up into the hundreds of thousands or low millions, it is fairly indicative of interest.”

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