A Steam wishlist audit that refuses to quote you a magic number.
You have read that you need seven thousand wishlists before launch. Nobody publishes the dataset behind that figure, because there isn't a public one. What can be measured is the shape of your curve, where it comes from, and whether it is accelerating — and that is what we audit.
Velocity is measurable. Wishlist thresholds are folklore.
Two things are true at once. Post-launch velocity was the dominant failure in 38% of the launches we diagnosed by hand — second only to distribution. And no credible public dataset supports the specific wishlist thresholds that circulate as gospel.
So we do not sell you a number to hit. A raw wishlist count says almost nothing on its own: ten thousand wishlists accumulated over three years from bundle traffic behaves nothing like two thousand accumulated in six weeks from genre-matched creator coverage. The second one converts.
What we audit is the curve: its slope, its sources, its conversion behaviour, and whether the last four weeks are faster or slower than the four before them.
Source — 14,084 paid Steam releases, 2024 cohort. Method and limits
The curve, read properly.
Trajectory read
Slope over time, not a total. Accelerating, flat, or decaying — and since when.
Source attribution
Where the wishlists came from: Steam discovery, events, creators, paid, external. Each behaves differently at launch.
Velocity plan
What to work in the next ninety days to move the slope, in priority order.
Weekly tracking setup
The three numbers worth checking every week, and the thresholds that should make you act.
Five days, then a decision.
Pull the data
Steamworks wishlist reports, traffic breakdown, event spikes. Read against your release window.
Separate the sources
A spike from a festival and a spike from a creator are different assets. We split them before drawing conclusions.
Test the conversion
Page visits against wishlist adds. This is where a store page problem shows up as a number rather than an opinion.
Write the plan
Ranked actions for the next ninety days, with what to measure weekly to know whether they worked.
Balatro converted attention it had already earned.
A demo that circulated, creators who picked it up, and a wishlist base that was moving fast before release rather than sitting large and stale. Slope beat size — which is exactly what a raw wishlist target hides.
READ THE BALATRO TEARDOWN →Public case study. Not a Shypiard client.
So how many wishlists do we actually need?
There is no honest universal answer, and we would rather say so than invent one. What matters is whether the curve is accelerating into launch and where the additions come from. We can tell you whether yours is healthy for your genre and window.
What access do you need?
Read access to your Steamworks wishlist and traffic reports, or exported CSVs if you prefer not to grant access.
Can you audit a game that has already launched?
Yes. After release the same reading applies to velocity — reviews, concurrents, sustained coverage — instead of wishlists.
What is the €100 a month for?
Ongoing tracking after the audit: we watch the numbers weekly and keep outreach running, so velocity is worked rather than observed. It is optional and cancellable.
Is your curve accelerating?
The free 48h diagnostic includes a first read on your wishlist trajectory — and whether the number you have is the number you think it is.