Steam Followers vs Wishlists: What Followers Tell You (and What They Don't)
Followers are public, wishlists aren't. How the two relate, the common 10× rule of thumb, and follower data from 100 Steam games StoreCheck tracks.
By StoreCheck TeamPublished November 6, 20263 min readLive data: 802 pages
- Followers are public on every Steam community hub; wishlist counts are only visible to the developer in Steamworks.
- A widely used rule of thumb is roughly 10 wishlists per follower, but it varies a lot by genre.
- Among coming-soon games we track, the median has 12,806 followers.
- Use followers to compare against rivals, and your own Steamworks wishlists to plan.
Contents
Wishlists are the number every indie developer watches before launch. The problem: you can only see your own. Followers, on the other hand, are public on every game's Steam community hub, which makes them the best public proxy for a rival's wishlists.
What's the difference?
- Wishlist: a player adds your game to their wishlist. Steam emails them when the game launches and when it goes on sale. Only you see the count, in Steamworks.
- Follower: a player follows the game's community hub to see its announcements in their activity feed. The count is public.
Every follower is usually also a wishlister, but most wishlisters never follow. That's why the ratio between them is large.
The 10× rule of thumb
Industry surveys of developers who shared both numbers (GameDiscoverCo has run several) put the typical ratio at around 10 wishlists per follower, with a wide spread: some genres and audiences sit well below that, cozy and story games often well above. Treat it as a range, not a constant.
What our data shows
StoreCheck records follower counts each time it checks a page. Today we have follower data for 100 games. The median game has 16,271.5 followers; the median coming-soon game has 12,806. This dataset is new (follower collection started in November 2026) and grows every day.
Free toolWishlist VelocityWishlists at launch from your weekly pace, benchmarked on real games.→How to use this
- Compare your own followers with rivals in your genre to see where you stand publicly.
- For planning, use your real wishlists from Steamworks, and track the weekly net adds (adds minus deletes).
- Project launch-day wishlists from your weekly pace and expected Next Fest bump.
- Expect week-one sales of roughly 0.1–0.15× launch wishlists, a range many developers report.
Don't fool yourself
- A spike in followers after a showcase can fade; look at the trend over several weeks.
- Wishlist deletes are normal; a sudden wave of deletes usually follows a price, date or page change.
- Indie Monitor can alert you when wishlists or followers spike, so you can find out what caused it while it's fresh.
Get a free 0–100 score for your Steam page, measured the same way as the 802 pages behind this article, with the fixes ranked by impact.
Check my page freeQuestions
Can I see another game's wishlists?
No. Wishlist counts are private to the developer. Followers are public on the game's Steam community hub and are the best public proxy.
How many wishlists per follower?
A common rule of thumb is about 10, but it ranges widely by genre and audience.
Does Steam notify followers when a game launches?
Followers see announcements in their activity feed. Wishlisters get an email when the game launches or goes on sale.
- • Steamworks: wishlists
- • GameDiscoverCo newsletter
- • How To Market A Game
- • StoreCheck data: 802 Steam store pages, measured with methodology v1