Wishlist-to-buyer conversions for games with Steam Next Fest demos
Are Steam wishlists becoming a vanity metric? We look at some of our wishlist, demo, and buyer conversion data for a selection of October’s Next Fest games.
As everyone turns their eyes to the current Next Fest (don’t worry, we’ll be diving into those metrics next week), we wanted to pause and look back at the class of October. More specifically, some of the games that had demos and have now fully launched.
We’ll be looking at our estimates for four very different games:
REANIMAL (launched on February 19), a horror adventure game with co-op, which has made $10M+ on Steam via 300K sold.
YAPYAP (February 3), a PvP game with voice-controlled spells, which has made almost $6M via 800K sold.
Car Service Together (Feb 4), a 1-4 player car-mechanic sim, which has made $1.6M via 100K+ copies.
The Midnight Walkers (Jan 29), an extraction shooter with zombies, which has sold fewer than 50K copies and generated less than $500K.
The data includes October 2025 wishlist numbers for each game, how many of these wishlisters played the respective Steam Next Fest demo, and – ultimately – how many of the October 2025 wishlisters have converted to buyers so far.
How many October 2025 REANIMAL Steam wishlisters converted to buyers?
REANIMAL is the most fascinating case study here due to the legacy of developer Tarsier, the $40 price – the highest in the group – and its use of a friend pass (allowing a friend to access a copy of the game for ‘’free’’).
Despite having the largest October 2025 wishlist pool of the four games (408K), REANIMAL saw the lowest demo participation at 16.7%. This makes sense, as REANIMAL was a known game with a bigger marketing push beyond Steam Next Fest (relative to the other games), including press coverage and video previews.
A week after its February 19 launch, REANIMAL managed to convert around 2.7% (11K) of its October 2025 wishlisters to buyers.
You can see above that this percentage is lower than YAPYAP’s. Yet, the number of converted players is roughly the same, and the $40 price point (versus YAPYAP’s $8) means more revenue overall – even considering the friend pass.
The core fans were willing to pay a premium for the Tarsier-developed experience, regardless of the demo’s reach. Some fans likely even avoided playing the demo, already sold on Tarsier’s track record with the first two Little Nightmares games.
YAPYAP and Car Service Together found some success, while The Midnight Walkers struggled
As for the rest of the list:
YAPYAP’s $8 entry point helped it capitalise on its high demo engagement. An impressive 29.5% of its 294K wishlisters in October had previously tried the demo. So there’s a strong “try-before-you-buy” foundation. YAPYAP was also the #3 most-played demo of the October event. Of the October 2025 wishlisters, 3.3% bought YAPYAP a week after launch, rising to 5.5% as of yesterday (23 days after launch). At under $10, the barrier to entry is minimal for a player who already enjoyed the demo, effectively turning a “maybe” into a “yes” without much hesitation.
Car Service Together remains the standout performer, relatively speaking. YAPYAP shows the power of a low-friction price point and memeable mechanics, but Car Service Together shows the power of niche. It had the highest conversion of demo players to wishlisters in October 2025 (37.5%) and the higherst conversion from October wishlisters to week-one buyers (3.8%). Players of this niche genre were clearly convinced by the unique gameplay loop, making the $18 price point feel like a fair trade for the fun they already experienced in October.
The Midnight Walkers struggled to find its footing with a $16 price point and a January 29th launch. It saw a weaker conversion rate of only 1.3% from its 87K October wishlisters, with just 1.6% converting almost a month after launch. Around 16.9% of the October wishlisters played the demo, and it was the #7 most played demo of the event overall, suggesting that the demo failed to impress enough to justify wishlists and – indeed -- purchases.
The Midnight Walkers’ struggle is a cautionary tale and underlines a bit of a discovery paradox. In more competitive and buzzy genres, a demo can actually work against you if it reveals a lack of polish or depth compared to the competition – especially when those giants are running playtests in the same window. I’m looking at you, Arc Raiders.
The low conversion rates also highlight another VERY important thing about wishlists…
Quality over quantity
Many folks still talk about wishlist volume as the North Star of Steam marketing. While it is still important (players get notified when their wishlisted game is released or discounted), wishlist quality is the metric that contributes to keeping the lights on.
As Steam continues to mature and the Coming Soon section becomes more crowded, the gap between wishlist numbers and actual revenue is widening.
I’ll put it bluntly: Wishlists are rapidly entering vanity-metric territory. We’ve reached a point where the “Wishlist Now!” call-to-action is so ubiquitous that it’s becoming background noise.
All this reminds me of the early days of digital marketing, when teams would high-five over millions of page views and impressions while customers weren’t actually buying anything.
Steam is no different. If you have 200K growth-hacked wishlists but a 1% conversion rate, you’ve got window shoppers not buyers.
The gamified wishlist trend is making things harder. In 2025, we saw a surge in studios running milestone campaigns – offering cosmetics or goodies if the community hits 50K, 100k wishlists, or whatever. It’s something our CEO, Rickard Linder, quite rightly underlined in our 2025 report.
A wishlist earned because a player played a game, and enjoyed what they played, carries way more buy intent than a wishlist from a vibes-only CGI trailer in a showcase.
The takeaway is to stop putting so much emphasis on counting wishlists and start measuring commitment. The former builds hype, but only the latter builds a community that intends to buy your game.
This means that actually looking at wishlist conversion data – looking at who’s converting, when, and why – is vital. Luckily, we have that data in our platform, so you if you’d like a free trial to see how it works, get in touch.
And if you’re an indie, you can always DM me on LinkedIn. Always happy to help there.
Speaking of wishlists (shite segue, I know), one of Steam’s top 5 games by wishlists, Resident Evil Requiem, is out TOMORROW. And Steam Next Fest is happening. AND Marathon is having a playtest.
It’s going to be a busy weekend for me as a gamer (let’s goooo!), and next week is going to be an awesome one for Alinea Insight newsletter subscribers, as we’ll be covering it all.
Hit subscribe below to get that in your inbox.
Want to get your hands on our data for yourself – for free?
We’re offering a free trial of our platform for games companies.
Send us a message here, or reply to this email, and we’ll set you up.
The last word
Reply to this email – or reach out here – if you have any feedback for the newsletter – or want to request a game for us to cover.
[Alinea Analytics boasts the most accurate PC and console estimates in the business. Game makers use our platform to understand their audience, keep an eye on the competition, monitor sales trends, and spot new opportunities. We equip game studios and financial institutions with accurate data and the confidence to make smarter, data-driven decisions. Want to talk about all things games market data? We’d love to chat!]
There’s a reason digital marketers have long stopped caring about list sizes and follower counts. If a metric becomes the goal, it stops being a metric. Number go up, feels like traction, but ultimately does nothing. Seems like the demo is doing the job that wishlists are supposed to (qualifying intent), and Car Service Together’s demo-to-wishlist ratio didn’t happen because of a campaign, but because it’s a fun game that seems to have found its niche. Not saying wishlists don’t matter, but chasing raw wishlist numbers is just running up the score.