Wishlist conversion by sub-genre. The 15% Week-1 conversion figure that circulated in 2020–2023 is no longer the median — it described a much smaller, more curated Steam catalog. Steam now adds roughly 25k new titles per year, wishlist quality has degraded sharply (free-add behavior, list bloat, less aggressive notification reach), and developer-shared data through 2025 puts realistic Week-1 conversion in the 1–3% range for most indies, with ~5% representing the high end of "very good." Anything above 5% is either a strong genre fit, an above-median review tier, or buzz the team actually earned pre-launch. The viral exceptions — co-op horror (Phasmophobia, Lethal Company), online co-op breakouts (PEAK, Mage Arena, R.E.P.O.) — still clear 12–25% W1, but these are the rare outliers that justify their own sub-genre tier, not a planning baseline. At the bottom, traditional visual novels, 2D platformers, and match-3 sit in the 1–2% band. The forecaster carries a separate Week-1 and Year-1 benchmark for each of 42 sub-genres across 12 parent families: pick the closest fit for your main, optionally blend in a secondary at 70/30 for hybrids. The expected review tier then applies a multiplier: Overwhelmingly Positive = 1.4×, Very Positive = 1.15×, Mostly Positive = 1.0×, Mixed = 0.55×, Negative = 0.25×. Review score gates discoverability at the algorithm level, so its effect compounds across the year. Sources: GameDiscoverCo (Simon Carless), Chris Zukowski indie post-mortems, public developer disclosures, and our own client launch data 2023–2026.

Wishlist conversion — best-practice context. The Wishlist Conversion Check panel surfaces three things publishers and partners ask about constantly: the effective Week-1 rate the model is using, where it sits versus the sub-genre median, and the realistic 80% band around it (≈ ±50% — outliers blow through both ends). Three factors dominate everything else and are worth checking against your own situation: (1) wishlist freshness — adds older than ~12 months convert 30–50% worse than fresh demo/Next-Fest cohorts, so banked wishlists are not all equal in quality and a 50k count that grew slowly over four years can convert worse than a 15k count built in the last six; (2) review-tier inflection — the algorithm gates discoverability sharply at the "Very Positive" threshold, so a single tier change is the biggest conversion lever short of changing the game; (3) launch context stacking — a playable demo at launch reliably lifts conversion ~8%, Next Fest concentrates revenue into the launch month, and the two effects stack. The "Net per wishlist" readout on the panel is the single number most negotiation conversations land on — translate it for a publisher who isn't fluent in conversion percentages.

Regional revenue split. Year-1 indie revenue concentrates in NA + EU (~55–65% combined for most genres), with the remainder distributed across China, Asia ex-China (JP/KR/SEA), and a long tail (LATAM, RU/CIS, ANZ, MENA, India). Genre shifts this materially: cozy and narrative skew Western, soulslike + JRPG over-index in Asia, sim and racing are EU-heavy (DE/UK driving sim, FR + IT football sims), horror gets an outsized LATAM boost from the YouTube/TikTok creator economy. The shares applied are revenue shares — Steam's regional pricing is already baked in. Unit shares look different: emerging markets carry more players than dollars, which matters for community size, modding ecosystems, and audience for your next title, but should not be conflated with revenue weight in publisher conversations. The tilt selector models a deliberate localization or marketing push (a localized EU campaign, a CN partnership, a LATAM/RU push) that overrides the genre default. Sub-genre overrides handle the obvious outliers (soulslike, JRPG, co-op horror, racing sim, etc.) so the auto profile reflects sub-genre reality, not just parent family. Defaults are sourced from GameDiscoverCo regional analyses, Steam Hardware Survey language splits, Chris Zukowski sub-genre breakdowns, and published indie publisher post-mortems. Directional, not predictive — real launches deviate ±30–50% per region.

Pre-launch buzz. Buzz is the multiplier you've earned before the algorithm sees your launch — press attention, streamer reach, festival placements, viral demo moments. It compounds with both wishlist conversion and organic discovery (people who heard about you but didn't wishlist). Multipliers: None = 1.0×, Some = 1.15×, Building = 1.4×, Strong = 1.8×, Phenomenon = 2.5×. The top tier is the once-per-year breakout — Hades, Vampire Survivors, Balatro — and is rare for a reason: part craft, part timing, part luck.

Post-launch wishlists. Wishlists that arrive after launch — driven by reviews, content creator coverage, sale event visibility, and Steam's discoverability ripples — convert at roughly 70% of pre-launch wishlists. A healthy launch typically adds 50–200% of the launch-day count over the rest of Year 1, sometimes much more for sleeper hits.

Launch-window seasonality. Calendar week of release matters more than most forecasts admit. The model carries a 52-entry seasonality curve calibrated from monthly launch-cohort data: post-holiday cold start (W1–4, ~-15%), February quiet zone (W6–10, neutral), April–May sweet spot (W14–22, +5%), Summer Game Fest crush + pre-Summer-Sale FOMO (W23–25, -10%), Summer Sale collision (W26–27, -15%), August trough (W31–34, -30% — the single softest window of the year, vacations and weather collapse PC engagement), September back-to-school recovery (W37–39, neutral-to-good), October sweet spot (W40–42, +10% — pre-AAA crush, Halloween horror tailwind), AAA crush window (W43–45, -15%), Black Friday / Autumn Sale (W47, -20%), and Winter Sale collision (W51–52, -30% — worst of the year for full-price launches). The multiplier applies at full strength to Week-1 revenue and at ~38% strength to Year-1 (since later months in the game's first year land in different calendar weeks and average out). This is separate from — and stacks on top of — your manual Year-1 blended seasonal discount, which models price discounting across the year, not launch timing. Sources: GameDiscoverCo monthly launch-cohort analyses, SteamDB concurrent-player aggregates, Chris Zukowski release-timing guidance, ZR client launch outcomes 2022–2026.

Launch context. A playable demo at launch lifts conversion by roughly 8%. Next Fest adds another smaller bump (~4%) and shifts more revenue into the launch month through concentrated visibility. Both are independent of the wishlist count: they affect how those wishlists convert, not how many you have.

Organic, non-wishlist sales. Wishlists are not the whole funnel. Steam discoverability, store browse, and sale events drive additional sales not attributable to wishlists. We add this as a percentage of wishlist sales (20% default, range typically 5–50% depending on visibility). Buzz lifts this further at runtime.

Effective ARPU. List price × (1 − regional haircut) × (1 − blended discount). Steam's regional pricing pulls blended revenue per copy down by 15–25% vs straight USD math. For the year-1 number, the blended discount is a weighted average of your launch discount (applied to the launch month, which carries ~38% of Year-1 revenue) and your seasonal blend (applied to the remaining ~62%). This is why both discounts matter — and why a launch discount that's too aggressive can quietly chew into the year.

Regional pricing in detail. Steam recommends prices per region based on local purchasing power. A $19.99 game might be ~$14 in Brazil, ~$12 in Türkiye, ~$10 in India, ~$8 in some SEA markets. You can override the recommendations, but doing so usually costs more in lost conversion than it recovers in price. The default "haircut" assumes you follow Steam's recommendations — globally-appealing games sit at 20–30% haircut, US/EU-focused titles at 5–15%.

Refunds. Steam's 2-hour refund policy yields 5–10% refund rates for most indies, higher for short games. Refunds are deducted from gross copies before revenue is computed.

Steam's cut. 30% on all revenue up to $10M, 25% to $50M, 20% above. Only the 30% tier is relevant for nearly all indies, so we apply a flat 30%.

Sensitivity bands. The downside scenario assumes wishlists at 60% of input, review tier one notch lower, and buzz one notch lower. Upside assumes wishlists at 140% and review and buzz tiers one notch higher. Real launches cluster wider than this — treat the bands as a planning range, not a confidence interval.

Tornado chart. Each driver is moved through a defensible range (wishlists ±40%, price ±$5, review and buzz tiers ±1, refund/organic/seasonal/regional ±5–10pp, launch discount ±5pp, launch context toggled) while every other input is held at base. Sorted by total swing. Anything sitting at the top is what to focus on first — both in production and in deal negotiation.

Time distribution. Year-1 revenue concentrates heavily in launch month (~38% cumulative) with major lifts at the first Steam-wide sale events (typically months 3 and 6). Year-2 adds roughly 35% on top of year-1 total in a long tail.

52-week trajectory. The weekly view splits Year-1 into 52 buckets calibrated so each block matches the monthly model exactly: M1-M8 span 4 weeks each (W1-32, where ~84% of Y1 revenue lives), M9-M12 span 5 weeks each (W33-52, reflecting the real 4.33 weeks/month). Within each block the curve front-loads — Week 1 alone captures ~20% of Year-1 revenue. Sale events add incremental revenue as a percentage of total Y1 (Lunar +1.5%, Spring +2%, Summer +6% over 2 weeks, Autumn +2.5%, Winter +6% over 2 weeks) — calibrated from GameDiscoverCo sale-event tracking and HowToMarketAGame case studies, then scaled by remaining wishlist tail (a Summer Sale 4 weeks after launch hits at ~98% effectiveness; the same sale 40 weeks in only ~55%). DLC drops follow the same additive model: ~4.5% of Y1 spread across 4 weeks (45% / 28% / 17% / 10% of the budget), scaled by tail effectiveness. Stacking multiple events on the same week is additive. The shift to percent-of-Y1 (rather than multiplier-on-baseline) avoids the trap where early-game sale uplifts would over-inflate because baseline weeks 1-4 carry most of the year's revenue.

Deal mechanics. Revenue share splits gross post-Steam revenue. Recoup-first sends 100% to the publisher until a defined amount is recouped, then splits. MG against royalty pays the developer an upfront minimum guarantee, then the publisher recoups it from royalties before paying further; the developer keeps the MG regardless. Marketing fee takes a fixed fee off the top before rev share kicks in.

These are planning estimates. Real launches vary on press, virality, genre saturation, timing, and luck. A good consultant won't pretend otherwise.