A Tale of Two Game Demos: When Wishlists Don’t Match Reality
It was the best of games. It was the worst of games.
This is a tale of two demos that launched the same week – both were holding onto impressive wishlist numbers. Both grabbed some headlines. Both had some buzz.
Only one had players.
In one corner you have 1348 Ex Voto, a medieval adventure that has you parading around Italy as a lesbian knight in a bowl cut, proudly announcing that it had crossed 100,000 wishlists on Steam before launch.
A six-figure milestone. Impressive. Respectable. Very screenshot-worthy, right?
In the other corner – you have Windrose, a pirate survival game that quietly blew past 1,000,000 wishlists and then proceeded to pull an overwhelming 22,000 concurrent players into its demo.
Meanwhile, Ex Voto peaked at 122.
That’s not a typo by the way…one hundred. Twenty two. Players.
At some point we have to stop pretending like these numbers even remotely make sense.
The Math That Isn't Mathing
Let’s put on our big boy pants and do some funderful arithmetic.
If 1348 Ex Voto truly has 100,000 wishlists, and its demo peaked at 122 concurrent players, that is *calculating* roughly 0.12 percent of supposedly interested users showing up at the same time.
Now let’s compare that to Windrose.
Over 1,000,000 wishlists. Over 22,000 concurrent demo players. Assuming that I’m not braindead at math – that’s about 2.2 percent actually showing up for the game.
That may not sound too dramatic…until you realize that’s about twenty times the concurrent engagement rate.
You can argue about genre. You can argue about marketing budget. You can argue about timing…but you can’t argue with 122.
The Steam Wishlist Economy
Here is the truth about Steam wishlists that no one seems to be saying out loud: they are easy to manipulate. Extremely easy to manipulate.
Creating a Steam account is free. Clicking “Add to Wishlist” takes a whopping one second. You do not need to install anything. You do not need to play anything. You do not need to prove anything.
But wishlist numbers do matter, of course.
Steam’s algorithm favors them and Store visibility improves in games with higher numbers. And of course, big milestones make great headlines: “100k wishlisted yay, look at us” looks great in a tweet!
But at the end of the day – wishlists are hope. Concurrent players are reality.
And in the case of Ex Voto, reality showed up in adorable triple digits: 122.
When you see a six figure wishlist claim, immediately followed by a demo turnout that would even put Ubisoft to shame, it raises one simple question.
Where did everybody go?
Did 1348 Ex Voto Bot Wishlist Engagement?
Let’s tread carefully here…there is no proof that 1348 Ex Voto artificially inflated its wishlist numbers.
But there is also no denying that bot farms do exist.
Social media numbers get inflated every day. Fake followers are sold openly. Engagement can absolutely be purchased and Steam accounts cost absolutely nothing to create.
When you combine that reality with a stark 22,000 : 122 player gap, skepticism isn’t crazy.
It’s just math.
Sure, maybe the wishlist numbers are entirely organic and curiosity simply didn’t translate or something…that happens, right?
But honestly, when the conversion gap is this extreme, people are going to ask questions whether the developers like it or not.
Because if players have learned one thing over the past couple of years in gaming, it’s that developers and the corporate gaming media can’t be trusted anymore.
Meanwhile, IN Reality
Now let’s talk about what success actually looks like.
Windrose did not just rack up wishlists. It actually pulled bodies into the game – crazy, right? Over 22,000 concurrent players at peak…for a demo…is not normal. That is not feigned interest.
That is genuine motion.
The Windrose Demo Steam page shows Very Positive impressions. Players aren’t sitting around debating ideologies – they’re doing what you would expect in a fun game: discussing mechanics, progression, piratey chaos, and whether or not they can survive the tribulations of the seas.
That is what organic excitement looks like.
Nobody had to lecture or guilt players into trying it. Nobody had to explain why Windrose matters. It simply looks fun, and people clicked download. The code for success has been cracked!
And – ta da – the wishlist numbers and the demo player turnout actually align!
That obvious alignment builds trust in Windrose and in the modern gaming landscape, trust is the most precious currency a developer can have right now.
The Gap Growing within the Gaming Industry
The larger story I’m trying to paint here isn’t just about two games…it’s the gaping chasm between industry narrative that they’re trying to force feed you and actual player behavior.
You would think that they’ve heard “go woke, go broke” enough, but we’ve still seen this play out over and over throughout the last couple of years: big corporate marketing pushes. Glowing media coverage. Talks about BS awards. Social media gasligihting.
Then the big launch day arrives and…surprise! The Steam charts tell a completely different story.
Players are increasingly relying on hard metrics. SteamDB charts. Concurrent players. Review ratios. Refund policies. It’s honestly no wonder why companies like Ubisoft are trying to pressure Steam to remove concurrent player stats!
If this ever did happen, we would be immediately subjected to the infinite-gaslighting jutstu that Ubisoft takes advantage of with their Playstation numbers, strictly relying on their “trust me, bro” stats to push their narrative of Playstation titles’ success.
The thing is – when a game boasts 100,000 wishlists but can’t even crack 200 concurrent demo players, it honestly just reinforces a growing suspicion that marketing optics are being treated as a substitute for demand.
Meanwhile, when a based game quietly pulls 22,000 people into its demo, it proves that the market still rewards gameplay first. Now we just have to wait to see if gaming media will move onto their traditional next step – pulling a Black Myth: Wukong and trying to find anything they can to tear Windrose down for not repeating their party lines.
Keep your eyes out, because history tells us that it’s coming!
The Truth of Modern Gaming
When it comes down to it, wishlists are easy. Downloads are harder. Actual player retention is peak.
You can market milestones and identity along with pushing your game’s “cultural relevance”, but you can’t just automagically market 22,000 people into your game.
They either show up or they don’t.
In this case, one game filled the docks with funderful pirates, while the other struggled to fill a can of tuna with players.
That’s not opinion. That’s a scoreboard.
And the scoreboard is pretty damn easy to read these days.
This was a commentary article based on publicly available information and personal opinion. Readers are encouraged to form their own conclusions based on the sources cited.
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