What One Million Wishlists for Dear Passengers Reveals About Game Discovery

July 18, 2026 - 04:02

We're back, and we wanted to take the intense interest in the latest friendslop breakout and turn it into a bigger question: what is actually happening with discovery for games like this, and what are the risks of jumping into that market?

Game discovery news first. Our friends at ICO's Footprints.gg released their latest traditional media coverage report. The two big winners are the Assassin's Creed Black Flag remake, which zipped past 3 million units, and Palworld, which saw Steam concurrent users crest over 800,000 again as it hit version 1.0 and both old and new players came back to explore.

We just added full Steam demo concurrent user sensing and analysis to GameDiscoverCo Pro, so there is a new weekly post analyzing top demos for unreleased games. Bombanana is number one again, but roguelike autobattler Guildrun at number two, RV repair and explore sim Nomad Drive at number three, and Eggstreme Farming at number four are new to us. Megacomplex cave exploration 2D survival sim Casualties Unknown at number five is also doing well.

PlayStation Plus included game catalog titles for July are pretty good this time, including Avatar Frontiers of Pandora, Team Ninja's Sony published Rise of the Ronin, Firefighting Simulator Ignite, and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Rita's Rewind.

Chris Zukowski recently posted data on the overlap between Steam Next Fest demo players and wishlisters. He noted that the median percentage of players who went on to wishlist the game after playing the demo was just 19.3 percent. This is not bad, just normal. He suggests you cannot bring funnel logic to Steam.

A Reddit analyst pointed out that Roblox clones of the paint and hide title Meccha Chameleon swiftly topped 200,000 concurrent users. Analysis of streamer support for that game shows it is the number two most popular new release of 2026 so far by first 30 days hours watched, behind Resident Evil Requiem.

Some analysis from me on LinkedIn about Facepunch's s and box launch on Steam back in April. It showed transparent financials but unfortunately fell on its face a little bit. It grossed 4.2 million dollars since Early Access but only 57 thousand so far in July, and concurrent users are down to about 500 from 13,000 at launch. The hardcore fanbase were looking for more Garry's Mod style sandbox and do not love the top slop user generated content.

Doug Shapiro's latest mental model of media is important. Time spent with media is stagnant. Attention is fragmenting. The consumer definition of quality is shifting. Monetization per hour is under pressure.

A little datamining birdie told us Steam might be planning a change to wishlists. The changes would allow you to categorize them and decide which games you get notifications for. Although it could also be a misinterpretation or a feature they decide not to launch.

Anna Ott wrote about the other side of the publisher view, the good devs good ideas list. You know your metrics and what they actually mean. The pitch deck includes a realistic roadmap and contingency plan. Devs really listen to their players. The team already has a plan for what happens after launch.

GameStop's meme-y boss Ryan Cohen said sales of physical games are totally irrelevant to his business. He is not worried about PlayStation dropping physical discs. Software is at 18 percent of sales last quarter, but collectibles like Pokemon card selling and grading are at 42 percent and rising due to scalping adjacent pricing.

Steam announced its themed fests for the first half of 2027, including Desktop Companion, Witch, Mountaineering, and Shopkeeper. Some folks tried to estimate median Steam playtime from public review stats. There is a new public list of game publishers and funds available on Github.

So what does one million wishlists for Dear Passengers actually say?

We have been covering friendslop adjacent games quite a bit here. At least five of the top 20 games by units released on Steam in 2026 so far have that jam with your friends in a shared world vibe. That includes Meccha Chameleon, Gamble With Your Friends, Yapyap, Super Battle Golf, and Far Far West.

When Flexus put out one initial trailer for Dear Passengers and rocketed to one million wishlists and around 30,000 Steam followers in just three days, it might be time to bust out the wtf reaction. Why did this trailer alone go so viral?

Great visual presentation that has clear real world I could play this appeal. The ugly but cute avatar style that is established for friendslop is buttressed by a lot of good ideas. Players buckling other players into their seats, shooting other planes from the wing, dangerous luggage loading. The trailer shows target gameplay.

Streamer soundal