Manor Lords, the medieval city-builder that made its way to the top of Steam's wishlist charts earlier this month, is now firmly in 'instant success story' territory, having racked up 3 million wishlists after luring in another 500,000 potential players in just six days.
Last week, Manor Lords publisher Hooded Horse announced that it had reached 2.5 million wishlists, adding an extra 500,000 to the milestone it had hit in January. Since the start of the year, the city-builder has overtaken Hades 2 to become the most-wishlisted game on Steam. As of last night, however, it had added an additional 500k to that tally, taking its total wishlists to an astounding 3 million.
What a week it’s been for Manor Lords. We’ve watched in awe as wishlists rocketed from 2.5 million to an amazing 3 million. Thanks to everyone who’s joined us on this journey — let’s keep the momentum going as launch day approaches on April 26. pic.twitter.com/8ClLHriYbPApril 22, 2024
500,000 wishlists in a week is a huge haul, even before you take into account that Manor Lords is being made by just one developer. Greg Styczen is hard at work getting the game ready for its early access release on April 26, hard-nerfing sheep to fix the city builder's burgeoning economy and reminding prospective players that Manor Lords isn't an RPG, an RTS, or a competitor or Total War.
Manor Lords' trajectory is seriously impressive. After a substantial Steam Next Fest in 2022, it would take another 16 months to hit the 2 million wishlists mark. To add another 500,000 to that amount in the months from January to April is massive, but to bolster that with another 500,000 in less than a week suggests that new players are coming to the game thick and fast in the run-up to release.
Conventional wisdom suggests that around 10-20% of wishlisters convert to early paid players, which suggests that Styczen is primed to shift an awful lot of copies during launch week. That flies in the face of early expectations for the game - Styczen's girlfriend famously assumed that Manor Lords would be lucky to earn even a fraction of this attention, but it seems like it's about to turn into one of Steam's biggest indie hits of the year.
After 2.5 million sales, Manor Lords publisher says it "would almost be arrogant" to not be surprised by the city builder's success - but "you cannot count on it to repeat"
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