Back in 2017, Valve rolled out a small change to the wishlist feature on Steam that quite a few people still don't know about.
We previously posted about this when the change happened but as always, things get lost and people forget. If you head to this page (click your username -> Preferences) on Steam when you're logged in, scroll to the bottom and you will see this:
The box above doesn't mention it, but this allows developers to see wishlists from a single ticked platform. Why is it important? Well, we speak to a huge amount of game developers and a very common issue we've come across since this was implemented was a very low volume of wishlists from Linux.
A lot lower than you would expect, some of which is naturally due to our lower market share (of course) but also because so many people just don't know this feature even exists. We've also ended up reminding a lot of our readers and followers on this, with a surprising amount of people having no idea it's even a thing.
Since it's a manual process (and only works if you tick just one platform), if you don't go and do it yourself your wishlist entries on Steam don't show up as being for Linux. So it's a feature that sounds good on paper and is well meaning but doesn't work that great in practice.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
wintermute Feb 22, 2019
Quoting: EikeI switched off the emails instead.
I want the emails when they refer to Linux games.
Quoting: subWill I still get informed about that game being on sale even if it only has Windows version?
Yes you will, this is precisely the problem I have with the system.
Last edited by wintermute on 22 February 2019 at 12:15 pm UTC
If there was a special list/tag that would not pollute the wishlist when you only wish for the platform, I'd be all over it.
Quoting: wintermuteQuoting: EikeI switched off the emails instead.
I want the emails when they refer to Linux games.
Quoting: subWill I still get informed about that game being on sale even if it only has Windows version?
Yes you will, this is precisely the problem I have with the system.
That seems to contradict what callcifer says.
So what's the case actually?
Quoting: subQuoting: wintermuteQuoting: EikeI switched off the emails instead.
I want the emails when they refer to Linux games.
Quoting: subWill I still get informed about that game being on sale even if it only has Windows version?
Yes you will, this is precisely the problem I have with the system.
That seems to contradict what callcifer says.
So what's the case actually?
QuoteThe thing is, if you only choose Linux you won't get Windows-only games shown to you at all in your discovery queue or sales/discount emails whereas I want to see them. Maybe I'll try with proton, or even boot to Win7 just for that game.
AFAIK, that's true for the discovery queue but wrong for the sales mails.
wintermute Feb 22, 2019
Quoting: subThat seems to contradict what callcifer says.
Callcifer didn't say anything about emails that I can see.
Quoting: wintermuteQuoting: subThat seems to contradict what callcifer says.
Callcifer didn't say anything about emails that I can see.
I did say sales emails, but maybe I was wrong about that. It's been a long time since I last tried going Linux only on that checkbox. Still, discovery queue alone is reason enough for me to not uncheck Windows.
Quoting: NinexThe description I've seen of this feature before, and even in this article, don't seem to match up to the actual description on Steam to me. It sounded like a way to let developers know you wanted were wishlisting a game to play on Linux, but the actual description just looks like it simply hides games for other platforms from you as you browse. Is this for your benefit only, or can developers see that you have this option ticked?Developers see Linux wishlists, that is the point made in the article.
Edit: Made a minor text adjustment to make that much clearer.
Last edited by Liam Dawe on 22 February 2019 at 1:32 pm UTC
Quoting: NinexThe description I've seen of this feature before, and even in this article, don't seem to match up to the actual description on Steam to me. It sounded like a way to let developers know you wanted were wishlisting a game to play on Linux, but the actual description just looks like it simply hides games for other platforms from you as you browse. Is this for your benefit only, or can developers see that you have this option ticked?
It does both. The filtering, if you like it or not, and showing Linux specific wishlist entries to the respective developer. You cann see the developer view at the second image on this page:
https://steamcommunity.com/games/221410/announcements/detail/1475356649450732547
Last edited by Eike on 26 February 2019 at 12:07 pm UTC
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