The indie game Danchi Days arrived on Steam with approximately 55,000 active wishlist registrations, but sold only 1,500 copies for PC in its first week. The result fell far short of the 5,000 units expected by Melos Han-Tani, the game's developer, who released the numbers in a financial report published on Sunday (8).
Released on October 29, the game recorded a wishlist conversion rate of 2.2% in the first week, according to the data presented by Han-Tani. The rate was far from the 6% to 7% he considers acceptable, a range reached by his previous project, Angeline Era.
The performance also undermines the release's financial prospects. Han-Tani estimates that Danchi Days cost approximately US$ 200,000 to develop and considers it unlikely that he will recover that investment, taking into account production, advertising, localization and platform fees.
The developer's current projection is approximately 5,000 copies sold in the first year and 10,000 over three years. These are estimates based on early performance, not final results. He also plans to release console versions, though he expects those editions to only cover their own costs in the long run.
Wishlists from longtime fans converted more than those generated by ads
The most revealing aspect of the report is the comparison between the different audiences that added Danchi Days to their wishlists. Examining the monthly data provided by Steam, Han-Tani identified significant differences in the likelihood that these users would actually buy the game.
Among the people who added the game to their list in September 2024, the month of its announcement, 7.4% made the purchase in the first week. The July 2026 cohort, meanwhile, showed a conversion rate of just 1%. In that second period, the promotion included advertising campaigns and participation in promotional events.
The developer also created a comparative scale to estimate the effectiveness of acquisition channels. Assigning an index of 100 to wishlists from the announcement period, mainly associated with earlier fans, he rated the audience from content creator streams at 60, viewers of promotional events at 25 and users coming from ads at just 15. These indices represent estimated relative probabilities, not conversion percentages.
The makeup of the Danchi Days lists helps explain the result: most of the registrations came from game showcase events, while approximately 10% to 15% were associated with Reddit ads. In Han-Tani's assessment, these campaigns expanded initial interest without producing an equivalent proportion of buyers.
The data has limitations. The author himself notes that Steam does not allow identifying the original cohort of all wishlists later removed, which may underestimate the monthly rates calculated. The commercial numbers are also self-reported and were not accompanied by an independent audit.
Beyond the audience's origin, Han-Tani pointed to a possible mismatch between the game's appearance and consumers' expectations. Danchi Days uses an aesthetic associated with so-called cozygames, but presents a narrative adventure about community relationships, aging and dementia, without several traditional mechanics of the genre, such as farming and item crafting.
The developer acknowledged that he gave excessive weight to wishlist volume and left in the background signals such as slow growth in Steam followers and the lack of major buzz around the game's demo.
Rather than changing the artistic proposal, Han-Tani intends to adjust the communication after launch, more clearly highlighting the interactions between characters and the adventure's mechanics.
