Steam’s latest update finally brings order to the chaos of your wishlist, and might even nudge people into buying you some new games
Valve has updated Steam’s wishlist and gifting tools, aiming to make large, long-neglected wishlists easier to organise and use. The changes could also make it simpler for friends and family to buy games from a shared wishlist, including without having a Steam account.
Users can create unrestricted custom wishlist categories, choose categories when adding games, filter the list, and limit notifications to selected categories. Steam now alerts users to demos, improves wishlist search and navigation, and adds microtrailers; shared links can open a particular category. Gift purchases can be made through guest checkout for any game, sent to email addresses, and cross-region game gifts now use the recipient’s regional price, although direct gifting remains restricted to accounts in the same country and unclaimed gifts expire after 30 days.
In short
- Steam wishlists now support custom categories and improved notifications.
- Shared wishlists make buying gifts easier, including via guest checkout.
- Cross-region game gifts now use the recipient’s local price.
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The strongest fair case each way — we don't pick a winner.
The case for
These updates make genuine quality-of-life improvements for Steam users and gift-givers alike. Custom categories and filtering help users manage large wishlists effectively, whilst guest checkout and email gifting remove barriers for those without Steam accounts, genuinely improving access. Cross-region pricing fairness and streamlined search provide practical value without compelling participation, respecting user choice about whether to share wishlists or make purchases.
The case against
These updates exemplify how technology companies reduce friction around spending to encourage consumption through subtle design choices. By making wishlists more prominent, shareable, and integrated with frictionless purchasing, they remove decision-making friction that might otherwise prompt reconsideration of expenditure. Whilst appearing neutral and convenient, they prioritise corporate revenue maximisation over consumer wellbeing by exploiting the psychology of impulse buying rather than respecting reflective choice.
Explained simply
Steam is the world's dominant platform for buying and playing computer games on PC. A wishlist on Steam is a simple tool that lets you bookmark games you're interested in, so you can keep track of titles you might want to buy later, or that you're hoping someone might gift to you.
For many users, wishlists have become disorganised over time, with hundreds of games mixed together in no particular order, making them difficult to navigate or find anything specific. This has been a long-standing frustration for players with large collections of saved games, and it has also made it impractical for friends and family to use wishlists as a reference when buying gifts.
Valve, the company behind Steam, has recognised this problem and released a set of improvements designed to make wishlists more manageable and easier to use both for personal organisation and for gift-giving purposes. The changes aim to encourage more gift purchases through the platform and make it simpler for people without Steam accounts to buy games as presents.