Steam is basically the city center for PC gaming: whether you game on a Windows, Mac, or Linux operating system, you’ll most likely use Steam at least a little bit. The long-running storefront and launcher has had its throne challenged, including through the free games offered by Epic Games Store and other major competitors, but for now, it’s safe to say that Steam is more or less unrivaled in terms of user experience and overall popularity.
One of the reasons why most PC gamers seem to prefer Steam is its rating system, which underpins its consumer-friendly, democratic philosophy. While other stores, including the Microsoft and PlayStation digital storefronts, feature user ratings and reviews, they are often obfuscated, nested behind different tabs, or bogged down by other quirks. For instance, you won’t be shown an average review score in the Xbox App on PC unless you click on a specific tab, whereas user ratings are front-and-center on Steam, shown in a mouse-hover preview before you even navigate to a specific game page itself. There’s also the community and culture that Steam has nurtured over so many years: take a look at a popular game on Steam, and you’ll quickly find a lot of comedic reviews, but also a number of very comprehensive, nuanced analyses. In short, Steam’s rating system prioritizes the voices of gaming audiences rather than publishers or developers, but it’s also a bit unusual.
Steam only allows accounts that have played a given game to leave a review. User reviews also include the reviewer’s playtime and whether they received the game for free.
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How Does Steam’s Rating System Work?
The first thing to know about Steam’s rating system is that it’s broken into nine distinct tiers:
- Overwhelmingly Positive
- Very Positive
- Positive
- Mostly Positive
- Mixed
- Mostly Negative
- Negative
- Very Negative
- Overwhelmingly Negative
Which tier a game falls into depends on its percentage of positive reviews. The review metric is binary: players can only give a game a “thumbs up” or “thumbs down.” For instance, if 90% of a game’s reviews are positive, then it will usually be labeled as “Very Positive,” whereas a game with 90% negative reviews will usually be labeled “Very Negative.”
Rearrange the covers into the correct US release order.
Rearrange the covers into the correct US release order.
Easy (5)Medium (7)Hard (10)
Confusion can start to arise when looking at games on both extreme ends of the spectrum, since Steam takes total reviews into account when labeling a game in this manner. If 100% of a Steam game’s reviews are positive, but there are only five reviews, then this doesn’t tell us much—it could be five friends or family members of the game’s developers, for all we know. Here’s the full breakdown:
|
% of Positive Reviews |
Number of Reviews |
Steam Rating Label |
|---|---|---|
|
95–100 |
500+ |
Overwhelmingly Positive |
|
85–100 |
50-499 |
Very Positive |
|
80–100 |
1-49 |
Positive |
|
70–79 |
1-49 |
Mostly Positive |
|
40–69 |
1-49 |
Mixed |
|
20–39 |
1-49 |
Mostly Negative |
|
0–19 |
1-49 |
Negative |
|
0–19 |
50-499 |
Very Negative |
|
0–19 |
500+ |
Overwhelmingly Negative |
As you can see, the only way for a game to receive the Overwhelmingly Positive label is to simultaneously have at least 95% positive ratings and at least 500 different reviews, and the same logic applies to the Overwhelmingly Negative label as well. Just like how considering the number of reviews/ratings protects consumers from being misled by the Overwhelmingly Negative label, it also helps protect smaller developers from being branded with an Overwhelmingly Negative label as a result of brigading, bullying, or other non-game related factors.
Steam’s Recent Reviews and English Reviews Section
Many Steam games actually have two “total reviews” sections: there are the all-time reviews, which are separated by language, and the “recent reviews,” which aggregate reviews from the last 30 days. For instance, War of the Three Kingdoms, one of the worst-reviewed games on Steam, is rated as Very Negative (488 reviews, only 17% of them positive) in total English reviews, but Overwhelmingly Negative (529 reviews, only 9% of them positive) in recent reviews.
This distinction is helpful for several reasons, as it can help customers get an idea of whether a game is being poorly reviewed for legitimate reasons or not: if a five-year-old game has a Very Positive overall rating, but a Mostly Negative recent rating, it’s a good indication that brigading or review-bombing is taking place. Including a separate section for recent reviews can also be helpful when evaluating a live-service title, which may be broadly considered either better or worse based on ongoing updates or expansions.
