Steam is basically the center of town for PC gaming: whether you play on a Windows, Mac or Linux operating system, you'll most likely use Steam at least a little. The long-standing storefront and launch has had its throne challenged, including by the free games offered by the Epic Games Store and other major competitors, but for now it's safe to say that Steam is more or less unmatched in terms of user experience and general popularity.
One of the reasons most PC gamers seem to prefer Steam is its rating system, which underpins its consumer-friendly, democratic philosophy. While other stores, including Microsoft's and PlayStation's digital storefronts, have user ratings and reviews, they're often confused, encased behind different tabs, or bogged down by other quirks. For example, you won't see an average review score in the Xbox app on PC unless you click on a specific tab, while user ratings take center stage on Steam, appearing in a mouse-over preview before you even navigate to a specific game page. There's also the community and culture that Steam has fostered over so many years: take a look at a popular game on Steam and you'll quickly find plenty of comical reviews, but also a number of very comprehensive, nuanced analyses. In short, Steam's rating system prioritizes the votes of the gaming audience rather than publishers or developers, but it's also a bit unusual.
Steam only allows accounts that have played a particular game to leave a review. User reviews also include the reviewer's play time and whether they got 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 is divided into nine different levels:
-
Overwhelmingly positive
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Very positive
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Positive
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Mostly positive
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Mixed
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Mostly negative
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Negative
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Very negative
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Overwhelmingly negative
Which level a game ends up in depends on the percentage of positive reviews. The review metric is binary: players can only give a game “thumbs up” or “thumbs down”. For example, if 90% of a game's reviews are positive, it will usually be labeled as “Highly Positive”, while a game with 90% negative reviews will usually be labeled as “Highly Negative”.
Rearrange the cases in the correct US release order.
Start
Rearrange the cases in the correct US release order.
Light (5)Medium (7)Hard (10)
Confusion can start to arise when looking at games at both extreme ends of the spectrum, as Steam takes total reviews into account when labeling a game this way. If 100% of a Steam game's reviews are positive, but there are only five reviews, this doesn't tell us much—it could be five friends or family members of the game's developer, 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. 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 labeled with an overwhelmingly negative label as a result of brigadier, bullying, or other non-game-related factors.
Steam's section for latest reviews and English reviews
Many Steam games actually have two “total reviews” sections: there are all-time reviews, which are separated by language, and “recent reviews,” which aggregate reviews from the last 30 days. For example, War of the Three Kingdomsone of the worst reviewed games on Steam, is rated 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 useful for several reasons, as it can help customers get an idea of whether or not a game is being poorly reviewed for legitimate reasons: if a five-year-old game has a very positive overall rating, but a mostly negative recent rating, that's a good indication that brigadier or review bombing is taking place. Including a separate section for recent reviews can also be helpful when evaluating a live service title, which can largely be considered better or worse based on ongoing updates or expansions.
