Reviews & success

How Steam games are rated, whether price or popularity has anything to do with it, and how often a small studio reaches an audience.

The figure used throughout is the raw positive share — positive reviews divided by all reviews — not Valve's ten-point score. The score is smoothed for games with few reviews, which is sensible on a store page and wrong in a distribution: it would pile thousands of barely-reviewed games onto a handful of values.

Only games with at least 10 reviews are included. Below that, the positive share can only take a few values and the shape of any chart says more about small denominators than about Steam. Medians rather than averages, because the distribution is heavily one-sided.

The shape of Steam's ratings

Distribution of positive review share

In five-point buckets.

Based on 61,961 games.

Distribution of positive review share
	Games
0–4%	34
5–9%	77
10–14%	106
15–19%	200
20–24%	250
25–29%	402
30–34%	582
35–39%	760
40–44%	1,029
45–49%	1,138
50–54%	1,887
55–59%	2,345
60–64%	3,276
65–69%	4,023
70–74%	4,973
75–79%	5,970
80–84%	7,103
85–89%	7,875
90–94%	9,717
95–99%	5,647
100–100%	4,567

Steam ratings are not centred on the middle. The bulk of the catalogue sits well above 70% positive, which is worth remembering before reading an 80% score as "above average" — it is roughly average.

Median positive share by release year

Whether ratings drift over time.

Based on 61,961 games.

Median positive share by release year
	Games
0–4%	34
5–9%	77
10–14%	106
15–19%	200
20–24%	250
25–29%	402
30–34%	582
35–39%	760
40–44%	1,029
45–49%	1,138
50–54%	1,887
55–59%	2,345
60–64%	3,276
65–69%	4,023
70–74%	4,973
75–79%	5,970
80–84%	7,103
85–89%	7,875
90–94%	9,717
95–99%	5,647
100–100%	4,567

Does price or popularity change the rating?

Median positive share by launch price

The number of games behind each bar is shown in the tooltip — the outer brackets are far thinner than the middle.

Based on 61,961 games.

Median positive share by launch price
	Games
0–4%	34
5–9%	77
10–14%	106
15–19%	200
20–24%	250
25–29%	402
30–34%	582
35–39%	760
40–44%	1,029
45–49%	1,138
50–54%	1,887
55–59%	2,345
60–64%	3,276
65–69%	4,023
70–74%	4,973
75–79%	5,970
80–84%	7,103
85–89%	7,875
90–94%	9,717
95–99%	5,647
100–100%	4,567

Median positive share by review count

Whether the games everybody talks about are also the better-liked ones.

Based on 61,961 games.

Median positive share by review count
	Games
0–4%	34
5–9%	77
10–14%	106
15–19%	200
20–24%	250
25–29%	402
30–34%	582
35–39%	760
40–44%	1,029
45–49%	1,138
50–54%	1,887
55–59%	2,345
60–64%	3,276
65–69%	4,023
70–74%	4,973
75–79%	5,970
80–84%	7,103
85–89%	7,875
90–94%	9,717
95–99%	5,647
100–100%	4,567

Price, rating and reach in one chart

The 300 most-reviewed paid games. Horizontal: launch price. Vertical: positive share. Bubble size: number of reviews.

Based on 300 games.

Who makes them

"Success" here means the same thing it means on /tags and /niches: at least 50 reviews. That is not a hit — it is roughly the point at which a game became visible at all.

Studio names come from Steam as free text, so "Klei" and "Klei Entertainment" are two studios as far as the data is concerned. Sizes are counted by games developed; the ranking below counts games published.

Success rate by studio size

Share of a studio's games reaching 50+ reviews, grouped by how many games the studio has developed.

Based on 83,536 studios.

Success rate by studio size
	Games
0–4%	34
5–9%	77
10–14%	106
15–19%	200
20–24%	250
25–29%	402
30–34%	582
35–39%	760
40–44%	1,029
45–49%	1,138
50–54%	1,887
55–59%	2,345
60–64%	3,276
65–69%	4,023
70–74%	4,973
75–79%	5,970
80–84%	7,103
85–89%	7,875
90–94%	9,717
95–99%	5,647
100–100%	4,567

The 25 largest publishers by catalogue size

Bars: games published. Line: the share of them that reached 50+ reviews (right axis). Volume and hit rate are not the same business. Click a bar to open that studio.

Based on 25 publishers.

The 25 largest publishers by catalogue size
	Games
0–4%	34
5–9%	77
10–14%	106
15–19%	200
20–24%	250
25–29%	402
30–34%	582
35–39%	760
40–44%	1,029
45–49%	1,138
50–54%	1,887
55–59%	2,345
60–64%	3,276
65–69%	4,023
70–74%	4,973
75–79%	5,970
80–84%	7,103
85–89%	7,875
90–94%	9,717
95–99%	5,647
100–100%	4,567