What Steam User Reviews Mean (discuss)

[ZedClampet]

So I have 1300 games on Steam. I've played most of them, and I've read Steam user reviews for all of them. Here's my quick interpretation of what the user review scores mean when there are at least 1000 user reviews.

NOTE: It's important to note that games generally review much better than they deserve and that many people who don't like a game will nevertheless leave a positive review because they believe other people will enjoy the game, or they just don't like leaving negative reviews.

95% to 100% Positive (Overwhelmingly Positive)
If you like games in this genre, you are almost guaranteed to like this game. This is as good as it gets. Almost perfect.

90% to 94% Positive (Very Positive)
If you like games in this genre, you are almost guaranteed to like this game. A small number of people may dislike a system in the game that spoils the experience for them, but it is overall a great game. It is probably worth your time to read the negative reviews, but I would only pay attention to problems mentioned by more than one reviewer.

80% to 89% Positive (Very Positive)
If you like games in this genre, you will probably like this game. There are some minor problems with the game that some gamers will find too much to deal with. You should read the negative reviews to get a better idea of the problems. Look especially for things that more than one person mention.

70% to 79% Positive (Mostly Positive)
It's a coin toss whether you will like this game or not. Proceed with caution. There are numerous things about this game that people don't like. Carefully read the negative reviews, especially noting items that are mentioned by more than one reviewer.

69% and below (For AAA games only)
You are probably not going to like this game, but it is still worth your time to do the research. Read both positive and negative reviews. Sometimes the positive reviews may provide perspective on the negative reviews. For AAA games, often the games just aren't good, but other times, games that don't quite meet expectations can end up here, and the negative reviews can snowball and make a game seem worse than it really is. If this is a genre or series that you really love, it is possible that you may still enjoy this game.

69% and below (For Indie games only)
You are very unlikely to enjoy this game. There are numerous problems with the game, some very serious. If you do research on this game, realize that there could be, and probably are, problems that the reviews fail to mention. Only consider purchasing this game if it is extremely cheap, and you love the genre.

Would be interested in hearing other people's takes on how to interpret user reviews.

 

[Pifanjr]

I would add that if the recent ratings are significantly more negative than the average ratings you should check if the game got a game breaking patch.

 

[ZedClampet]

I would add that if the recent ratings are significantly more negative than the average ratings you should check if the game got a game breaking patch.

Or if the ratings got better, maybe it was a game fixing patch.

 

[Brian Boru]

Yeah, my first thought was what you both mention—the timing of the reviews is important, and a glance at the graph is also a good idea—sometimes there can be a major negative spike due to something irrelevant like a stupid comment by a dev on TwitBook, or similar.

There can also be a large negative 'bomb' for non-game issues like DRM or price, which may not be relevant to you.

69% and below (For Indie games only)

I infer you're saying that Indies generally get more favorable reviews than AAAs. Makes sense, I imagine much less of their customer base are casual game consumers who'll complain about anything.

how to interpret user reviews

Your summary looks good to me, I'd probably drop the floor 10 points to 60% for me since people often complain about issues which are not negative for me—but 70% seems about right for the general body of gamers.

The wisdom of the crowd is a potent force—as long as one is part of the crowd

read the negative reviews to get a better idea of the problems

That's my main usage of reviews, and often to discover basic info important to me, not just problems—eg if it's FPP or TPP, does Alt-Tab work, etc. Marketing spiel omits those little nuggets.

Has anyone tried getting AI to summarize a game's reviews?

 

[ZedClampet]

Has anyone tried getting AI to summarize a game's reviews?

Both Gemma and CoPilot are okay at getting the overall sentiment of user reviews, but they can't "read between the lines" like a human who is experienced at reading the reviews. It also can't tell when a review is simply wrong, like the Forza Motorsport review that says the game only has 10 tracks and one mode. People have done an absolutely miserable job of reviewing this game.

For Forza Motorsport,

Gemma did a good job of getting the main issues people talk about, both positive and negative.

CoPilot added a nice touch of comparing the recent "mixed" reviews with the older "mostly negative" reviews.

Both of them agree that the primary reason for the negative reviews is performance/bug related. I disagree. The game runs perfectly fine on my laptop. At least, it runs the same as Forza Horizon 5. I've never crashed or experienced a bug that I'm aware of (some people are calling AI running into them a bug). The primary reason for the negative reviews, I believe, is actually disappointment. The wait for this game was several years longer than usual. The hype was through the roof. But most of the significant changes were under the hood and can't be seen by the average player. The average player using cheats like traction control to help them drive can't tell if the physics is any better than it was before, for instance. All they know is that they were expecting some grand campaign like you get in the Grid series. and the campaign is exactly like it's always been.

The game's primary feature seems to be disappointment.

There are some valid complaints, of course, but the game is definitely not deserving of a "mostly negative" user score, and that's something Gemma and CoPilot may never learn how to determine.

If I'm an unreliable source, then consider that PC Game Pass users, Xbox users and professional reviews all agree the game is pretty good. Meanwhile Steam is sitting at 38 percent positive.

 

[Zloth]

I look at Steam reviews as a combo of the game's quality and the marketing around the game. That's because I've seen quite a few reviews where people aren't reviewing the game as it is, but the game they imagined it to be. The cheaper the game, the worse this seems to get, too. A lot more people are going to buy a $5 game on a whim, just looking at the name and maybe the first two screenshots on the page.

Take Marvel's Midnight Suns. The game description doesn't say it's like XCOM, the game's video doesn't make battles look like XCOM, the pre-release hype specifically calls out that the game isn't like XCOM, the pro reviews say it isn't like XCOM, but it keeps getting downvoted because it isn't like XCOM. Presumably by people that don't even look at Steam reviews downvoting the game because it isn't like XCOM. It gets down-votes for other reasons, too, but the ones for this reason are pretty maddening.

 

[Rolfil]

Generally I don't buy a lot of games so I take care when spending my money. I do read steam reviews but I also look at a games forums and discord.

Also recommendations from other communities like this forum mean more to me than steam reviews, especially as a good game can easily get review bombed.

I also play some games such as "simulator" games that generally get bad reviews. That doesn't necessarily put me off.

Also I often look out to see if a game that is on my wish list has a demo as there is nothing better than actually playing the game yourself to get a feel for it.

I still wish I hadn't bought Diablo 4 though

 

[BeardyHat]

As with everything, I'll check out the negative reviews first and see if I can glean any actual information between them and the positives. So many reviews, positive and negative, have absolutely nothing to say, so the percentage rating is usually meaningless to me.

Take Pacific Drive for instance, it currently has a "Very Positive" score, but it's not a game I will touch, because I looked at the Negative reviews, which mention it doesn't have a reasonable Save system, which just absolutely won't work for me.

Or take Dave the Diver. I really like Management games, but just looking at both the effusive praise surrounding it and eyeballing the game itself, I can tell it's one of those "Kitchen Sink" style games, that's a mile wide and an inch deep, something I know I'll have fun with for a few hours, but ultimately drop after feeling unfulfilled by it.

 

[Zloth]

Doing a little necromancy here, but what the frak is going on with the Homeworld 3 Steam reviews? They are only 36% positive lately and 40% overall. Professional reviews were OK.

 

[ZedClampet]

Doing a little necromancy here, but what the frak is going on with the Homeworld 3 Steam reviews? They are only 36% positive lately and 40% overall. Professional reviews were OK.

Reading through the reviews, it looks like the game was mostly purchased by people who had played the earlier games, and this one doesn't do them justice. If someone was just a casual fan of the early games or has never played a Homeworld game before, they could end up liking it just fine.

Major complaints are that the story is bad and that the gameplay is missing essential elements from the early games, many of which were promised during their Fig campaign.

 

[Zloth]

Well, I would expect most of the backers' reviews to be in the earliest days of release. The initial surge is off the 'recent' list by now. Also, plenty of pro reviewers had experience with the original Homeworld games. Fraser Brown from PC Gamer certainly did.

If you check Metacritic, the pro's gave mostly positive reviews with a few neutrals and no negatives. Users gave far more negatives than positives.

I expect professionals to give games a lot more credit for doing innovative stuff than typical users, but this one has me stumped.

 

[ZedClampet]

Well, I would expect most of the backers' reviews to be in the earliest days of release. The initial surge is off the 'recent' list by now. Also, plenty of pro reviewers had experience with the original Homeworld games. Fraser Brown from PC Gamer certainly did.

If you check Metacritic, the pro's gave mostly positive reviews with a few neutrals and no negatives. Users gave far more negatives than positives.

I expect professionals to give games a lot more credit for doing innovative stuff than typical users, but this one has me stumped.

Well, what I mentioned above is the general sentiment of the user reviews. This really isn't that unusual for AAA-type games, and I still believe what I said in the OP: "...games that don't quite meet expectations can end up here, and the negative reviews can snowball and make a game seem worse than it really is. If this is a genre or series that you really love, it is possible that you may still enjoy this game."

Many games review decently in professional reviews and then get killed by Steam users, and it almost always has to do with expectations and just bad momentum (people jumping on the hate bandwagon). Forza Motorsport is in a similar boat, scoring in the mid 80s in user reviews and 41 percent on Steam, and it's a fine game. No complaints from me at all.

 

[Pifanjr]

Well, what I mentioned above is the general sentiment of the user reviews. This really isn't that unusual for AAA-type games, and I still believe what I said in the OP: "...games that don't quite meet expectations can end up here, and the negative reviews can snowball and make a game seem worse than it really is. If this is a genre or series that you really love, it is possible that you may still enjoy this game."

Many games review decently in professional reviews and then get killed by Steam users, and it almost always has to do with expectations and just bad momentum (people jumping on the hate bandwagon). Forza Motorsport is in a similar boat, scoring in the mid 80s in user reviews and 41 percent on Steam, and it's a fine game. No complaints from me at all.

I find that a big upside of being a patient gamer, besides the cost savings, is that you usually have much more realistic expectations of the games you play.

It doesn't really matter how good a game is, if it doesn't live up to people's expectations most people will only remember how disappointed the game made them feel.

Though as a patient gamer you do have the risk of getting your expectations set too high by other players' nostalgia. It's always a good idea to look for a recent review from someone who hadn't played the game before instead of relying on those who played the game when it was released.

 

[ZedClampet]

I find that a big upside of being a patient gamer, besides the cost savings, is that you usually have much more realistic expectations of the games you play.

It doesn't really matter how good a game is, if it doesn't live up to people's expectations most people will only remember how disappointed the game made them feel.

Though as a patient gamer you do have the risk of getting your expectations set too high by other players' nostalgia. It's always a good idea to look for a recent review from someone who hadn't played the game before instead of relying on those who played the game when it was released.

Based only on my own haphazard observations, it appears that, on average, user reviews tend to go up at least a little over time (on games that initially review very poorly), so I'm guessing it's at least in part from patient gamers coming in with more realistic expectations. They may have even expected the game to be bad, but bought it anyway when it went on deep discount and then were pleasantly surprised. Of course, the developer improving the game is a big factor sometimes, too.

 

[ZedClampet]

A couple other games that get slammed by user reviews pretty regularly despite getting positive professional reviews are several EA games: Madden, FC and F1 (which up until last year generally reviewed very well, but now, even though the games are still excellent, it gets slammed by Steam users).

 

[Nocturnia]

I try to look for well-written negative reviews and compare that to some of the positive ones that actually have substance. I'm also very cautious of fads. In fact, I have a pretty serious bias against popularity. If a game is popular, it immediately turns me off. That doesn't mean I won't like it in the end, but the thing about popularity is that popular things are popular mostly just because they're popular. Popularity feeds popularity. That doesn't preclude games also being popular because they're actually good, but popular games receive a tsunami of rave reviews that are just a bunch of people riding the fad. This is especially true with overpriced AAA games, which I also tend to avoid. I usually pick up AAA games after the popularity has died off and they start going on sale for 80% off, etc.

I've been stung before by believing the hype and paying big bucks for big games. The most notable in recent history would be Breath of the Wild, which is one of if not the worst Zelda game I have ever played (sorry). It's not a Steam game, but would undoubtedly have an Overwhelmingly Positive score because so many people raved about its brilliance.

 

[BeardyHat]

I try to look for well-written negative reviews and compare that to some of the positive ones that actually have substance. I'm also very cautious of fads. In fact, I have a pretty serious bias against popularity. If a game is popular, it immediately turns me off. That doesn't mean I won't like it in the end, but the thing about popularity is that popular things are popular mostly just because they're popular. Popularity feeds popularity. That doesn't preclude games also being popular because they're actually good, but popular games receive a tsunami of rave reviews that are just a bunch of people riding the fad. This is especially true with overpriced AAA games, which I also tend to avoid. I usually pick up AAA games after the popularity has died off and they start going on sale for 80% off, etc.

I've been stung before by believing the hype and paying big bucks for big games. The most notable in recent history would be Breath of the Wild, which is one of if not the worst Zelda game I have ever played (sorry). It's not a Steam game, but would undoubtedly have an Overwhelmingly Positive score because so many people raved about its brilliance.

Couldn't agree more.

Though I disagree on BotW. Not the most amazing game I've ever played, but I very much enjoyed what I played and would like to go back to it at some point.

 

[Zloth]

Popularity feeds popularity.

Yep. I can feel that happening even when I'm trying to review a game. I might come away from a game liking it a lot, but then I read a negative review and I'm reminded of some features I didn't like much, and that reminds me of some other thing I didn't like much. Suddenly, the gushingly positive review isn't quite so positive. The same can happen in reverse by reading a positive review.

The point at which I review matters, too, I'm sure. If I give up in frustration, I'm obviously not going to leave a happy review. If I make it to the end, and the ending is reasonably well done, I'm going to be happy with the game plus I'll likely have gotten used to all the quirks of the game, so they no longer bother me as much as they did when I first started. We expect professional reviewers to play through an entire game (assuming that makes sense), and I can certainly see why.