On Steam, players can leave a free-form review and indicate whether they recommend (or do not recommend) the game. After a certain number of reviews are published, an overall rating is formed.
GameDiscoverCo decided to investigate how a game's rating on Steam influences the decision to purchase it. Researchers surveyed several thousand "Steam fans" — they were asked to talk about how often they look at a game's rating before buying it.
It turned out that 40.5% of respondents always check reviews before buying, and 32% check the rating in most cases. 19.4% of respondents look at reviews sometimes, 5.6% — from time to time, and only 2.5% — never.
On Steam, reviews can be negative (from "Overwhelmingly Negative" to "Mostly Negative"), mixed, or positive (from "Mostly Positive" to "Overwhelmingly Positive").
Previously, researchers noted that games with lower ratings perform worse — especially projects with "mixed" reviews or lower.
In a recent GameDiscoverCo survey, 20.3% of respondents said that an overall rating below "Very Positive" reviews would reduce the likelihood of purchase. 30.8% of respondents stated that a "Mixed" review rating or lower would also reduce the likelihood of making a purchase. This means that if a game has "Mixed" reviews, about half of the potential audience will be skeptical about the project.
About 34.9% of respondents reported being put off by games with "mostly negative" reviews. For only 9.7%, the rating is not significantly important.
On Steam, the rating is not only formed for "all" reviews. "Recent" reviews from the last 30 days are also highlighted separately.
If a game's recent reviews are "mixed" and this is below the overall rating, then 32.9% "very carefully" study the latest reviews. 47.4% reported: "Maybe [I'll reconsider buying the game]. But I understand that sometimes there are short periods of complaint spikes." For 14.5%, only the overall rating matters.
About 14% of respondents told GameDiscoverCo that they check reviews "only for bug reports [...] and performance information, not content quality."
The results of the GameDiscoverCo survey clearly show developers the importance of not only a successful game launch: if there are many complaints about technical problems, it will lower the rating and deter potential buyers.