Steam grades every game on a binary thumbs-up/thumbs-down system, then rolls those votes into one of nine labels — from Overwhelmingly Positive to Overwhelmingly Negative. The exact percentage cutoffs (95%+ for Overwhelmingly Positive, 40% for the Mixed floor) are widely documented by the community, though Valve has never published the full formula itself.
Key takeaways
- Steam reviews are binary — a player can only mark a game "Recommended" or "Not Recommended," there is no star rating.
- Community-documented tiers run from Overwhelmingly Positive (95%+ positive, 500+ reviews) down to Overwhelmingly Negative (95%+ negative, 500+ reviews).
- The score you see on a store page blends two separate numbers: the all-time percentage and a rolling 30-day "recent reviews" percentage.
- Valve's own Steamworks documentation confirms that review score only becomes an algorithmic visibility problem once a game drops into Mostly Negative territory, below 40% positive.
- Review count matters as much as review percentage — a 100%-positive game with five reviews is not treated the same as one with five hundred.
How does Steam calculate a game's review score?
Every Steam review starts as one of two votes: thumbs up ("Recommended") or thumbs down ("Not Recommended"). Steam then divides positive votes by total votes to get a raw percentage, and maps that percentage — combined with the total review count — onto a text label shown on the store page and in search results.
The review count matters because a handful of reviews can swing wildly on small samples. A game with 100% positive reviews from three players tells you almost nothing reliable; a game with 90% positive reviews from three thousand players is a much stronger signal. Steam's labeling system accounts for this by requiring higher review counts to reach the top and bottom tiers.
What are the actual Steam review score thresholds?
Valve has never published an official table of these cutoffs, but they've stayed consistent for years and are cross-referenced across independent trackers such as SteamDB and community-run analyzers. As commonly documented:
- Overwhelmingly Positive — 95%+ positive, with at least 500 reviews
- Very Positive — 80%+ positive, with at least 50 reviews
- Positive — 80%+ positive, with fewer than 50 reviews
- Mostly Positive — 70–79% positive
- Mixed — 40–69% positive
- Mostly Negative, Negative, Very Negative, Overwhelmingly Negative — mirror the positive tiers below 40%, again gated by review count
Because these numbers are reverse-engineered rather than officially confirmed, treat the exact edges (is it 39% or 40%?) as directional rather than exact. The one number Valve has confirmed independently, in its own developer documentation, is the 40% floor — see the next section.
All-time score vs. recent reviews: why your page can show two different numbers
Store pages that have been out long enough show two review summaries side by side: the all-time score, and a "recent reviews" score covering roughly the last 30 days. This matters for two reasons. First, a bad patch can tank your recent score while your all-time score barely moves — which is exactly the early-warning signal worth watching after any update. Second, a strong recent score can visibly improve buyer confidence even while an older controversy still weighs on the all-time number.
If you want a closer look at how to read that recent-review signal after shipping a patch, we cover it in how to track patch impact through recent Steam reviews.
Does the label on your store page actually matter?
Yes, in two distinct ways. It shapes buyer trust at the point of purchase — Mostly Positive and above is where most players stop scrutinizing further, while Mixed or below invites more hesitation and more scrolling through negative reviews before buying. It also affects how much room Valve gives you when things go wrong: a game sitting at 78% Mostly Positive has far more buffer before it crosses into Mixed than one already hovering at 71%.
How to move from Mixed to Mostly Positive
If your score is currently sitting in Mixed territory, the fastest lever isn't marketing — it's identifying and fixing the specific, recurring complaints driving the negative votes, then following up on updates and refund-worthy issues.
We wrote a full framework for that transition in how to move your Steam rating from Mixed to Mostly Positive.
Frequently asked questions
Is the Steam review percentage the same as star ratings on other platforms?
No. Steam reviews are strictly binary — Recommended or Not Recommended — with no numeric star scale. The percentage shown on a store page is simply positive votes divided by total votes.
Can a single review bomb push a game from Mostly Positive to Mixed overnight?
A short burst of negative reviews shows up fastest in the recent-reviews percentage, which can shift within days. The all-time score moves more slowly because it's diluted by the full review history, so a review bomb usually shows as a sharp dip in "recent" long before it meaningfully moves the all-time label.
Does Valve ever change these thresholds?
Because Valve hasn't published the exact formula, any threshold change would only be visible indirectly, through community trackers noticing labels shifting at different cutoffs. The thresholds documented above have held stable for multiple years across independent observation.
Do reviews from refunded purchases still count?
Steam does allow reviews from players who later refund, though Valve's public documentation doesn't disclose exact weighting rules for how refund status factors into the score.
If you'd rather not track review sentiment by hand, see a sample PlayerIntel Labs report to see how automated review analysis surfaces the themes behind a score shift.