Analytics: the proportion of negative reviews on Steam is growing, with Asian players being the most critical
Will McCahill, Business Development Director at the American studio World’s Edge, analyzed the positivity levels of user reviews on Steam from 2014 to 2024. According to his observations, reviews have become more negative over time, in all languages.
Positivity Level of User Reviews in Steam from 2014-2024
- As McCahill notes, in 2014, 89% of all player reviews left on Steam during the year were positive. The figure then began to decline, falling to 83% by 2018.
- In 2019, the positivity level of reviews sharply rose again to 89%. As Simon Carless, an expert from GameDiscoverCo, suggests, this is because Steam started asking users if they wanted to change a negative review if they spent a significant amount of time in the game after writing it.
- Starting in 2021, the positivity level of reviews began to decline annually once more. Of all reviews left on Steam in 2024, only 84.2% were positive.
- The kindest users on Steam in 2024 were those who spoke Romanian, with 92% of reviews praising games. In second place were players writing in Brazilian Portuguese, with 91% positive reviews. By comparison, in 2014, their review positivity levels were 97% and 94%, respectively.
- The top five languages with the lowest percentage of positive reviews in 2024 were Japanese (73%), Traditional Chinese (76%), Simplified Chinese (80%), Korean (81%), and German (83%).
- Notably, 30% of all positive reviews in Simplified Chinese in 2024 were for Black Myth: Wukong. If these are excluded, the annual positivity level for this language drops from 80% to 74%. For Traditional Chinese, it would drop to 75%.
- Russian remains the third most popular language on Steam after English and Simplified Chinese. In 2024, 85% of reviews written in Russian were positive.
The Most Popular Languages on Steam from 2012-2024
