Steam Review Score Tiers Explained: Thresholds, Algorithm Impact, and What Each Tier Costs You
"Mixed" vs. "Mostly Positive" on Steam is the difference between your game being recommended by the algorithm or being buried. It changes whether you show up in discovery queues at all, and whether your conversion rate can sustain a studio.
Yet most developers cannot tell you the exact thresholds. They do not know how many reviews they need to move up a tier. And they definitely do not know how much revenue each tier is worth.
This is the full breakdown: all nine tiers, the exact thresholds, and what they actually cost you in revenue.
The 9 Steam review tiers
Steam assigns one of nine tier labels based on the ratio of positive to total reviews. Valve has never published an official specification, but the thresholds are well-documented by the community and consistent across the platform:
| Tier | Positive % | Min Reviews | Label Color | Player Perception |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overwhelmingly Positive | 95%+ | 500+ | Blue | "Must buy" |
| Very Positive | 80-94% | 50+ | Blue | "Safe bet" |
| Positive | 80%+ | 10-49 | Blue | "Probably good" |
| Mostly Positive | 70-79% | 10+ | Blue | "Worth considering" |
| Mixed | 40-69% | 10+ | Yellow | "Risky, proceed with caution" |
| Mostly Negative | 20-39% | 10+ | Red | "Probably bad" |
| Negative | 0-19% | 10-49 | Red | "Avoid" |
| Very Negative | 0-19% | 50+ | Red | "Actively avoid" |
| Overwhelmingly Negative | 0-19% | 500+ | Red | "Do not touch" |
The calculation is simple: (positive reviews / total reviews) x 100. No weighting, no hidden algorithm. Just division.
Steam actually displays two scores: a "Recent" score (reviews from the last 30 days) and an "All Time" score. Both use the same tier labels. The Recent score tends to carry more weight in the algorithm's recommendations, so a short-term improvement in reviews can boost your visibility faster than you'd expect, even if the All Time score barely budges.
One thing to know: your game needs at least 10 reviews from verified purchasers (not key recipients) before any tier label shows up. Below 10, the store page just says "No user reviews." Valve set this floor to prevent manipulation with a handful of accounts.
The cliff tiers: where small changes matter most
Not all tier boundaries matter equally. These three thresholds have the biggest effect on your sales.
The 70% Cliff: Mixed to Mostly Positive
This is the most important threshold on Steam for the majority of games.
Below 70%, your game displays a yellow "Mixed" label. Yellow is a warning color. Players see it and their subconscious says "risky." Many will scroll past without clicking. The ones who do click will read reviews more skeptically. Your conversion rate (the percentage of store page visitors who actually buy) drops.
Above 70%, the label switches to blue "Mostly Positive." Blue says "safe." Players click. They read reviews expecting to be convinced, not warned. The difference in purchasing psychology is real and measurable.
In practical terms, Gamesight's analysis of 30 premium Steam games found that every game with a conversion rate above 2% had a review score above 80%. Games in the Mixed range typically convert at 1-2%. The jump from Mixed to Mostly Positive can double your conversion rate. Same traffic, double the revenue.
The 80% Cliff: Mostly Positive to Very Positive
If the 70% threshold is about survival, the 80% threshold is about thriving.
Very Positive tells buyers "this game is good and most people agree." It also opens up more algorithmic recommendations, makes your game more likely to appear in curated lists and sale events, and gives journalists and streamers confidence to cover you.
Games at 78-79% are agonizingly close. If your game is in this range, a focused response strategy targeting your negative reviews could be the fastest way to cross the threshold. At 78% with 500 reviews, you need roughly 50 additional positive reviews (with no new negatives) to reach 80%. Flipping existing negatives through responses, at the documented 21.6% flip rate, could get you there without a single new review.
The 95% Cliff: Very Positive to Overwhelmingly Positive
This is the prestige tier. Overwhelmingly Positive belongs to genuine community favorites like Stardew Valley, Portal 2, Hades, and Deep Rock Galactic.
Reaching 95%+ requires at least 500 reviews, which means you need both quality AND volume. You cannot brute-force this with a small, passionate audience. The game genuinely has to resonate with a wide player base.
For most developers, Very Positive (80%+) is the realistic goal. Overwhelmingly Positive happens when you make something people genuinely love and keep talking about.
How Steam's algorithm uses your tier
Your review tier is an input to multiple systems that determine how many people see your game.
On your store page, the tier label and its color are one of the first things buyers see. It sits above the fold, right near the price. For a lot of casual browsers, that label alone decides whether they click "Add to Cart" or keep scrolling.
In search results, Steam uses review scores as a ranking signal. Higher-rated games appear earlier for relevant terms. If two games target the same keyword, the one with the better score wins.
Steam's Interactive Recommender, which populates discovery queues for individual users, weighs review scores alongside playtime data, tags, and purchase history. A higher score means you show up in more queues, more often.
The "More Like This" panel on every store page also favors games with strong scores. Getting recommended on a popular game's page is one of the highest-traffic organic placements on Steam.
During seasonal sales, Steam curators, event organizers, and Valve's editorial team use review tiers to filter which games get featured. Mixed games are almost never picked. Very Positive games get priority.
And then there's press and content creator coverage. This one is not algorithmic, but it is real. Journalists, YouTubers, and streamers use review tiers as a quality filter when deciding what to cover. "Very Positive" gets you onto shortlists. "Mixed" keeps you off.
The revenue math by tier
Using the review-to-sales multiplier (approximately 40-60 copies sold per review, per GameDiscoverCo's current median estimates), we can estimate what each tier is worth:
| Tier | Estimated Conversion Rate | Relative Revenue |
|---|---|---|
| Overwhelmingly Positive | 7%+ | Maximum |
| Very Positive | 4-7% | ~80-90% of max |
| Mostly Positive | 2-4% | ~50-65% of max |
| Mixed | 1-2% | ~25-35% of max |
| Mostly Negative | <1% | <15% of max |
The jump from Mixed (1-2% conversion) to Mostly Positive (2-4%) can effectively double your revenue from the same traffic. The jump from Mostly Positive to Very Positive adds another 50-80% on top of that.
GameDiscoverCo's analysis found that "Overwhelmingly Positive" games achieve a 0.51x median wishlist-to-Month-1-sales conversion, the best of any tier. Your wishlists convert to purchases at the highest possible rate.
The formula: how many reviews you need to move up
The math for calculating exactly how many additional positive reviews you need to reach the next tier:
Additional positives needed = (Target% × Total reviews − Current positives) / (1 − Target%)
This assumes zero new negative reviews during the transition period, which is unrealistic, but it gives you the minimum target to work toward.
Some worked examples:
| Current State | Target Tier | Positives Needed |
|---|---|---|
| 68% with 500 reviews (340 pos) | 70% (Mostly Positive) | 34 more |
| 65% with 400 reviews (260 pos) | 70% (Mostly Positive) | 67 more |
| 78% with 1,000 reviews (780 pos) | 80% (Very Positive) | 100 more |
| 60% with 200 reviews (120 pos) | 70% (Mostly Positive) | 67 more |
Here is the catch: the more total reviews you have, the harder it is to move the percentage. A game at 68% with 500 reviews needs 34 more positives. A game at 68% with 5,000 reviews needs 340. Start now while your total count is still manageable.
And remember: flipping an existing negative review counts double. It removes one from the negative column AND adds one to the positive column. If you have 160 negative reviews and respond to all of them, the 21.6% flip rate gives you roughly 35 flips. That is 70 points of score movement in terms of the calculation.
Fastest ways to improve your tier
Strategy 1: Respond to Negative Reviews (Highest ROI)
This is the fastest way to improve your score without shipping a single line of code.
At 500 reviews with 160 negatives: responding to all of them could flip roughly 35, potentially pushing you from 68% to 75%. That is a full tier change. The detailed response framework is in our review response guide.
Strategy 2: Fix the Top 3 Complaints, Then Tell Reviewers
Read your last 50 negative reviews. Tally the themes. The top 3 complaints will account for 60-80% of all negativity.
Fix what you can. Ship the patch. Then go back to every negative review that cited the now-fixed issue and respond: "We shipped a fix for [their specific complaint] in patch [X]. Would love to hear if it works better for you now." This is when the 21.6% flip rate accelerates because you are delivering, not just acknowledging.
Strategy 3: Encourage Satisfied Players to Review (Ethically)
You can also increase the flow of positive reviews. Show a quiet in-game prompt after a positive gameplay moment: beating a boss, completing a chapter, hitting a milestone. Not after purchase. Not on the main menu. After a moment when the player is actually enjoying themselves.
"Enjoying the game? A Steam review helps us reach more players like you."
Make it dismissible. Show it once. Never nag. And never incentivize reviews. This violates Steam's Terms of Service and Valve will remove your game.
What to do with all of this
Your review tier controls how many people see your game and how many of them buy it. The thresholds are public. The math is straightforward. And the fastest path to the next tier is almost always the same: respond to your existing negative reviews and fix the top complaints.
If you are sitting just below a tier threshold right now, every day you wait is costing you sales.
See exactly where your game stands. Run a free review audit.