Hi,
the question topic says it all. As Steam is very closed about game sales data, what is a good measure of how well a game is doing on Steam? It seems like the number of reviews (and the ratio of positive/negative reviews) is the only indicator of popularity available for us. Do you think it is a good one?
This may sound cynical, but I believe what the number of reviews shows you is the number of people who the game can evoke a moderately strong reaction from, for good or ill. People don’t generally rate a game they don’t care about. If you’re, “Yeah, whatever,” and keep playing or delete, you’re probably not going to rate the game. If you feel strongly about whether it’s good or bad, you’re more likely to rate the game.
I figure it is the same psychology why forum users for various games and tools tend to either be very pro or very against. The “in the middle” types don’t bother posting, except maybe for tech support.
There are exceptions, of course. Some people enjoy rating games. Some people feel like rating a game or product is providing a helpful service to others who may come after; kind of paying back for helpful reviews you’ve read. Some people like trash talking in ratings.
This doesn’t mean I think total reviews is unrelated to total sales. The more eyeballs on the game, the more likely to evoke a strong enough reaction to illicit a review.
Just my two cents based on internet observation. I do not have a game on Steam, nor do I sell any products or services online.
I would say yes, its an indicator of how popular the game is, however, you need to look at how long the game has been on steam. It might have 100 reviews but if its in a course of 4-5 years. than its not that popular.
I have a game on steam that has a dozen reviews, and its been up since the end of January.
Number of reviews and amount of players playing (steamcharts.com)
I suppose it depends if they’re good or bad reviews! Generally I would guess about 1 in 100 people add a review.
Talking of Steam. I hear on the grapevine that they will get rid of Greenlight and make it an open platform like Android or IOS. For example a game I put on there is apparently 75% to the top 100 even though it’s only getting about 1 yes-vote a day (and 3 no votes). And in the last batch they greenlit 500 games. So it seems at the moment no matter how good, or bad your game is eventually everything will get greenlit. I guess they will make more money if from an open platform but might upset some Steam fan-boys who want Steam to be more exclusive.
I would like it to be an open platform then I could port all my mobile games to Steam. Even though this is exactly the kind of thing that some Steam fan-boys fear will happen. But I told them, “If you don’t like the look of my games don’t buy them! They’re obviously not designed for you!” But it may mean the user-base of Steam becomes like more of the general public like people who play Candy Crush Saga. And Steam will no longer be an elite gaming platform.
On the down side it means that getting on Steam will no longer be a badge of quality and you will no longer be guaranteed untold riches. 
But also I think it will encourage me to make more PC games because currently the only way to sell them is via your website and set up some kind of PayPal key system which is very cumbersome.
Better to be good or bad than have a non reaction.
Actually the current greenlight program is a good indicator if your product suits the market or not. When noone votes for your game the interest isn’t really high enough. So building prototypes to show your idea is a good way to find out what the market currently wants/offers. Our studio actually drops project based on the greenlight feedback, there is no point in funding a game that the majority of the gamers don’t have an interest in.
You can already see the negative impact of “greenlighting everything” in Steam’s Early Access, most of the products there cannot last longer than a week in the Top 100 Charts and once out of the list sales do go downhill. This “spam” of crappy games also drives off gamers buying Early-Access games to a huge extend.
As for reviews it really doesn’t matter if they are good or bad. You will find multiple games that sold more than 100.000 Units with only 50% positive reviews while you also find games with 95% positive reviews that sold less than 10.000 units.
As long as you can handle the heat when Jim Sterling roasts you for it 
I disagree with this. If 10% of the population like your game that’s a whole lot of people. It doesn’t have to be the majority. I’m sure the majority of people hate Mr Little Pony, but as long as 10% love it it’s still going to make a whole lotta money. Also niche games can be more successful.
Plus you only need to make like $101 to consider it a success, since that pays off the greenlight fee AND you made a dollar!
Steam turning into an open over-saturated market like android is horrible and I don’t understand anyone that is happy about it.
Gaming has been a saturated market for a while. Steam greenlight high lights this more than anything, but now there’s a place for the overwhelming supply of titles to appear. And if they suck and sell nothing, well, steam still makes $100 per POS just for being there 
I doubt anyone here cares how much $ valve makes…
The $100 entry fee is a good point though. Should they fully open the market, this would be a good idea to keep the worst trash out at least.
Thought I would mention that the $100 submission fee is donated to charity according to Valve’s website. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem to filter out all of the subpar games that are showing up.
Maybe people are just making crappy games for charity? haha
What wouldn’t you do for lord GabeN?
You need to remember that people won’t generally look at games that are outside their interests. I would not look at a Mr Little Pony game, so I would not have a chance to vote yes or no on such a game. If somebody votes yes or no to a game on Greenlight, it is because the game interested them enough for them to read about it and then react by voting. They thought the game was something they might be interested in. So if most people who took the time to vote on a game decided to vote no, then you have a problem. For example, if only 10% of the people who voted decided to vote yes, then that is not the same thing as 10% of the general population voting yes or even the same thing as 10% of all Steam gamers voting yes.
The point is that 10% of the population don’t even vote. The people who vote on Greenlight are maybe just 1% of the Steam Community. By experience i can tell you that if your game doesn’t jump into the Top50 within a week you can dump the project and start-over. Yeah, you might get greenlit anyway after a few months - so if it takes you 2 months to get 10.000 votes you can be sure that it will take you 2 years to get 10.000 sales - and only if you keep development up on this title.
If less than 10.000 people vote for your game in the first week of greenlight it will sell less than 1000 times in the first week of release. Take your greenlight votes, devide them by 10 and you know your sales when you put it up for sale.
$100 goes to charity. At least developers would feel good about it/
@elmar1028 that’s kind of the conclusion I was leaning towards.
GabeN is a good fellow.
They have a better turn out than 'Murica, wooo!
Please don’t ban me!
Interesting. Nice to have some numbers.
What about overall sales, say in the first year?