A third of Mostly Positive indie games later slid to Mixed

Of 847 paid indie games launched on Steam from 2020 to 2022 whose first-year reviews came in at 70 to 79% positive, a third are under 70% today, which Steam shows as Mixed. Most scores drift down after launch, a few points at a time, and the label moves when a line gets crossed.

If your game is out and you’re watching its score, here are the exact lines, how often released games cross them in each direction, and what the ones that climbed had in common.

The lines are 40, 70, 80 and 95 percent

Steam’s label comes from one number: the share of positive reviews among people who bought the game on Steam. Valve’s documentation says key activations don’t count, and a game needs 10 such reviews before it gets a score at all.

Share positive	Reviews	Label
95% or more	500 or more	Overwhelmingly Positive
80% or more	50 or more	Very Positive
80% or more	10 to 49	Positive
70% to under 80%	10 or more	Mostly Positive
40% to under 70%	10 or more	Mixed
20% to under 40%	10 or more	Mostly Negative
Under 20%	10 to 49, 50 to 499, 500 or more	Negative, Very Negative, Overwhelmingly Negative

Valve’s documentation states only the 40% line and the 10-review minimum. The rest circulates as a table everyone copies, so we tested it. On September 30, 2026, we read the label Steam shows for 1,832 indie games, including every game in our set within 1.5 points of a line. The table matched all 1,832.

Steam doesn’t round. A game at 69.88% shows Mixed, and one at exactly 70% shows Mostly Positive. 79.97% is still Mostly Positive, and 94.96% is Very Positive where 95.01% is Overwhelmingly Positive. At 80% or more, 49 reviews reads Positive and 50 reads Very Positive. The bottom rows are rare among indie games, and we saw few of them.

Three more things Valve does say. The store shows two scores, one for the last 30 days and one for the game’s lifetime.

Review score is “not a factor in algorithmic visibility” as long as a game stays at Mixed or above, 40% or more. And since August 2025, games with more than 2,000 reviews show shoppers a separate score for their language once 200 or more reviews are written in it.

Most scores drift down after the first year

We took every paid indie game that launched on Steam from 2020 to 2022 and drew at least 10 Steam-purchase reviews in its first year, 5,860 games, and followed their reviews month by month through August 2026.

For the 3,178 games with at least 20 reviews written after year one, those later reviews scored a median 4.5 points lower than year one’s. 47% scored at least 5 points lower. 8% scored at least 5 points higher.

1. Scored 5+ points lower47.1%
2. Within 5 points44.9%
3. Scored 5+ points higher8.0%

Share of positive Steam-purchase reviews. 3,178 paid indie games launched on Steam 2020 to 2022 with 10+ reviews in year one and 20+ reviews after it. Review histories read September 16 and 21, 2026, through August 2026.

Source: Strike Two analysis of Steam review data

The drop is steady with age. Measured against the same game’s months 4 to 12, the launch month runs a median 2.2 points higher. Year two runs 2.0 points lower, year three 2.7 and year four onward 4.5.

This isn’t Steam reviewers getting harsher overall. In the same calendar year, games in their first year scored higher than older games: a median 88.5% against 85.7% in 2022, and 86.2% against 85.0% in 2023.

We can’t tell you why from this data. One reading fits it. Your first buyers followed the game and wishlisted it. Later buyers found it through a discount, a bundle or a recommendation, and it suits some of them less. Months with a sale post didn’t score lower than other months, though, so it isn’t simply sale-week buyers.

A third of Mostly Positive games fell to Mixed

Year one is a median 61% of all the reviews these games have. That weight is why most labels hold. But a game sitting a few points above a line has little room, and 70% is where Mostly Positive turns into Mixed.

Of 847 games whose first-year reviews scored 70 to 79%, 279 (33%) are under 70% across all their reviews today. Only 74 (9%) rose to 80% or more.

1. 80%+ in year one, now under 80% (4,024 games)14.7%
2. 70 to 79% in year one, now under 70% (847)32.9%
3. 70 to 79% in year one, now 80%+ (847)8.7%
4. 40 to 69% in year one, now 70%+ (877)10.1%

Share of positive Steam-purchase reviews in year one against all reviews through August 2026. Paid indie games launched on Steam 2020 to 2022 with 10+ reviews in year one. Review histories read September 16 and 21, 2026.

Source: Strike Two analysis of Steam review data

Games at 80% or more had further to fall, and 15% of them still ended under 80%. For a game with 50 or more reviews, that’s Very Positive becoming Mostly Positive or lower.

Climbing out of Mixed is rare, and starts near the line

877 games scored 40 to 69% in year one. 89 of them (10%) are at 70% or more today.

Where they started decided most of it. From 65 to 69%, 63 of 283 games climbed (22%). From under 65%, 26 of 594 (4%).

The arithmetic explains why. To lift a lifetime score, new reviews have to beat the line, and by enough to outweigh everything already there. A game at 66% with 300 reviews needs 120 new reviews at 80% to reach 70%. At 75%, it needs 240.

For the typical Mixed game, later reviews didn’t come close. Among the 335 that started at 40 to 69% and drew 20 or more later reviews, the median scored 59% on them.

Updates helped at the margin. Of the Mixed games that posted a Regular Update, Major Update or new release after year one, 23 of 159 (15%) reached 70%, against 66 of 718 (9%) that posted none. Months with an update post scored a median 1.9 points above the same game’s other months after year one.

Improvement shows first in newer reviews. Of 359 games under 70% in year one with 20 or more later reviews, 80 drew those later reviews at 70% or more. Only 49 of the 80 have a lifetime score at 70% yet.

Positive to Very Positive is a count, not a score

2,331 games had 10 to 49 reviews at 80% or more in year one, which Steam shows as Positive. Their fix isn’t a better game. It’s 50 reviews.

By August 2026, 503 of them (22%) had passed 50 at 80% or more and moved up to Very Positive. 1,732 (74%) still had fewer than 50 reviews. If you’re at 45 reviews and 90%, you are closer to a better label than a game at 76% with 1,000.

When chasing your score is the wrong move

• If you’re at Mixed or above, Valve says the score doesn’t touch algorithmic visibility. It still matters to the shopper reading your page. It doesn’t decide whether Steam shows the page.
• If you’re well under 65%, 4% of games climbed from there. A patch aimed at the score alone is unlikely to move it. Fix what the reviews complain about because it makes the game better, and let the 30-day score show it first.
• If your volume is small, a lifetime score barely moves. Twenty good reviews on a game with 2,000 move it by a fraction of a point.
• Never ask for reviews in exchange for anything. Valve’s rules forbid it, and they also say not to ask players to review from inside the game.

What to do next

1. Check your distance to each line. Hover the score on your store page for the percentage and the count. 162 games here are within 2 points below 70%, and 247 within 2 points below 80%.
2. Do the arithmetic before you plan. Reviews needed = current reviews × (target − current) ÷ (new-review score − target). If your newer reviews score below the line, the lifetime score can’t climb past it.
3. Read your recent score as the real signal. It moves first and it’s what an update earns you.
4. Ship something worth reviewing. A Major Update is also what earns a Steam update visibility round, and update months draw more reviews as well as kinder ones.
5. Look at your language breakdown. Past 2,000 reviews, some shoppers see a score in their own language, and it can be lower in Chinese.

If your score has settled where it is, it isn’t a verdict on whether the game can still find people. Quiet launches do sometimes have a bigger year later. Strike Two partners on games that are already built, so read this knowing where it comes from.

How we measured it

The games are the 5,860 paid titles under Steam’s Indie tag that launched from January 2020 to December 2022 and drew 10 or more Steam-purchase reviews in their first year. They are the same population as our Steam Deck study. A game that sold in Early Access first is dated from its first review.

Scores come from Steam’s monthly review histories: up and down reviews from Steam purchases, by the month each was written, read September 16 and 21, 2026. Year one is the launch month and the 11 after. “Now” is every review through August 2026. Update and sale posts come from each game’s Steam events feed, read September 21 and 22, 2026.

The live labels were read on September 30, 2026, from the review summary Steam’s store uses, counting Steam-purchase reviews in all languages: 250 games first, then every game near a line plus 400 at random, after Steam began limiting our requests.

The limits: the histograms run slightly above today’s live counts for some games, likely deleted reviews, so a game within a point of a line may show a different label than we computed.

We measured shares, not the label a shopper in another language sees. And games that got better scores may differ in many ways from those that didn’t, so none of this proves an update will move yours.