Boosting Steam reviews post-release leads to increased conversion rates, says Gamesight

Higher review scores on Steam can lead to stronger ad performance, particularly when developers listen to community feedback on premium titles.

That’s according to new data from Gamesight‘s Performance Marketing Playbook, published this week, which found that reviews moving from ‘Mixed’ to ‘Very Positive’ nearly tripled conversion rates when features like bug fixes and game patches were implemented.

By comparison, the games marketing firm found that review scores showed “no measurable impact” on conversion rates for free-to-play titles, which it attributed due to there being no cost barrier for players.

It did highlight that community trust remains an important factor, regardless of price – especially with monetisation in-game after install.

“Both from this analysis and our experience working with game developers, we consistently see things like game patches, bug fixes, and adding player-requested features tend to be at the center of these sentiment improvements,” said Gamesight data analyst Marlie Tandoc.

To highlight the symbiotic relationship between review scores and conversation rates for a premium title, Gamesight used a single game with a 21-month campaign as a case study.

In the months when review scores were higher, conversion rates followed suit. The most notable spike in the conversion rate was when the game reached the ‘Overwhelmingly Positive’ rank in Month 10 – when a “highly-requested” feature was added in an update.

There is also a notable drop between Months 13 and 14, which Tandoc attributes to experimentations with new advertising channels.

“Those new channels didn’t perform as well, so they shifted budget back to their core mix shortly after, which explains the drop and recovery.”

While this is just from one game, Gamesight clarified that when analysing data from 46 titles it found similar patterns.

Overall, Gamesight suggests that by listening to players and improving a game based on their suggestions, campaign performance can improve leading to “benefits that could persist beyond the immediate boost.” Improved perception of the game lifts commercial performance, which compounds with media spend.

It also noted that by consistently maintaining overall positive ratings throughout a campaign, conversion rates are more likely to remain steady.

The data is drawn from campaign and conversion data from Gamesight’s platform, alongside datasets including Gamalytic API for pricing and review metrics. The full Performance Marketing Playbook will be published on January 6th.