Steam250.com is solving the Steam game discoverability problem by ranking the best – and worst – titles on the Valve platform based on player ratings each day. The main ranking, the Top 250, weighs number of votes against the approval percentage and assigns a score from 0 to 10 according to an algorithm. Another popular ranking is the Hidden Gems, exposing great games that few players know of.
Seven different scoring algorithms were trialled during development of the Top 250 ranking alone and several more have been added since. Each algorithm can be weighted to favour vote volume or approval percentage on a sliding scale. The algorithm takes into account user votes – the thumbs up or down of each Steam review – but does not consider content of the review, number of players, copies sold or press reviews, with few exceptions: the Most Played ranking only considers recent number of players while the Hidden Gems ranking also factors in total number of players: as a game gains more players its increasing popularity eventually sinks it off the list, since it would no longer be considered “hidden”.
Steam 250 is a fully open source project, started in October, and has been in development every day since. Rankings will continue to be added to expose interesting data patterns to help gamers find good games on Steam. The next addition will be genre breakdowns, and later, an automatically updated Steam curator group so players can receive recommendations directly on Steam, such as a game’s current position on the Top 250.
Players can also sign in to the website via Steam to see which games they already own on any of the rankings, making it easier to pick out games they don’t have yet.
