{
  "name": "How Creative Cult reads player reviews",
  "publisher": {
    "name": "Creative Cult",
    "url": "https://creativecult.digital"
  },
  "updated": "2026-11-03",
  "appliesTo": [
    "the open dataset",
    "the readings on our game pages"
  ],
  "stance": "Players only. We never use critic scores, store ratings or press coverage. Every figure carries its date and links to its source.",
  "dailyCount": {
    "measure": "recommend_share",
    "definition": "The share of player reviews that recommend a game, by each player's own yes-or-no verdict.",
    "reviews": "Every language, from players who bought the game in the store where they reviewed it.",
    "refresh": "daily",
    "minReviewsToPrint": 50,
    "minReviewsToRank": 500
  },
  "readInFull": {
    "perGamePage": true,
    "language": "en",
    "samples": [
      {
        "name": "most helpful",
        "size": 80
      },
      {
        "name": "latest",
        "size": 40
      }
    ],
    "smallGames": "Where a game has fewer reviews than the samples, all of them are read.",
    "judgement": [
      "positive",
      "mixed",
      "negative",
      "off-topic"
    ],
    "judgedFrom": "the text of each review",
    "themes": "Counted per sample, for or against.",
    "trackers": "Launch trackers name the sample each update reads.",
    "dated": "Each reading keeps the day it was taken."
  },
  "rules": [
    {
      "title": "The daily count",
      "text": "Each day we count every player review of each game, in every language, from players who bought it in the store where they reviewed it, and how many of those reviews recommend it. The verdict is each player’s own yes or no."
    },
    {
      "title": "Two samples read in full",
      "text": "Each game page reads two samples of English reviews in full. The 80 most helpful lean towards launch week, and the 40 latest show where players stand now. Where a game has fewer reviews than that, we read them all."
    },
    {
      "title": "Judged from the text",
      "text": "We judge every review we read as positive, mixed, negative or off-topic from what it says, and count the themes each sample raises, for or against. The findings on a game page are our conclusions from that reading."
    },
    {
      "title": "Dated and sourced",
      "text": "Every count and reading carries the day it was taken and links to its source, and launch trackers name the sample each update reads. We never use critic scores, store ratings or press coverage."
    }
  ],
  "dataset": {
    "name": "Daily player recommend shares for new game releases",
    "page": "https://creativecult.digital/data",
    "csv": "https://creativecult.digital/data/recommend-share.csv",
    "licence": {
      "name": "CC0 1.0",
      "url": "https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/"
    },
    "temporalCoverage": "2026-09-25/.."
  },
  "links": {
    "method": "https://creativecult.digital/data#how-we-read",
    "data": "https://creativecult.digital/data",
    "llms": "https://creativecult.digital/llms.txt"
  },
  "sources": [
    "https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/getreviews"
  ]
}