Democracy 3
analyzed 2026-10-08 · sample of 732 English reviews across the whole review history
Across 732 sampled reviews, gameplay is the most-mentioned aspect, and it draws more praise than criticism. Players describe "manipulating a complicated-looking set of statistics through the use of sliders", and the interface earns credit for presenting "information in interesting ways". Mods stand out as the clearest bright spot: 54 of 66 mentions are positive, with players noting "tons of mods" and mods that fix problems. Addictiveness is similarly lopsided, with one player warning that "Just one more turn, just one mor- Crap it's 1am" can and will happen. Criticism clusters elsewhere. Balance is overwhelmingly negative, and content amount, bugs, stability, and pacing all skew heavily against. Realism splits from the positive side, with complaints that "The simulation itself seems inaccurate". Price value leans negative, including advice to "wait till it's on sale". Difficulty divides almost evenly, and the learning curve is similarly mixed, with players calling it "tricky to get the hang of". Opinion also splits on dlc, graphics, and ui. Recurring uncalibrated themes include the absence of defined goals, limited endgame, and a sense that policies lack visible effect.
numbers checked against this report's stored data · quotes copied verbatim from reviews · plain text is the language model's own wording
Aspects
share of sample, axis to 30% · ± is the sampling uncertainty around each share
- positive
- mixed / neutral
- negative
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gameplay
98 positive · 46 negative · 20 mixed · 6 neutral
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This game is pretty awesome except it is missing a very large factor.
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The game revolves around manipulating a complicated-looking set of statistics through the use of sliders in order to achieve your vision, whilst keeping each faction happy enough to:
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The features in this game are exceptional and it is surreal how the game calculates the party ratings, happiness, etc. One thing I did not like about this game is its lack of 3D graphics.
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realism
38 positive · 62 negative · 11 mixed · 0 neutral
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The simulation itself seems inaccurate.
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Not in game mechanic but in understanding how things change.
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Does not really simulate democracy except a easy-to-fool-around routine vote.
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price value
24 positive · 39 negative · 21 mixed · 7 neutral
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this game is a rip off do not spend ur money on it
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But don't pay full price; wait till it's on sale.
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As a result I do not feel that I can recommend buying this game at the current price (€15,40, due to sale, €22,99 otherwise).
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difficulty
32 positive · 36 negative · 8 mixed · 10 neutral
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In short too simple and predicable.
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its too hard and it just got me bored after a while
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It turned out by my last term I won a 100% of the votes with a ridiculously high turnout, didn't even need to rig it!
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mods
54 positive · 9 negative · 1 mixed · 2 neutral
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Fun game, lots to do with mods
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There are tons of mods for Democracy 3.
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The economy in this game is a bit unrealistic but there are mods to fix that.
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learning curve
20 positive · 21 negative · 5 mixed · 14 neutral
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I found this game tricky to get the hang of, but it's a lot of fun.
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a) pulling levers to see how effects change and manual optimization doesn't excite me as much automated optimization does, b) I'm least interested in politics c) too complex.
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it makes sense that, if the model in the game is attempting to portray how hard it is for a figurehead to run such a flawed system, the game is difficult to understand and to play -- perhaps this is because it is quite difficult to separate the game mechanics from reality.
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content amount
12 positive · 40 negative · 2 mixed · 1 neutral
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Sadly after only a few hours the whole finding out part is pretty much done and the game doesn't throw a lot of interesting things your way to keep things fresh.
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Sadly the game feels like a sandbox and has huge room for expansion, where features like historical scenarios and international diplomacy would substantially increase playtime.
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After playing a while I got bored of the content, and I stopped playing.
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player choice
23 positive · 28 negative · 0 mixed · 2 neutral
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Interesting game, it sometimes feels your policies don't have any effect at the GDP.
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You make a policy it always passes.
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You don't have anything approaching fine control of the issues.
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balance
4 positive · 45 negative · 0 mixed · 1 neutral
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It is impossible to find a balance to keep eveyrone happy and after several play-throughs it seems there is always someone trying to kill you.
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Is Good And Gives You The General Idea What It Is Like To Be President Of Your Country, And Keeping The Country's Policies Regulated From Being Blown Out Of Proportion The Only Problem, However Is How You Can Get 99% The Popular Vote, There Aren't Enough Policies.
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Lots of potential, if only the global economy did anything besides plummet.
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ui
22 positive · 20 negative · 1 mixed · 1 neutral
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It does present information in interesting ways, employing directional graphs to demonstrate cause and effect relations.
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The greatest UI ever.
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While it may seem terrifying to look at initially, how the game works becomes apparent very quickly, and the user-interface is extremely intuitive.
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see more
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replayability
11 positive · 19 negative · 4 mixed · 0 neutral
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5, because the game does have limited playability (after a long period of time!), but usually, the modding community could supply for that.
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Fun but I don't think there is much replay value.
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1/10 Replayability
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bugs
2 positive · 30 negative · 0 mixed · 0 neutral
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The nation should be gaining some additional income that should show up on the books each quarter, plus it still said I was borrowing money every time I did have a deficit instead of taking against my reserves.
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I am frustrated about the bugged save feature though.
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This game is broken in so many ways.
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stability
4 positive · 28 negative · 0 mixed · 0 neutral
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also since downloading the dlc i can now no longer load previous games.
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only played once, cant start the game since.
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This said, you will have all the time the same events, and the game crashed twice.
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dlc
11 positive · 11 negative · 2 mixed · 6 neutral
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I have bought all the DLC's to this game and they all add something to the game.
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The 'Extremism' DLC adds a more realistic, negative vibe to it.
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especially with the expansion packs with increase the amount of policies you can introduce.
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graphics
9 positive · 12 negative · 0 mixed · 4 neutral
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One thing I did not like about this game is its lack of 3D graphics.
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Let me warn you, it's a sandbox game where the fanciest graphic is a quickly moving arrow.
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Could have more defined goals and less dull graphics.
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game length
3 positive · 11 negative · 1 mixed · 7 neutral
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Not sure what to do after I've solved all of the countries problems, since the game doesn't just end.
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I want to love this game but I can't recommend it for more than a few hours of entertainment.
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- Pretty short. Not a long game at all, even with the difficulty on high.
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developer conduct
4 positive · 14 negative · 0 mixed · 1 neutral
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It is not entirely unbiased.
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6/10 for game and minus 1 for the misguiding name of the game.
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Whoever made this steaming camel turd is so biased towards liberals I could safely call him a communist.
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pacing
0 positive · 15 negative · 0 mixed · 1 neutral
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its too hard and it just got me bored after a while
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I am glad that I got this on sale though as it can be mundane after a while or difficult to get into.
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This got boring quick.
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addictiveness
14 positive · 0 negative · 1 mixed · 0 neutral
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super addictive! This game is very smal for what it provides.
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It can be an unexpected timesink similar to Civ V thought, "Just one more turn, just one mor- Crap it's 1am" can and WILL happen.
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Fun and Addicting
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build variety
5 positive · 5 negative · 0 mixed · 0 neutral
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If they would just make the global economy do something besides plummet, and allow for more variety at the start of the game, it will have a broader appeal than the person who subscribes to /r/dataisbeautiful.
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There are only two real playstyles:
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Really I just feel they needed to explore more different types of governments and make right wing / anarchist playstyles more viable, and especially, big government and liberal policies need to have more intrinsic consequences other than pissing off conservatives.
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updates
2 positive · 7 negative · 0 mixed · 0 neutral
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With the new updates and the overhaul mod, the United States is *extremely* difficult.
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While I liked this game at first as it is a fun game when its working it is badly broken as of a recent update and text does not appear and mods dont work (No thats not the broken mods ive checked ) the update broke mods text and there …
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It took 3 patches to fix the text issue over months. Not enough people talk about this despite the game being completely unplayable.
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music
3 positive · 3 negative · 1 mixed · 0 neutral
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The only negatives: The nation immersion and music. I honestly did not feel I was in control my specified nation like America, France etc.
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- Boring and repetitive music
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Audio: ONE. TRACK. THAT. LOOPS. While the track fits perfectly, it gets boring. Besides that the button clicking sound is fine.
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customization
2 positive · 3 negative · 0 mixed · 1 neutral
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i wish the "randomized start" was more random -_- and there needs to be more countries like mexico spain italy etc!
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I was looking for a game where I could build a nation state in where I could customize the policies as I go. This is not that game.
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I wish there was more options customizing the countries stats as well, like racial makeup or population for example.
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performance
4 positive · 1 negative · 0 mixed · 1 neutral
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+ Will run on anything
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I'm not sure what's up with the people complaining they've had technical problems; this game has extremely low system requirements and I've never had a hiccup with it, even on modest machines.
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It runs smoothly and boots quickly, with simple yet elegant graphics making this complex game easy to understand after a few short rounds.
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progression
1 positive · 5 negative · 0 mixed · 0 neutral
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There is not endgame however.
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the policies whould have a progression, so after putting certain ones in place it unlocks a progression, i found about 5/6 red circle/ bad occurences (asthma epidemic + pollution etc) which you then need to fix but only discovered 2 positive ones, high productivity and techno advantage.
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the endgame is also quite bland, once you fix everything there are no challenges left.
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quest design
0 positive · 6 negative · 0 mixed · 0 neutral
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First of all, there is no particular goal or scenario you are trying to complete.
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Could have more defined goals and less dull graphics.
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There doesn't seem to be an end or a goal to the game.
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world
0 positive · 6 negative · 0 mixed · 0 neutral
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The only negatives: The nation immersion and music. I honestly did not feel I was in control my specified nation like America, France etc. The only nuances you felt were the currency and the starting point of your nation but since the music and displays looked the same for each nation.
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There aren't as many opportunities to interact with countries and leaders outside your country, and that might be a big missed opportunity for the game.
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Let me first point out that foreign policy and world dynamics, and stuff including geopolitics are basically ignored, but these things I won't be complaining for, just to let you get a sense of what the game is more about.
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Review timeline
monthly peak 365 reviews · all languages
monthly share rated positive · 50% reference · months with <5 reviews faded
the timeline as a table
| month | reviews | up | down | positive | note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 2013 | 25 | 22 | 3 | 88% | |
| Nov 2013 | 37 | 23 | 14 | 62% | |
| Dec 2013 | 61 | 43 | 18 | 70% | |
| Jan 2014 | 59 | 41 | 18 | 69% | |
| Feb 2014 | 245 | 186 | 59 | 76% | |
| Mar 2014 | 77 | 52 | 25 | 68% | |
| Apr 2014 | 31 | 22 | 9 | 71% | |
| May 2014 | 88 | 69 | 19 | 78% | |
| Jun 2014 | 354 | 293 | 61 | 83% | |
| Jul 2014 | 76 | 62 | 14 | 82% | |
| Aug 2014 | 38 | 34 | 4 | 89% | |
| Sep 2014 | 31 | 23 | 8 | 74% | |
| Oct 2014 | 275 | 210 | 65 | 76% | |
| Nov 2014 | 143 | 117 | 26 | 82% | |
| Dec 2014 | 365 | 289 | 76 | 79% | |
| Jan 2015 | 169 | 127 | 42 | 75% | |
| Feb 2015 | 77 | 55 | 22 | 71% | |
| Mar 2015 | 95 | 76 | 19 | 80% | |
| Apr 2015 | 54 | 40 | 14 | 74% | |
| May 2015 | 67 | 58 | 9 | 87% | |
| Jun 2015 | 214 | 152 | 62 | 71% | |
| Jul 2015 | 67 | 50 | 17 | 75% | |
| Aug 2015 | 70 | 56 | 14 | 80% | |
| Sep 2015 | 58 | 40 | 18 | 69% | |
| Oct 2015 | 48 | 42 | 6 | 88% | |
| Nov 2015 | 101 | 84 | 17 | 83% | |
| Dec 2015 | 96 | 60 | 36 | 62% | |
| Jan 2016 | 69 | 56 | 13 | 81% | |
| Feb 2016 | 44 | 35 | 9 | 80% | |
| Mar 2016 | 73 | 54 | 19 | 74% | |
| Apr 2016 | 63 | 45 | 18 | 71% | |
| May 2016 | 48 | 36 | 12 | 75% | |
| Jun 2016 | 70 | 51 | 19 | 73% | |
| Jul 2016 | 81 | 61 | 20 | 75% | |
| Aug 2016 | 35 | 21 | 14 | 60% | |
| Sep 2016 | 45 | 32 | 13 | 71% | |
| Oct 2016 | 27 | 20 | 7 | 74% | |
| Nov 2016 | 123 | 94 | 29 | 76% | |
| Dec 2016 | 62 | 43 | 19 | 69% | |
| Jan 2017 | 38 | 24 | 14 | 63% | |
| Feb 2017 | 27 | 17 | 10 | 63% | |
| Mar 2017 | 50 | 30 | 20 | 60% | |
| Apr 2017 | 26 | 20 | 6 | 77% | |
| May 2017 | 40 | 27 | 13 | 68% | |
| Jun 2017 | 145 | 93 | 52 | 64% | |
| Jul 2017 | 77 | 55 | 22 | 71% | |
| Aug 2017 | 38 | 31 | 7 | 82% | |
| Sep 2017 | 20 | 13 | 7 | 65% | |
| Oct 2017 | 58 | 44 | 14 | 76% | |
| Nov 2017 | 103 | 70 | 33 | 68% | |
| Dec 2017 | 84 | 50 | 34 | 60% | |
| Jan 2018 | 59 | 39 | 20 | 66% | |
| Feb 2018 | 41 | 25 | 16 | 61% | |
| Mar 2018 | 43 | 27 | 16 | 63% | |
| Apr 2018 | 27 | 13 | 14 | 48% | |
| May 2018 | 44 | 25 | 19 | 57% | |
| Jun 2018 | 51 | 28 | 23 | 55% | |
| Jul 2018 | 48 | 25 | 23 | 52% | |
| Aug 2018 | 42 | 25 | 17 | 60% | |
| Sep 2018 | 32 | 20 | 12 | 62% | |
| Oct 2018 | 23 | 12 | 11 | 52% | |
| Nov 2018 | 51 | 44 | 7 | 86% | |
| Dec 2018 | 37 | 23 | 14 | 62% | |
| Jan 2019 | 33 | 18 | 15 | 55% | |
| Feb 2019 | 30 | 22 | 8 | 73% | |
| Mar 2019 | 11 | 7 | 4 | 64% | |
| Apr 2019 | 24 | 22 | 2 | 92% | |
| May 2019 | 30 | 18 | 12 | 60% | |
| Jun 2019 | 59 | 46 | 13 | 78% | |
| Jul 2019 | 77 | 64 | 13 | 83% | |
| Aug 2019 | 21 | 10 | 11 | 48% | |
| Sep 2019 | 12 | 9 | 3 | 75% | |
| Oct 2019 | 21 | 13 | 8 | 62% | |
| Nov 2019 | 75 | 58 | 17 | 77% | |
| Dec 2019 | 75 | 66 | 9 | 88% | |
| Jan 2020 | 44 | 38 | 6 | 86% | |
| Feb 2020 | 34 | 31 | 3 | 91% | |
| Mar 2020 | 73 | 61 | 12 | 84% | |
| Apr 2020 | 68 | 50 | 18 | 74% | |
| May 2020 | 48 | 40 | 8 | 83% | |
| Jun 2020 | 54 | 44 | 10 | 81% | |
| Jul 2020 | 67 | 52 | 15 | 78% | |
| Aug 2020 | 50 | 42 | 8 | 84% | |
| Sep 2020 | 34 | 27 | 7 | 79% | |
| Oct 2020 | 50 | 37 | 13 | 74% | |
| Nov 2020 | 43 | 33 | 10 | 77% | |
| Dec 2020 | 33 | 22 | 11 | 67% | |
| Jan 2021 | 19 | 11 | 8 | 58% | |
| Feb 2021 | 28 | 19 | 9 | 68% | |
| Mar 2021 | 20 | 14 | 6 | 70% | |
| Apr 2021 | 28 | 23 | 5 | 82% | |
| May 2021 | 13 | 8 | 5 | 62% | |
| Jun 2021 | 10 | 8 | 2 | 80% | |
| Jul 2021 | 15 | 8 | 7 | 53% | |
| Aug 2021 | 19 | 13 | 6 | 68% | |
| Sep 2021 | 15 | 10 | 5 | 67% | |
| Oct 2021 | 4 | 4 | 0 | 100% | small sample |
| Nov 2021 | 15 | 12 | 3 | 80% | |
| Dec 2021 | 9 | 7 | 2 | 78% | |
| Jan 2022 | 11 | 7 | 4 | 64% | |
| Feb 2022 | 10 | 7 | 3 | 70% | |
| Mar 2022 | 12 | 7 | 5 | 58% | |
| Apr 2022 | 10 | 8 | 2 | 80% | |
| May 2022 | 7 | 7 | 0 | 100% | |
| Jun 2022 | 14 | 10 | 4 | 71% | |
| Jul 2022 | 11 | 5 | 6 | 45% | |
| Aug 2022 | 11 | 7 | 4 | 64% | |
| Sep 2022 | 8 | 7 | 1 | 88% | |
| Oct 2022 | 9 | 6 | 3 | 67% | |
| Nov 2022 | 6 | 3 | 3 | 50% | |
| Dec 2022 | 15 | 9 | 6 | 60% | |
| Jan 2023 | 7 | 3 | 4 | 43% | |
| Feb 2023 | 12 | 6 | 6 | 50% | |
| Mar 2023 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 67% | small sample |
| Apr 2023 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 100% | small sample |
| May 2023 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 100% | |
| Jun 2023 | 8 | 7 | 1 | 88% | |
| Jul 2023 | 9 | 5 | 4 | 56% | |
| Aug 2023 | 14 | 8 | 6 | 57% | |
| Sep 2023 | 7 | 6 | 1 | 86% | |
| Oct 2023 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 50% | small sample |
| Nov 2023 | 9 | 5 | 4 | 56% | |
| Dec 2023 | 8 | 7 | 1 | 88% | |
| Jan 2024 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 75% | small sample |
| Feb 2024 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 33% | small sample |
| Mar 2024 | 7 | 4 | 3 | 57% | |
| Apr 2024 | 6 | 6 | 0 | 100% | |
| May 2024 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 80% | |
| Jun 2024 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 60% | |
| Jul 2024 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 60% | |
| Aug 2024 | 9 | 7 | 2 | 78% | |
| Sep 2024 | 7 | 4 | 3 | 57% | |
| Oct 2024 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 33% | small sample |
| Nov 2024 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 75% | small sample |
| Dec 2024 | 14 | 12 | 2 | 86% | |
| Jan 2025 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 100% | small sample |
| Feb 2025 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 50% | small sample |
| Mar 2025 | 9 | 4 | 5 | 44% | |
| Apr 2025 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 60% | |
| May 2025 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0% | small sample |
| Jun 2025 | 8 | 3 | 5 | 38% | |
| Jul 2025 | 7 | 5 | 2 | 71% | |
| Aug 2025 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 75% | small sample |
| Sep 2025 | 13 | 7 | 6 | 54% | |
| Oct 2025 | 6 | 3 | 3 | 50% | |
| Nov 2025 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 100% | small sample |
| Dec 2025 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 100% | small sample |
| Jan 2026 | 6 | 4 | 2 | 67% | |
| Feb 2026 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 100% | small sample |
| Mar 2026 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 100% | small sample |
| Apr 2026 | 4 | 0 | 4 | 0% | small sample |
| May 2026 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 80% | |
| Jun 2026 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 50% | small sample |
| Jul 2026 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 67% | small sample |
| Aug 2026 | 6 | 1 | 5 | 17% | |
| Sep 2026 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0% | small sample |
| Oct 2026 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 100% | small sample |
How this report was made
- Population
- all Steam reviews of the game (every language, purchase type, and verdict), walked newest-first per window; only English-language reviews are analyzed
- Sample
- 732 English reviews, time-proportional draw over 143 windows (newest-first within each), taken from an all-language walk and kept English-only — where English is a minority the sample runs smaller than the draw, and every margin of error is computed at 732
- Aspect yield
- 466 of 732 analyzed reviews carry at least one aspect (63.7%); every share on this page divides by all 732
- Interval regime
- calm: standard margins of error for a share of a sample (Wilson interval), no widening needed
- Fetch paths
- 143 time windows fetched directly (windowed)
- Language mix
- 1,000 fetched: english 737 · german 43 · schinese 40 · 19 more
- Steam-marked windows
- none flagged by Steam (Valve's off-topic flagging began March 2019)
- Marked share
- 0.0% of sample inside marked windows, under the 2% floor
- Narrative
- passed the grounding gate first try
- Evidence floor
- aspects and emergent themes appear only with 5+ supporting reviews; smaller counts sit at the classifier's false-positive floor
- Instrument readings
- measured once on the study corpus for this model and prompt: frozen calibration, not properties of this run
- · aspect tagging vs. human labels
- 0.801 [0.752–0.844] (F1 against a human-labeled test set; 1.0 is best)
- · quotes filed under the wrong aspect
- 11.6% [6.6–19.6] of quotes, measured by hand on a sample; lower is better — measured on the prior model (2026-08-05); re-measurement pending
- · independent model vs. production labels
- 0.791 [0.772–0.810] (F1 of the production labeler against an independent judge model) — measured on the prior model (2026-07-25); re-measurement pending
- Versions
- deepseek-flash · prompt classify-v1 · ontology v2
- Run
- serve-20261008T105944Z-1d29529e · code 798e06c
full methodology in the milestone write-ups