A recent study concluded that players who put more of their time into a game may be prone to leaving a negative review on Steam. The studio, available on Researchgate, analyzes what might cause this paradoxical relationship between users and games they sink a lot of hours into, proving that reviews aren’t an infallible indicator of user satisfaction. Additionally, it provides insight into how this differs based on the game’s genre.
In August 2026, Chetan Mudlapur and Om Prakash Singh of the Indian Institute of Information Technology conducted a study on how long-term engagement with a video game may affect players’ relationship with it. For this study, the researchers analyzed over half a million Steam reviews and used data-processing methods to filter them and reduce bias. Although they took reviews from users who received free or early access to games into consideration, they excluded them from the research, as they believed the financial aspect plays a big role in how the average player reviews it.
Mudlapur and Singh’s study found that users were more likely to review games during their first few hours of playing or after a long time with a game. Steam’s refund policy allows players to get their money back if they request a refund before reaching two hours of playtime. Reviews from users with low playtimes (between 0 and 2 hours) were mostly negative, indicating that it’s likely players who stopped playing and asked for a refund. The next groups in the study were those who played between 2 and 200 hours, and these reviews proved to be “consistently positive.” Lastly, there was the “veterans” group, which included all players with over 200 hours of playtime; here, the researchers noticed a huge rise in negative reviews.
The researchers noticed that games with the most high-playtime players also had great paradox rates when it came to reviews, meaning their fans were most likely to play for a long time but also leave a bad review. War Thunder, a free live-service game, takes the cake as the game with the highest paradox rate in this study. When visiting its Steam page, it’s noticeable that the number of bad reviews has increased significantly over the years. While its overall rating is “Mostly Positive,” recent reviews are “Mixed” — probably due to the fact that the more gamers play, the more they dislike certain aspects, causing them to leave a negative review.
Another aspect to consider is updates. Games that have been around for a long time often receive regular updates. Sometimes, these changes displease players who have stuck with the game since the beginning, and are tendentially less open to change.
Overall, the study concludes that live-service, strategy, fighting, and open-ended survival games had the highest paradox rates. Soulslike games are notorious for being hard to master, which might make you think that they’d suffer due to reviews from frustrated players. However, soulslike, JRPGs, and indie games showed the lowest paradox rates.
“The pattern was observed to be strongly linked to genre structure. Genres with high paradox rates were mostly those with open-ended, service-dependent, or session-based titles where player experience depends heavily on balance updates, matchmaking, community behavior, and ongoing developer support. In contrast, genres with low paradox rates (Souls, Indie, JRPG) were usually story-driven or self-contained experiences with clear endings, where dissatisfied players were more likely to quit early instead of continuing to play for hundreds of hours.”
The researchers believe that the sunk cost fallacy is a reason why players with such high playtime end up with such strong negative feelings towards games they loved at some point. They have invested so much time and money in these games that they just can’t seem to let go and quit for good, even if the games have changed to the point they don’t like them anymore. It appears that around 50 hours is the sweet spot, as it is when players are most likely to leave positive reviews.
