STS (Steam Temporal Satisfaction) Profiles

STS Profiles is a small research prototype I built to explore how players talk about time in play. It was inspired by my PhD work on “temporal satisfaction” – the idea that players regularly evaluate whether a game feels worth their time, not just whether it’s “good” or “bad”.

The app analyses recent English-language Steam user reviews for a selected game and highlights time-centric language across three themes: Length (how long it takes), Grind (repetition, friction, time-gates), and Value (whether the time spent feels worthwhile). It then provides simple theme-level sentiment summaries, a playtime snapshot, and lets you filter and export the themed reviews for closer inspection.

The goal is to offer an accessible, data-informed way to surface patterns in how time is discussed – useful for players (quick context), researchers (a lightweight exploratory tool), and developers (early signals about time-related praise or frustration). This is indicative analysis only, generated automatically from public reviews – not an official rating or endorsement.

See the full app here: https://sts-profiles.netlify.app/

Example STS Profile (poster export) – Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Steam AppID: 1903340). Generated from the 1,000 most recent English-language Steam reviews, showing analysis scope, themed reviews found, median playtime, playtime distribution, and theme-level sentiment across Length, Grind, and Value (indicative only – not an official rating).

Datasets & Code