How the deal score works
No black box. Here's exactly how we score every deal, so you can check our work.
Every deal on LOOT RADAR gets a Deal Score from 0 to 100. It is computed automatically on every data ingestion from four components. Methodology version 1.0.
| Component | How it works |
|---|---|
| Discount depth (40 pts) | The current discount percentage, scaled as 40 x min(1, discount / 90), so the curve saturates at 90% off. A 50%-off deal earns about 22 points; 90%+ earns the full 40. The difference between 92% and 95% off is noise, so we don't reward it further. |
| Historical low (25 pts) | A binary 25-point bonus awarded only when our own price snapshots prove this is the all-time lowest price we have ever tracked for the game. We never award it from a retailer's 'was' price we can't verify, and a game's first-ever sighting gets 0 — we don't invent history. |
| Review quality (20 pts) | Steam's positive-review percentage, scaled as round(20 x (pct - 50) / 50), for games with at least 50 reviews. A 70%-positive game earns 8/20; only 95%+ masterpieces approach 20; below 50% positive earns 0. Games with fewer than 50 reviews (or no rating) get a neutral 5 — we neither punish small indie games nor reward unknown ones. |
| Freshness (15 pts) | How recently the price was verified. Full 15 points when verified within the last 6 hours, decaying linearly to 0 at 48 hours — after that the row is re-fetched or dropped, because sales end without notice. |
What the numbers mean
| Score | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 90–100 | Exceptional — usually a historical low on a well-reviewed game. |
| 85–89 | EXCELLENT badge. |
| 70–84 | GREAT badge. |
| 50–69 | Decent — shown with its score, no badge. |
| 0–49 | Weak — shown honestly; we don't hide bad scores. |
House rules
- The HISTORICAL LOW badge appears only when our price history supports it. No history, no badge.
- The ENDING SOON badge appears only when the retailer gives a real expiry date within 48 hours. We never invent urgency.
- Free games are scored on the same scale where meaningful; 'free forever' of a quality title scores high.
- Scores are recomputed on every ingestion. A deal's score can fall if a better price appears elsewhere.
Check our work. Every deal card links to its game page, where you can see the full price history chart and the store-by-store comparison behind the score.
Methodology disputes or improvements: this page is versioned with the pipeline that computes the scores. If the pipeline changes, this page changes with it.