The Stanley Parable
Fair · Narrative · 2013
Steam Deck VerifiedThe verdict
WAIT.
A BANGER at $3.96, only fair at $14.99.
- Length
- 1.5h
- Value
- $9.99/hr
- Reviews
- 92% positive
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Minimum on the Steam store: 2 GB of memory, 3 GB of storage. Runs on Windows, macOS, Linux.
The Stanley Parable is a first person exploration game. You will play as Stanley, and you will not play as Stanley. You will follow a story, you will not follow a story. You will have a choice, you will have no choice. The game will end, the game will never end.
What drives the score
How to read this
Every input gets a grade, S to D, read from the buyer's side. The score is multiplicative, so an input only counts as raising when it sits near the top of its own scale. Anything with real room left is holding the score back, because that room is the gap to 100. ▲ marks a lift, ▼ a drag or a dock, ? an input we do not have, • a fact this genre's score does not use. The exact weights stay secret.
The value story
The lowest price on record is $2.25, set in April 2020. It has been discounted 65 times in the 13 years tracked here, typically at 50 percent off, with about 9 weeks between sales. Today it is at full price. The last sale was about 15 weeks ago, and on this game's rhythm the next one tends to arrive within 9 weeks. The math puts its BANGER price at $3.96. The record reaches that level 21 times.
Value puts it in the top 8 percent of the games it competes with. It is pricier than 82 percent of its genre, and better reviewed than 95 percent. Among the games that feel like it, Dr. Langeskov, The Tiger, and The Terribly Cursed Emerald: A Whirlwind Heist (free, scores 84) beats it on value, while it beats The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe ($24.99, scores 60).
Steam's global achievement data puts 79 percent of players at this game's ending achievement. The median game this site can measure sits at 8. This site sampled 800 of its Steam-purchase reviews; 12 were written by buyers who refunded it, sampled from reviews written July 2021 to September 2026. Inside the two-hour refund window, 83 percent of the 10,344 reviews written there were positive, against 92 percent overall, and those are 26 percent of everything written about it.
The main story runs 1.5 hours. Doing everything runs 9, 6.1 times as long.
At 1.5 hours it is a handheld-sized game, and Valve rates it Deck Verified.
The drop-off
79% start to 79% finishPeople genuinely stick with this one. Steam global achievements
Players
21 players at peak in the last day.
The chart appears once this game has been counted more than once.Player counts via SteamSpy.
What players say
Stanley took out his wallet and bought this video game. He installed it, sat at his desk and began pressing buttons. 10/10
Such a simple game that works so well because of the humour and wit of the dialogue. You will want to spend the time discovering all of the possible endings. 8/10
There once was a man named Stanley. He played the Stanley Parable! Had a fun time. Would buy on the dime. For an overall good time! For an actual review would definitely recommend this game if you love Meta Humor. However, would get it on sale or just buy the updated Ultra Deluxe Version that has more endings and updated gameplay.
Player reviews from Steam: the most helpful all-time, plus the newest that clear the same quality bar, with the hours each player had put in when they wrote it. The mix of Recommended and Not recommended follows the game's Steam ratio. Rotates daily. Opinions are theirs.
Cite this score
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The Stanley Parable scores 62/100 on the BANG Score (fair value). The BANG Score rates what a game is worth for the money. Via Steam BANGERS. https://steambangers.com/game/221910/the-stanley-parableThe BANG Score is one number for value, 0 to 100: price against how it reviews and how long it was built to be. It answers the money question and stops there; whether the game is for you is still your call.
Reviews set the ceiling and price moves you inside it, so a cheap game that reviews badly cannot climb. Ratings from few reviewers are shrunk toward the middle, so 100 percent from nine people does not outrank 96 percent from ninety thousand. Length comes from HowLongToBeat where it can be matched, measured against a per-genre floor so a five-hour narrative game is judged against other narrative games rather than against a sixty-hour RPG. Where no verified length exists the score says so and carries a dock, because the biggest input is then a guess. The full method, including where it is weak → Steam reviews as of Sep 12, price as of Sep 24.
A number here look wrong? Tell me what it got wrong and I will look at the inputs behind it.