How to put your game on Steam: a complete non-technical guide
Steam is the world's biggest PC gaming platform. Here's exactly how to get your game listed, from Steamworks setup to store page to launch day.
Steam has over 130 million monthly active users. It is, by a wide margin, the largest PC gaming platform on the planet. If you want people to play your game on a computer, Steam is where you go.
The good news: Valve lets anyone publish a game on Steam. There are no gatekeepers, no approval boards, no "sorry, we're not accepting new developers right now." You pay a fee, follow the process, and your game goes live.
The bad news: the process has a lot of steps, and most guides skip the parts that actually trip people up.
This one doesn't. Here's exactly how to publish a game on Steam, from zero to launch day.
Step 1: Create a Steamworks developer account
Everything starts at partner.steamgames.com. This is Steamworks — Valve's backend for developers and publishers.
What you need to sign up:
- A Steam account (your regular one works fine)
- Your legal name or business name
- Bank and tax information for receiving payments
- $100 app deposit fee — this is charged per game, not per account
That $100 is recoupable. Once your game earns $1,000 in revenue, Valve refunds the deposit. For most games that actually sell, you get it back. For a game that never launches or never sells, you don't.
Timeline: Account setup takes about 30 minutes. Valve's verification of your identity and tax info can take 1-5 business days. Don't wait until the last minute — do this first.
Once approved, you'll have access to the Steamworks dashboard, where you'll do everything else in this guide.
Step 2: Create your app and store page
Inside Steamworks, you'll create a new "app" — this is your game's entry in Steam's system. Every game has a unique App ID, and once it's assigned, you can start building your store page.
Your store page is the single most important factor in whether people buy your game. Not your trailer. Not your marketing campaign. The store page. It's where 90% of purchasing decisions happen.
The store description
You get a short description (under 300 characters) and a long description (essentially unlimited, but keep it under 2,000 words).
The short description appears in search results and on browsing pages. It has to hook someone in one sentence. Not "an exciting adventure game with unique mechanics." Instead: "Build a cult, brainwash villagers, and fight rival cults in a roguelike management sim." Specificity sells.
The long description supports basic HTML formatting — bold, italics, headers, bullet lists. Structure it like this:
- Opening hook — one paragraph that makes someone want to keep reading
- Feature list — 5-8 bullet points describing concrete things the player does
- Details — expand on mechanics, story, modes, anything that adds depth
- Technical info — platform support, controller support, multiplayer details
Don't write marketing fluff. Steam users are savvy and they scroll past vague language. Tell them exactly what your game is and what they'll do in it.
Step 3: Prepare your store assets
Valve requires a specific set of visual assets, and they're strict about dimensions. Get these wrong and your page won't go live.
Capsule images
These are the rectangular images that represent your game across Steam — in search results, on the front page, in wishlists, everywhere. You need several sizes:
- Header Capsule — 460 x 215 px (appears at the top of your store page)
- Small Capsule — 231 x 87 px (search results, wishlists)
- Main Capsule — 616 x 353 px (featured sections, big sales)
- Hero Capsule — 1920 x 620 px (top of store page, large banners)
- Library Capsule — 600 x 900 px (appears in a player's library)
Every one of these matters. The Small Capsule is what people see when they're scrolling through hundreds of games. If it's unreadable at that size — blurry text, cluttered art, dull colors — they scroll right past.
Pro tip: include your game's title in every capsule image. Don't rely on Steam's text overlay. Many contexts show only the image with no text.
Screenshots
You need at least 5 screenshots. You can upload up to 20. Use all 20 if you can.
Screenshots should be actual gameplay, not concept art. Steam users know the difference and they're cynical about pre-rendered images that don't represent the real experience.
Resolution: at minimum 1280 x 720, but 1920 x 1080 is strongly recommended. Higher is fine — Steam will scale them down.
Order matters. The first four screenshots are visible without scrolling. Put your most visually striking, most gameplay-representative shots first.
Trailer
Technically optional. Practically mandatory.
Games with trailers get dramatically more wishlists than games without them. Valve's own data confirms this. Your trailer should be:
- Under 60 seconds for maximum impact
- Gameplay first — show actual gameplay within the first 5 seconds
- No long logo intros — nobody cares about your studio logo on your first game
- 1080p minimum, 60fps preferred
Upload your trailer through Steamworks as a video asset. Steam handles encoding and hosting.
Step 4: Tagging, categorization, and system requirements
Tags
Steam's tag system is how players discover games. You can apply up to 20 tags to your game. Pick them carefully.
Start with genre tags (Roguelike, Platformer, Strategy), then add thematic tags (Sci-Fi, Horror, Cozy), then feature tags (Local Co-op, Controller Support, Mod Support).
Look at games similar to yours and see what tags they use. This isn't copying — it's understanding how your target audience finds games. If your game is a cozy farming sim with combat, tag it with Farming Sim, Cozy, Action RPG, and anything else that's genuinely accurate.
Don't tag dishonestly. Players can report incorrect tags, and Valve can remove them. If your game isn't an MMO, don't tag it as one just because MMOs are popular.
System requirements
You must provide minimum and recommended system requirements. Be honest. If your game runs poorly on integrated graphics, say so. Nothing generates negative reviews faster than a game that won't run on the hardware the store page claimed it would.
Test on at least two or three different hardware configurations before listing your requirements. If you can't test on low-end hardware, err on the side of caution in your minimums.
Step 5: Set up your game builds (depots)
This is where Steam gets technical, but it's more manageable than it sounds.
Steam distributes games through a system of depots — packages of files that get downloaded to a player's machine. For most games, you'll have a single depot containing all your game files.
How to upload
Use SteamPipe, Valve's command-line tool for uploading builds. You'll:
- Download the Steamworks SDK from the Steamworks dashboard
- Configure a build script (a small text file that tells SteamPipe where your game files are)
- Run the upload command
It looks intimidating if you've never used command-line tools, but the process is copy-paste once you understand the template. Valve's documentation walks through it step by step.
After uploading, you set your build as the default branch — this is what players download when they buy your game. You can also create beta branches for testing before pushing updates to everyone.
Important: your game must be playable via Steam. That means it launches from the Steam client, uses a Steam App ID, and doesn't require players to go somewhere else to download anything. Valve will reject your page if the game doesn't actually work through Steam.
Step 6: Pricing
Valve provides a pricing tool that suggests prices for every currency and region based on your USD price. You can customize individual regional prices, but Valve's recommendations are generally reasonable and account for purchasing power differences.
What should you charge?
There's no universal answer, but here are the patterns:
- $0 (Free to play): Viable if you have a monetization model (cosmetics, battle passes). Without one, you make nothing.
- $1-$4: Short, small games. 30 minutes to 2 hours of content. Hard to profit here because Steam's 30% cut eats most of it.
- $5-$14: The sweet spot for indie games. Most successful indie titles land here. Enough to signal quality, low enough to be an impulse buy.
- $15-$29: Substantial indie games with 10+ hours of content, strong production values, or established audience demand.
- $30+: AAA or premium indie with significant scope. Hard to justify without a strong existing audience or major press coverage.
One thing: you can always run sales later, but you can never raise your base price without consequences. Steam shows price history, and players notice. Start at the price you think is fair and use discounts strategically.
Step 7: Build your wishlist before launch
This is where most first-time developers make their biggest mistake. They finish the game, set up the store page, and launch immediately. Don't do this.
Wishlists are the most important metric on Steam before launch. When someone wishlists your game, Steam notifies them on release day. A game with 7,000 wishlists at launch will outsell a game with 500 wishlists almost every time, even if the games are identical.
How to build wishlists
- Put your store page up early. You can publish your store page months before your game launches. The "Coming Soon" page collects wishlists without you doing anything else.
- Post on social media. Every post about your game should link to the Steam page. Not your website. Not a trailer on YouTube. The Steam page. That's where the wishlist button lives.
- Participate in Steam events. Steam Next Fest is the biggest one — a week-long event where upcoming games offer free demos. Developers routinely report gaining 5,000-20,000 wishlists during a single Next Fest. It's free to participate.
- Share a demo. Even outside of Next Fest, a free demo on your Steam page drives wishlists. Players try the demo, enjoy it, and wishlist the full release.
Realistic timeline: Most indie games need 3-6 months of "Coming Soon" page visibility to build meaningful wishlist numbers. Budget that time into your launch plan.
Step 8: The review process
Before your store page or game goes live, Valve reviews it. This is less intensive than Apple's App Store review, but it still exists.
Valve checks for:
- Completeness — all required assets, descriptions, and builds are present
- Accuracy — your screenshots and description match the actual game
- Policy compliance — no prohibited content, no misleading claims, no trademark violations
- Functionality — the game launches and runs
Typical review time: 2-5 business days for a store page review. Sometimes faster, sometimes slower. Build reviews (when you update your game) are usually quicker.
If Valve flags issues, they'll tell you what needs to change. Fix it, resubmit, and you're back in the queue. Rejections are rare for legitimate games — Valve is much more permissive than Apple or console platforms.
Step 9: Pick your launch date and go live
When your store page is approved, your wishlists are building, and your game is uploaded and tested, you're ready to set a launch date.
Launch day tips
Launch on a Tuesday or Wednesday. These are the highest-traffic days on Steam for new releases. Avoid Fridays — players are less likely to browse the store heading into the weekend, and any issues you discover won't get Valve support until Monday.
Don't launch during a major sale. Steam's Summer Sale, Winter Sale, and Autumn Sale dominate the platform for their duration. Your game will be invisible. Check steamdb.info for upcoming sale dates and avoid them.
Have a launch discount. A 10-15% discount at launch dramatically increases conversion rates. Steam highlights discounted new releases, giving you extra visibility. This is standard practice — not desperation pricing.
Be present on launch day. Monitor your community hub, respond to bug reports, answer questions. The first 48 hours are when Steam's algorithm decides how much visibility to give your game. High engagement signals a healthy launch.
Prepare a Day 1 patch. No matter how much you tested, players will find issues. Have a process ready for building and uploading a quick fix. A fast patch turns a negative review into a positive one.
The full timeline, realistically
Here's what you're looking at from "I have a finished game" to "it's live on Steam":
| Step | Time |
|---|---|
| Steamworks account setup and verification | 1-5 days |
| Store page creation (description, assets, tags) | 3-7 days of work |
| Build upload and depot configuration | 1-2 days |
| Store page review by Valve | 2-5 business days |
| Wishlist building period (Coming Soon) | 1-6 months (recommended) |
| Final build upload and testing | 1-2 days |
| Launch | Day zero |
If you skip the wishlist-building phase and launch immediately after approval, you can technically go from finished game to live on Steam in about 2-3 weeks. But your launch will almost certainly underperform. The developers who do well on Steam treat the pre-launch period as seriously as the development itself.
The bottom line
Publishing a game on Steam is not complicated. It's involved. There are a lot of steps, a lot of asset requirements, and a lot of small decisions that add up. But none of it requires technical expertise. If you can fill out forms, resize images, and write a compelling description, you can get a game on Steam.
The hard part was never the publishing. The hard part is making a game worth publishing.
If you're still in the "making the game" phase — or you've got an idea but aren't sure how to turn it into something real — that's where Exekite fits in. It's an AI game creation platform that handles the building, so you can focus on the design and the vision. And when it's ready, you'll know exactly how to get it in front of Steam's 130 million players.