Steam Direct 2026: Complete Publishing Walkthrough

Steam Direct is the route any developer can take to put a game on Steam, and the realistic cost before launch is a $100 fee and a few weeks of waiting. You sign the Steamworks Subscriber Agreement, pay $100 per product (recoupable after the game earns $1,000), set up tax and banking, build a store page, upload a build, and pass review. Valve takes 30% of each sale. The whole path takes roughly four to six weeks from signup to launch — almost all of it the mandatory lead time on your store page and Valve's review — and the fee, the split, and the review exist for the same reason: to keep the library clean without locking indies out.

Step	What you do	Time
1. Agreement	Sign the Steamworks Subscriber Agreement	Minutes
2. Fee	Pay the $100 Steam Direct fee per product	Minutes
3. Verification	Complete identity, tax (W-9 or W-8BEN), and banking	Days
4. Store page	Capsules, trailer, description, screenshots, age rating	Days to weeks
5. Lead time	Keep the Coming Soon page public before release	Fixed minimum
6. Build + review	Upload via SteamPipe and submit for review	A few business days
7. Release	Set the release date and launch	Your call

What Steam Direct replaced, and why#

For most of the 2010s, getting onto Steam meant winning a community vote through Steam Greenlight. Greenlight became a bottleneck: good games sat in a queue behind popularity contests, and the process was opaque. In June 2018 Valve replaced it with Steam Direct, modeled on mobile app stores. Instead of asking players to green-light a game, Valve charges a small, recoupable fee per product and checks that the game and its store page meet a set of technical and content rules. The bar is administrative, not creative: if you complete the steps and your build runs, you can ship. That open door is why tens of thousands of games now release on Steam each year.

The seven steps in detail#

1. Sign the Steamworks Subscriber Agreement#

You create a Steamworks partner account at partner.steamgames.com and sign the Steamworks Subscriber Agreement, the legal contract that governs your relationship with Valve. This is also where you decide whether you are publishing as an individual or as a company, and set the publisher name players will see on your store page.

2. Pay the $100 Steam Direct fee#

Each product costs a $100 Steam Direct fee, paid once. The fee is recoupable: once the game has earned $1,000 in adjusted gross revenue (revenue after returns, chargebacks, and taxes), Valve returns the $100 through your payout. The fee exists to discourage spam and asset flips, not to fund Valve — which is why it comes back once a real game earns real money.

3. Complete identity, tax, and banking verification#

Valve has to know who you are and how to pay you. You verify your identity, fill in your banking details, and complete a tax interview. US developers file the W-9; non-US developers file the W-8BEN, which can reduce the default 30% United States withholding tax through a tax treaty. This step is the one most likely to stall your timeline if your documents are not ready, so gather them before you start.

4. Build your store page#

The store page is your game's first impression and the thing Valve reviews most closely. You need capsule images (the banner-style graphics in several fixed sizes), a trailer, screenshots, a short description (shown in lists and search) and a longer about section, and a verified age rating. Steam now requires an International Age Rating Coalition (IARC) questionnaire for every product, which assigns ratings across regions automatically and for free. Treat the page like a product, not a placeholder: the capsule and trailer carry most of the click weight.

5. Respect the Coming Soon lead time#

Once your store page is approved and live, Steam requires it to remain public for a minimum lead time before release. This window is deliberate: it lets you collect wishlists, and wishlists are the signal Steam's algorithm uses to decide how visible your launch is. Build this lead time into your release date from day one. A page that appears two days before launch collects almost no wishlists and launches to near-zero visibility, regardless of how good the game is.

6. Upload your build and submit for review#

You upload your game as one or more depots — platform-specific packages (a Windows depot, a macOS depot, a Linux depot) — and organize them into a manifest that defines what each customer receives. The standard tool is SteamPipe, Valve's command-line upload system. After upload, you submit the build and the store page for review. Review is not a creative judgment; Valve checks that the build runs on a clean machine, that the store page meets the rules, and that age ratings and ownership of any copyrighted material are in order. Expect a few business days, and expect to fix something on the first pass.

7. Release#

When the build and page are approved and the lead time has passed, you set your release date and launch. On release day, customers who wishlisted the game get an email, and Steam's visibility algorithms place you in front of more players based on the wishlist momentum you built. From here the work shifts from publishing to operating — patches, updates, and community.

Costs and revenue share#

Item	Amount	Notes
Steam Direct fee	$100 per product	Recoupable after $1,000 in adjusted gross revenue
Standard revenue share	70% to you, 30% to Valve	Applies to the first $10 million
Scale tier 1	75% to you	On revenue above $10 million
Scale tier 2	80% to you	On revenue above $50 million
US tax withholding	up to 30%	Reduced by treaty via the W-8BEN for non-US developers

The scale tiers are incremental: the 25% and 20% rates apply only to the dollars above each threshold, not to your entire revenue, and the tier for a given year is set by the prior year's earnings. For an indie releasing a first game, assume 30% to Valve and plan around the $100 fee. Valve pays out monthly once you cross the payout threshold, minus returns, chargebacks, and tax.

What Valve actually checks#

Review covers two tracks — the store page and the build — and both can run a few business days. Valve is checking compliance, not quality:

• The build runs on a clean machine. No missing dependencies, no crashes on launch, no installer that grabs third-party software.
• The store page is complete and honest. Real capsule images and screenshots, a working trailer, accurate description, no copyrighted material you cannot prove you own.
• Age ratings are assigned. The IARC questionnaire is complete.
• The product is a real game. The recoupable fee and the review together keep out the spam and asset flips that Greenlight struggled with.

A first pass frequently comes back with a request, usually a missing image size or a build dependency. Treat that as normal, fix it, and resubmit.

Wishlists and Steam Next Fest#

Because Steam's algorithm weights wishlists so heavily, the period between page approval and launch is where most of your marketing work happens. Steam Next Fest is Valve's recurring, multi-day event where unreleased games publish playable demos and run developer livestreams. It is the single largest source of pre-launch wishlists, and a strong Next Fest can translate directly into a more visible release. If you can produce a solid demo, participating is one of the highest-leverage things a small studio can do on Steam.

For the wider question of where to sell — Steam, itch.io, or the Epic Games Store — see our comparison of PC game stores.

Common mistakes#

Mistake	What goes wrong	What to do instead
Setting the release date too soon	Not enough lead time for wishlists; launches to no visibility	Publish the Coming Soon page first, then pick the date
Placeholder store page	Rejected on review; lost lead time	Have capsules, trailer, and copy ready before submitting
Skipping the IARC questionnaire	Page cannot go live	Complete the age rating — it is free and required
Build that only runs on your machine	Rejected; it must run on a clean install	Test on a fresh OS install with no dev tools
Wrong tax form	30% withholding where a treaty would cut it	File the W-8BEN as a non-US developer
Ignoring Next Fest	Misses the biggest pre-launch wishlist driver	Build a demo and apply when a fest is announced
Underestimating returns	Revenue looks higher than the payout	Plan around 70% to you, minus returns and tax

How Egmatic fits#

Egmatic exports a desktop build for Windows, macOS, and Linux from a single 2D project, and that desktop build is exactly what you upload to Steam through Steamworks. Because the platform-specific work happens at the engine layer rather than in your game logic, you prepare one project and ship it to Steam and to mobile from the same source. Steamworks features — achievements, cloud saves, the overlay — are wired through the engine's platform integration, so the build you bring to Steam Direct already speaks the platform. For the broader picture of shipping to desktop and mobile together, see our multiplatform export guide and our complete publishing guide.

Conclusion#

Steam Direct is an administrative path, not a creative gate. Sign the agreement, pay the recoupable $100 fee, verify your identity and tax, build a real store page with a working trailer and an IARC age rating, respect the Coming Soon lead time so you can collect wishlists, upload a build that runs on a clean machine, and pass review. Budget four to six weeks, assume Valve keeps 30%, and use the lead time to run a Next Fest demo if you can. The system is designed so that a solo developer who follows the steps can ship a real game to the largest PC audience in the world — and the only thing standing between you and that launch is completing the checklist correctly.

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Sources#

1. Steam Direct replaced Steam Greenlight in June 2018 with a recoupable per-product fee — Steamworks Documentation: Steam Direct
2. The $100 Steam Direct fee is recoupable after $1,000 in adjusted gross revenue — Steamworks Documentation: Steam Direct
3. Valve's revenue share is 70/30 standard, with 75/25 above $10 million and 80/20 above $50 million on incremental revenue — Steamworks Documentation: Revenue Share
4. The Steamworks onboarding steps: agreement, fee, tax and banking verification, store page, build, review — Steamworks Documentation: Getting Started
5. The IARC questionnaire assigns age ratings across regions for free and is required for every product — International Age Rating Coalition
6. SteamPipe is Valve's command-line tool for uploading builds as depots and manifests — Steamworks Documentation: SteamPipe
7. Steam Next Fest is Valve's recurring event for playable demos and developer livestreams that drives pre-launch wishlists — Steam Next Fest
8. Non-US developers file the W-8BEN to reduce the 30% US withholding tax through a treaty — IRS Form W-8BEN