The checklist
Layer 1: pre-landing assets (capsule art and title)
- All four required capsules uploaded at Valve's exact sizes: header 920 x 430, small 462 x 174, main 1232 x 706, vertical 748 x 896.
- The logo is still legible in the small capsule at the smallest sizes Steam generates from it, 120 x 45 and 184 x 69.
- The capsule carries two elements only: the game title and a single key visual.
- The capsule passes three thumbnail tests: blur it, strip it to greyscale, and place it in a grid beside your five closest genre competitors, and genre and title survive all three.
- No review scores, award names or logos, discount copy, other-product promotion, or extra marketing text on the base capsules. Valve prohibits all of it outside the Artwork Overrides feature.
- One visual signature (a font treatment, an accent colour, a framing device) is consistent across every capsule size.
Layer 2: above-the-fold assets (trailer, tags, short description, first screenshots)
- The first trailer opens on core gameplay, and the first five seconds show the skill expression or loop that makes the game feel good.
- Trailer order is deliberate. Steam shows the first two valid trailers before screenshots and generates the uneditable six-second microtrailer from the first visible video.
- All 20 tag slots are filled.
- The top five tags name your most specific sub-genre and mechanics rather than broad labels. Valve says less common tags can carry more influence in recommendation matching.
- The short description answers three questions: what genre is this, what is the core action, what makes it different. Plain text only, no time-based copy.
- The first three carousel screenshots each show a different system, environment, or progression moment, not three angles on the same beat.
Layer 3: below-the-fold assets (About This Game, media, community)
- At least five screenshots uploaded, each 1920 x 1080 minimum in 16:9.
- Screenshots show actual gameplay: no concept art, cinematic stills, awards, or marketing copy. Menu and UI shots count only when they show something unique about the game.
- At least four screenshots are marked suitable for all ages, which Valve requires for a game to appear in prominent store areas.
- Two or three in-text GIFs, each showing something the carousel does not already show. Animated assets run 12 seconds or less.
- Every GIF's first frame communicates action. An idle or black first frame reads as a static image.
- Statics, not animations, are used wherever a readable frame is the point: UI screens, maps, customisation panels, skill trees.
- About This Game media is generated at 1170 px wide, and all screenshots plus GIFs total under 15 MB.
- Community Hub discussions are enabled and monitored before the Coming Soon page goes public, so prelaunch questions do not sit unanswered.
How to use it
The layers are ordered by funnel leverage: the earlier a player encounters an asset, the more of your total funnel performance it decides. A perfect About This Game section behind a capsule nobody clicks converts nothing. Average indie capsule click-through sits below 2%, while titles clearing 4% earn meaningfully more visibility in Steam's discovery queues and search, so Layer 1 holds the largest single multiplier.
Run the whole list once before the Coming Soon page goes public, then again at each milestone that brings fresh traffic: Steam Next Fest, a demo release, launch week. Layers 1 and 2 are worth re-checking every time; Layer 3 items mostly stay fixed once they pass. Treat unchecked boxes as a priority queue: fix the highest layer first even when a lower item looks easier.
Common mistakes when working the list
Judging capsule art at full size. The small capsule appears in search results, top-seller lists, and new-release lists, and Valve renders it as small as 120 x 45. Review it at that size, not at 100% in your image editor. Our free Steam capsule analyser scores a live capsule 0 to 100 across the six criteria in Layer 1 and returns ranked fixes, which settles the first three boxes faster than judging them by eye.
Filling the 20 tag slots with broad labels. Twenty tags that all say Action, Adventure, and Indie is a filled checkbox and a wasted asset. See Steam tags for how the slots map to store surfaces.
Using below-the-fold content to create interest. Players who scroll that far are already interested, and are asking how much game there is and whether quality holds. Those assets confirm; they do not persuade from cold.
Ticking a box once and never revisiting it. Player-added tags shift tag weights over time, so a profile that was correct at Coming Soon can drift by launch.
For the reasoning behind each item, see how to optimise your Steam store page. For capsule design criteria, see Steam capsule art, and for upload dimensions and templates, Steam capsule sizes.
Sources: Steamworks documentation on store graphical assets, graphical asset rules, tags and trailers, re-verified 5 August 2026 for capsule dimensions, the 120 x 45 and 184 x 69 auto-renders, screenshot minimums, and the four-screenshots-suitable-for-all-ages requirement. The three-layer framework, thumbnail tests and asset-mix guidance are Immutable's own store-page practice. Capsule click-through figures are directional benchmark data.
