Steam

Steam is the largest PC game store in the world. It supports both Oculus and Vive, and has the advantage of a large install base. The revenue percentage Steam takes of your sales is not public information, but expect in the ballpark of the industry standard of 30%.

Steam Direct

Previously, Steam used a community-driven process called Greenlight to approve apps for its store. In June of 2017, it ended the Greenlight system, and introduced Steam Direct, a more straight-forward way to get your app released on Steam.

To begin Steam Direct, you will:

• Need to pay a $100 fee
• Fill out paperwork relating to your bank and tax information
• Provide identity verification
• If you are already a Steamworks developer, you'll just need to pay the $100 fee for a product on Steam.

Doing these will give you access to the Steamworks backend. This is where you'll begin to prepare your title for release. Note that with a new account, you will have to wait 30 days before releasing your product! Please keep this in mind when planning your release schedule. Additionally, you will need to prepare your store page and list it as 'coming soon' for at least two weeks. Again, this is for first-time Steamworks Developer accounts.

Please review the other requirements and expectations related to Steam Direct here.

When you're putting together your storepage and build for Steam, there will be a checklist on the right side of that applications Steamworks page. This is a comprehensive guide that will help you ensure that you have everything together for Valve's review of your storepage and later, product.

If you have questions about the process or need help putting your VR app on Steam, you can also email steamvrbiz@valvesoftware.com.

Hosting on Steam (Steamworks)

Once your Steamworks account has been approved for Steam Direct, you need to make some changes to your app to allow it to hook into Steam’s store. Steamworks is an SDK and set of tools which allows your app to integrate with the Steam platform. Upon approval to Steam Direct, you will be given an AppID. This is the Application ID that Steam uses to identify your game. Congratulations, you're now a Steamworks Partner.

Once you’ve registered as a Steamworks Partner, you need to actually integrate Steamworks into your app. You can download the Steamworks SDK from the partner.steamgames.com portal, however their SDK is in C++. Instead, there is a great C# wrapper of their SDK that can be found on Github.

Simply follow the instructions on that page and the Step-by-Step guide and you’ll have your app on Steam in no time!

If you need additional help, once you’re a Steamworks Partner you can access the Steamworks forums, you can send a help inquiry through the Steamworks Partner portal, and you can email steamvrbiz@valvesoftware.com.