Steam Description Checker
Paste your Steam short description and get a specific verdict on it -- the 300-character budget, what your opening clause actually commits to, and whether it just repeats your About This Game text. Runs in your browser, no account.
Nothing leaves your browser. The grader runs entirely on this page -- no upload, no account, no model call.
What the Steam Short Description Actually Is
The short description is one of two description fields in Steamworks. It is plain text, capped at 300 characters, and it renders at the very top of your store page directly under the header capsule. Valve's own guidance calls it a brief synopsis, used in locations on Steam where real estate is limited, and tells developers to get to the point and save the details for the About This Game section below.
Those other locations are the reason this field matters more than its size suggests. The same 300 characters travel with your game into search results, category and tag browse pages, and the recommendation widgets Steam builds from your store data. In most of those surfaces the reader sees your capsule image and this text, and nothing else. It is the caption on your game everywhere on Steam that is not your store page.
The field accepts no formatting. Steamworks strips bold, bullets and line breaks, so structure has to come from the sentences themselves. It also should not carry time-sensitive text like "Now available" or "Wishlist now" -- Valve asks you to keep that out, and it ages badly in a field you will not remember to edit.
What 405 Store Pages Say About Short Descriptions
Based on 405 of 405 Steam store pages analyzed by Steam Page Analyzer, 2026-02-10 to 2026-07-30.
Length is not the lever
Every character counter on the internet implies the same thing: fill the box. Our data does not support it. We split the corpus at 250 characters and compared overall store-page scores in two independent cohorts. Pages using 250 or more characters scored +1.83 points better in one cohort (95% CI -0.41 to +4.07, p=0.107) and +0.73 points better in the other (95% CI -1.94 to +3.33, p=0.586). Both intervals cross zero. The same split is null on the description subscore, and null whether the page is released or still coming soon.
Using more of the 300 characters does not by itself help. What changes outcomes is what the first line does.
The opening hook is the most common problem we find
A weak or buried opening hook is both the most frequent issue in the corpus and the most frequent critical issue -- it produces more critical findings than capsule and tag problems combined, and "Weak opening hook fails to grab attention" is the single most repeated critical issue title we have written. At least three in five pages have it. Depending on which half of the sample you look at, the rate runs between 63% and 84%. We report the range rather than a single figure because our issue generator changed mid-window, and averaging across that change would invent a precision the data does not have.
Based on 405 of 405 Steam store pages analyzed by Steam Page Analyzer, 2026-02-10 to 2026-07-30.
Steam Short Description vs Long Description
| Short description | About This Game (long) | |
|---|---|---|
| Length | 300 characters, hard cap | No practical cap; the median page in our corpus runs 4,404 characters |
| Formatting | Plain text only | Headers, bold, lists, embedded images and GIFs |
| Where it appears | Top of the store page, plus search results, browse pages and recommendation widgets | Store page only, below the fold |
| Reader | Has not decided to care yet | Already scrolled, already interested |
| Job | Earn the click | Earn the wishlist or the purchase |
The failure that follows from misreading this table is duplication: writing the short description, then pasting it as the first paragraph of About This Game. The two fields render within a screen of each other, so the reader gets the same sentence twice and the long field's most valuable paragraph carries no new information. Paste your opening into the checker above and it will tell you whether you have done this.
Based on 405 of 405 Steam store pages analyzed by Steam Page Analyzer, 2026-02-10 to 2026-07-30.
What This Checker Grades
Six checks, all deterministic, all run in your browser. Each one shows the exact words that triggered it, because a verdict you cannot audit is a verdict you cannot act on. The result is one of three grades -- Strong, Workable, or Needs a rewrite. Deliberately not a score out of 100: this is a check on one field, and it should never be mistaken for the store-page score the full analyzer produces.
| Check | Why it exists | What makes it fire |
|---|---|---|
| Character budget | Steamworks rejects anything over 300 characters. | Over 300, or sitting exactly on 300 with no slack for a later edit. |
| Opening hook | The most common problem and the most common critical problem in our corpus. | The text opens with your own game title, with a stock phrase ("Welcome to", "Embark on", "Experience", "Dive into", "Prepare to", "Immerse yourself"), with a bare genre label, or the first concrete claim arrives after character 60. |
| Concrete vs abstract | Abstract praise is true of every game on the store, so it carries no information. | No number, named mechanic or proper noun anywhere; or words like epic, immersive, unique, stunning, thrilling, unforgettable sitting in a sentence with nothing concrete beside them. |
| Player fantasy vs feature list | A feature list tells the reader what is in the box, never what they will be doing. | Three or more consecutive short noun phrases ("Crafting, building, survival, co-op") or no verb anywhere that the player performs. |
| Duplication with the long description | Both fields render close together, so repetition costs you the whole top of the bigger one. | Your About This Game text opens with the short description word for word, near-verbatim, or contains it verbatim further down. |
| Sentence length | Steam renders this field in a narrow column. | A single sentence over 45 words (flagged) or over 60 words (failed). |
What it does not do: rewrite your description for you. There is no generator here. The checks tell you which line is failing and what to do about it; the sentence has to come from someone who knows the game.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a Steam short description?
The Steam short description is the plain-text blurb at the top of your store page, directly beneath the header capsule. Valve describes it as a brief synopsis used in locations on Steam where real estate is limited, most notably at the very top of your game's store page. The same text travels with your game into search results, browse and category pages, and recommendation widgets, so for most people who ever see your game it is the only sentence they read before deciding whether to click.
How long can a Steam short description be?
Steamworks caps the short description at 300 characters and will not save the field until your text fits. Developers rarely use all of it: across the 405 Steam store pages Steam Page Analyzer analyzed between 2026-02-10 to 2026-07-30, the average short description runs 224.6 characters and the median runs 232, with 61.5% of pages coming in under 250 characters. The field is plain text only -- Steamworks strips formatting, so no bold, no bullets and no line breaks.
What is the difference between the Steam short description and the long description?
They are two separate Steamworks fields doing two different jobs. The short description is capped at 300 characters, accepts plain text only, and appears at the top of the store page and alongside your capsule in search and browse listings. The long description -- the About This Game section -- has no practical length limit, supports formatting and embedded images, and sits further down the page for readers who have already decided to keep going. The short description earns the click; the long description earns the purchase. The most common mistake is letting the long description open by repeating the short one word for word, which spends the top of your biggest field on text the reader just finished reading.
Does using all 300 characters improve my Steam page?
No, not on its own. We split our corpus at 250 characters and compared overall store-page scores in two independent cohorts. Pages using 250 or more characters scored +1.83 points better in one cohort (95% CI -0.41 to +4.07, p=0.107) and +0.73 points better in the other (95% CI -1.94 to +3.33, p=0.586). Both confidence intervals cross zero, in both cohorts, so we cannot say longer short descriptions do better. This is measured across the 405 Steam store pages Steam Page Analyzer analyzed between 2026-02-10 to 2026-07-30. What does separate pages is what the opening clause commits to, not how many characters follow it.
What makes a good Steam short description?
A good short description commits to something specific in its first clause: a number, a named mechanic, a proper noun, or a verb the player performs. It puts the player in the subject position rather than listing features as bare nouns, it names the genre somewhere without leading with it, and it says something that would be false of any other game on the store. The failure mode is the opposite of all of that -- an opener like "Embark on an epic journey" that fits ten thousand pages, followed by a comma-separated run of nouns.
How do I check my Steam description?
Paste it into the grader at the top of this page. It runs six deterministic checks -- character budget, opening hook, concrete versus abstract language, player fantasy versus feature listing, duplication with your long description, and sentence length -- and shows you the exact words that triggered each verdict, with a specific rewrite instruction for anything that fails. It runs entirely in your browser: nothing is uploaded, no account is needed, and there is no model call. For the rest of the store page -- capsule, screenshots, trailer and tags -- run the full store page analyzer.
Is the Steam capsule description the same as the short description?
Yes, in practice. Developers say "capsule description" because the text renders next to the small capsule image in search results, browse pages and recommendation widgets. Steamworks itself calls the field the short description, and it is the same 300-character plain-text field wherever it appears. The capsule image and the capsule description are separate assets, edited in different places in Steamworks, and only the text is graded by this tool -- for the image, use the capsule validator.
Should the Steam short description repeat the first line of my long description?
No. The two fields render close together on the store page, so a reader who scrolls past the short description straight into an identical opening paragraph learns nothing new and registers the page as filled in rather than written. Keep the short description as the hook, then open About This Game on the next beat: the specific scenario, the core loop, or the payoff the hook promised. This checker flags a long description that opens with your short description verbatim or near-verbatim.
Related Resources
Steam Short Description Guide
How to spend 300 characters: hook patterns, what to cut first, and worked rewrites.
Steam Description Writing Guide
The long-form companion: structuring About This Game so it does not repeat the hook.
Store Page Checklist
Everything the page needs before launch, in the order it should be done.
Capsule Validator
Check the image that sits beside this text everywhere on Steam: sizes, formats and thumbnail legibility.
Disclaimer: This checker grades one field with fixed rules. It cannot know your game, and a description can break a rule here for a good reason. The corpus figures come from Steam store pages submitted to Steam Page Analyzer, which skews toward pre-launch indie titles and is not a random sample of Steam.