Over 60% of Steam users browse in a language other than English. That's not an estimate from a blog post or a third-party tool. It's Valve's own number, published in their Steamworks documentation for developers.
If your store page only exists in English, Steam's algorithm is less likely to show your game to the majority of its users. Not because your game isn't good enough. Because Steam prioritizes games that match the player's language.
How Steam's discovery algorithm handles language
Steam's visibility system determines which games appear in Discovery Queues, tag browsing, and store recommendations. Language is one of the factors it considers.
Erik Peterson from Valve's Steamworks team put it directly in a Q&A session with developers:
Players who indicated that they only speak a certain set of languages will be less likely to see games that aren't available in any of the languages the player understands.
The Steamworks visibility documentation confirms this: "Steam will be more likely to show your game to players that speak a language supported by your game." And the localization documentation goes further: "Steam favors products that are localized."
This isn't a soft recommendation. It's how the algorithm works. A player browsing Steam in Japanese sees a different set of games than a player browsing in English. If your game doesn't support Japanese, it's less likely to appear for that player at all.
The numbers
The Steam Hardware Survey tracks which languages Steam users have set as their default. As of early 2026:
- English: ~39%
- Simplified Chinese: ~23%
- Russian: ~9%
- Spanish: ~5%
- Portuguese (Brazil): ~4%
- German: ~3%
- French: ~2.5%
- Japanese: ~2.2%
- Korean: ~1.7%
Add up everything that isn't English and you get roughly 61% of Steam's user base. In February 2024, Simplified Chinese briefly overtook English as the most common language on the platform, hitting 32.84% to English's 32.12%.
Steam had 147 million monthly active users in 2025. That means roughly 90 million people use Steam in a language other than English. An English-only store page is missing most of them.
What counts as "language support"
Steam distinguishes between three types of language support: interface, subtitles, and audio. For store page visibility, what matters most is whether you have a store page translation in that language.
This is a critical distinction. You don't need to translate your entire game to get visibility in a new language market. Translating your store page (short description, long description, and capsule text) is enough to change how Steam's algorithm treats your game for users browsing in that language.
Valve's Steamworks documentation recommends exactly this approach: translate your store page first, then use the regional wishlist data to decide which languages are worth full game localization. Store page translation is a low-cost way to test demand before committing to translating the full game.
What the data shows
Simon Carless of GameDiscoverCo published a detailed analysis comparing two games of similar scope:
Against The Storm shipped with 17 languages. Asian countries (China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan) accounted for over 32% of total sales.
Nebulous: Fleet Command launched in English only. Despite fan translations and streamer interest in Asian markets, only 2% of sales came from China.
Different genres, but the same platform and overlapping audiences. Language support alone doesn't explain the entire gap, but it's the most obvious variable between the two.
The same analysis included survey data from Slay the Princess, a visual novel that asked players in different regions whether they'd play an English-only version of the game:
- Brazil: 66% said yes
- Germany: 61%
- China: 32%
- Japan: 23%
- Korea: 22%
In East Asian markets, roughly three out of four potential players won't touch your game if it isn't in their language. That's not a preference. It's a hard filter.
Which languages to prioritize
Chris Zukowski of How To Market A Game recommends a specific order for store page localization: Simplified Chinese first, then Japanese, Korean, then FIGS (French, Italian, German, Spanish). His reasoning: "Simplified Chinese has overtaken English in the languages spoken on Steam. It may seem like a big expense but it is absolutely worth every penny."
The Steam Dev Cheat Sheet by Matt Hackett supports this with a simple rule: "The less a language looks like English, the higher the expected return." Many European players can read English well enough to wishlist and buy. Most East Asian players cannot, or choose not to.
That said, the right languages depend on your genre. A management sim might see stronger returns from Simplified Chinese. A visual novel might do better starting with Japanese. The Steamworks dashboard shows wishlist data broken down by region once your store page is translated, so you can see exactly where your demand is coming from and adjust.
For most indie games, the highest-impact first three languages are:
- Simplified Chinese (largest non-English audience, lowest English proficiency among Steam gamers)
- Japanese (high willingness to pay, strong indie game culture)
- Korean (growing market, very low tolerance for English-only content)
After those three, add Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, German, Spanish, and French based on your genre and existing regional interest.
How to actually do it
Three options for translating your store page:
Manual translation. Find a translator or agency, get the text translated, paste it into Steamworks under Store Page > Language Support. Cost: $100-300 per language for store page only. Time: days to weeks depending on the translator.
DIY with AI tools. Use ChatGPT, DeepL, or Google Translate. Cost: free or near-free. The risk: gaming terminology, tone, and character limits are hard to get right with generic tools. Steam's short description has a strict character limit, and many languages expand 20-40% longer than English. A bad translation can be worse than none, because it signals low quality to native speakers browsing your page.
Specialized tools. Services built specifically for Steam store page translation handle format constraints (character limits for short descriptions, Steamworks BBCode formatting) and gaming-specific vocabulary that general tools miss.
Whichever approach you choose, the priority is getting your store page translated before you spend money on full game localization. The store page is what Steam's algorithm uses to decide who sees your game. It's also what players use to decide whether to wishlist. Both of those things happen before anyone downloads a demo or buys the game. (And make sure you have a press kit ready too. Journalists covering international markets will want assets in the languages you support.)
How Gamebase Helps
We're building tools to make Steam store page localization faster and less painful. In the meantime, you can generate a free press kit for your game at Gamebase. Paste your Steam URL and get a hosted page with screenshots, descriptions, trailers, fact sheet, and a downloadable ZIP of all assets. Free for every game, hosted at yourgame.gamebase.gg/press-kit.
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