Steam Packaging?

Quick question. I’ve followed the tutorials for integrating my game into Steam. Changing my defualtengine.ini, build.cs, etc. Do I have to do anything special to actually package the product for Steam? Or do I just package it for Windows 64-bit/32-bit/iOS and then I’m able to put it on Steam? Because there isn’t actually an option specifically for Steam in the Package Project drop down menu. Or is it done some other way with Visual Studio or something? This is something I haven’t seen explained in any tutorials. What to do after you have all the files and Steam sdk set up. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Please and thank you.

Hey ,

Have you reviewed any of our documentation regarding Steam? You are able to create a Windows project and add it to your Steam account as a non-steam game. But if you’re trying to make a specific Steam game, you will need to get the SDK installed.

  • [Steam SDK during Development][1]
  • [Packaging with Steam][2]
  • [Setting up UE4 to work with SteamVR][3]

Thanks!

A new, community-hosted Unreal Engine Wiki - Announcements - Epic Developer Community Forums
[2]: A new, community-hosted Unreal Engine Wiki - Announcements - Epic Developer Community Forums
[3]: https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Platforms/SteamVR/QuickStart/2/

Yeah, I have all that set up. And I can test the game, and the Steam interface comes up, and such. I just mean, after all that. When I actually want to package my game for shipping. The finished product. How do I package a game so it can be uploaded to Steam? Do I just package for Windows? Or is there an option somewhere for Steam? I’m assuming I just package for Windows, and if I have all the Steam integration correct, it will just work. But I’m not sure, and was far less sure when I asked the question yesterday. Lol.

You’ll need to package your project for [distribution][1] for either Mac or Windows, or both. Then you’ll want to look at these Steam links:

  • [Steam Greenlight][2]
  • [Steamworks][3]

Good luck!

Packaging Unreal Engine Projects | Unreal Engine 5.1 Documentation
[2]: Steam :: Steam News :: Evolving Steam
[3]: Steamworks

Thank you. That’s all I needed to know. :slight_smile:

You’re welcome. :slight_smile:

In the Packaging settings, the tooltip text for the “For Distribution” option says that this option is for publishing to the App store.

As far as I know, the “For Distribution” setting should be disabled and the Build Configuration should be set to “Shipping”. At least that has worked so far for me when doing a Steam build (UE 4.21).

However, the tooltip text also says that by enabling “For Distribution” your build configuration will be set to “Shipping”, so perhaps it will work anyway.

The way I understand it , you don’t package the game at all for steam upload . You just add your game files into the SDK, and do some configurations. I have not done this yet but am getting closer.

If you’re using blueprints, all you have to do is to make sure the Steam Online Subsystem plugin is enabled and that you’ve added your Steam product ID in the .ini file. When enabling the Steam Online Subsystem, the .ini file will be updated with some strings necessary for it to run.

Once you’ve set up your account with Steam and added your product you can upload your build to their server via a command line tool from the SDK. It’s an absolutely terrible tool where basically anything can go wrong, but there is plenty of information on Steamworks as well as videos. Follow them very carefully, but one thing that isn’t mentioned is that you cannot use spaces in the path to your build, and this is a very common reason for it to fail. The tools won’t tell you what’s wrong, it will just say something along the lines of “Error: Something went wrong.”.

I’m not sure about C++, but with blueprints all you have to do is to check the Steam Online Subsystem plugin and then edit the .ini file with the information about your Steam ID. You don’t need the appid.txt at all, unless possibly if you don’t have a Steam ID yet. For my VR experience I did not have the appid.txt file. Regarding Steam DLL’s, you may have to add them in a C++ project but for blueprints UE4 will do that for you.

So if I package my game for steam upload , do I need to have all(4) the steam dll’s in the packaged game? And also the appid.txt file in the root folder ? Or binary folder?

Also someone said it is better to package in chunks for steam?

I think chunks are only useful for physical media like DVDs and such. But I’m not sure, and I didn’t use them for my project. It could be that if your title has a lot of art assets there may be a difference when releasing updates on Steam if the update contains changes to those assets. With chunks perhaps only some chunks are affected, while otherwise the whole .PAK file may need to be downloaded. But like I said, I’m not sure.

Hi,
I’m having the same trouble activating game achievements on Steam. running through the unreal engine offline, achievements work normally with the SDK. However, when I load the game and try it on Steam, the achievements do not activate.
Has anyone managed to resolve this?

  • shift+tab works normally on Steam and unreal directly