AI capsule art on Steam: what is allowed, and what works

Your capsule appears in search results, the Discovery Queue, sale pages, wishlists and the library, often smaller than a postage stamp. It has about a second to say what the game is. That is why developers are tempted by AI key art, which promises a polished image for the price of a prompt, and why it deserves care: the capsule is the image players judge the whole game by.

Visual assets are already the most common thing developers disclose as AI-made on Steam. In Flockbay's measured sample of games released from January to August 2026, 26.29% disclosed AI-generated visual assets, in the game or on the store page, out of the 35.04% that disclosed any AI. So a generated capsule is far from unusual. The question is whether it works.

Valve's Store Graphical Asset Rules, in force since 1 September 2022, apply whatever made the art:

• Allowed on a store capsule: game artwork, the game's name, and any official subtitle. The name or logo must be readable.
• Not allowed: review scores of any kind, award names or laurels, discount copy such as "On Sale Now", calls to action such as "Prepurchase Now", text or images promoting another product (sequels included), and other miscellaneous text.
• Updates: text about a major update, seasonal event or DLC is allowed only as an Artwork Override, for up to a month, localised into the game's languages, and only for content already available. No wishlist prompts or release dates.
• Library: the library capsule carries the logo and an optional subtitle; the library hero has no words at all; the library logo is the logotype on a transparent background.
• Everything: PG-13 appropriate, at the exact dimensions.

Valve's enforcement is quiet but real: a game with non-compliant capsules may have its store visibility limited and is ineligible for featuring in official Steam sales and events.

The store and library images, with what each has to survive:

Valve's AI section covers pre-generated content that players consume, and store page and marketing material are in scope. A capsule generated with AI, or a real frame substantially repainted by AI, belongs in your disclosure. Since January 2026, AI used only to work faster, with nothing generated shipping, needs no disclosure, so moodboards and rejected drafts do not count. See our Steam AI disclosure guide for the wording.

Not because of Valve. Because some players avoid AI-made games, and the capsule is the first place they look for signs. Circana's December 2025 study found about a quarter of US players said knowing a game used generative AI would make them less likely to buy. A capsule that looks like every other generated image tells those players something before they read a word.

There is a second, quieter cost: a generated key art can promise a game the player will not get. A painterly, cinematic capsule over a low-poly game sets an expectation the screenshots then break, and the gap shows up in wishlist conversion and, after launch, in refunds and reviews that say the game is not what the store showed.

1. One subject. A character, a vehicle, a place: one thing the eye lands on at thumbnail size.
2. The genre at a glance. A player should guess the genre before reading the title.
3. A readable title. Set in type that reads at the smallest size the capsule is drawn; test it by shrinking the small capsule to the width of a thumbnail on your phone.
4. Contrast. Steam's pages are dark; muddy midtones disappear.
5. Honesty. The capsule should look like the game. If the screenshots next to it look like a different game, the capsule is wrong.

• Commissioned key art. The classic, and the best for a game whose art is its draw. Brief the artist with the capsule sizes and the thumbnail test.
• A real frame. A capsule cut from the game at its best moment, with the title set cleanly. It shows exactly what players get, costs nothing, and needs no AI disclosure for the image.
• A staged frame. The same, with the camera placed, the lighting tuned and the character posed in the engine. Still the real game, framed by you.
• Generated, then painted over. If you do use AI, an artist's pass for consistency with the game's style, and an honest disclosure.

A real frame is only as good as the game's look. A game in grey-box art, or one whose best moments are about motion rather than a still, can produce a weak frame, and for those a commissioned illustration does the job better. The point is not that a frame always wins, but that a capsule should show the game players will get; for most small games, the cheapest way to do that honestly is the game itself.

Flockbay's Steam page cuts all seven capsule and library images from a real frame of your running game, chosen during a Play, with the title in plain type, and tells you when a frame is too small or the title too long to read. You can choose your own picture instead. The page exports as a .zip you upload in Steamworks yourself. Drafting is free in beta until 1 December 2026; the page by hand and its .zip stay free.