What a Steam Coming Soon page does for your game

Every wishlist a game collects before launch is collected on its Coming Soon page. Steam turns them into a launch-day audience: at release it emails everyone who wishlisted, and the wishlist count decides whether the game reaches the launch lists at all. In January 2026, Popular Upcoming took somewhere around 5,000 to 7,000 wishlists to enter, by Chris Zukowski's daily scrape.

The obvious reading of the name is that the page is a placeholder until launch. It is closer to the opposite: it is the only page that can work for months before the game exists for sale, and most of what decides a launch, wishlists, followers, a community, press attention, accumulates there.

• Wishlists. Players can wishlist the game, and Steam emails them at release and when the game is discounted by 20% or more.
• Followers. Players can follow it and see your announcements in their activity feed.
• Community Hub. Posting the page opens the hub: announcements, artwork, guides and discussions.
• Events and announcements. Posts on the page reach followers and appear on the store page.
• Upcoming lists. The release date you show decides where the game sits in upcoming lists; a vague date sorts to the end of its range, and Coming Soon with no date sorts behind games with dates.
• Next Fest and themed fests. A public Coming Soon page is a requirement for Next Fest and the way into themed fests before launch.
• A demo. A demo can sit on the page, with a Download Demo button, long before the game.

1. Create the app in Steamworks after paying the Steam Direct fee, and fill in the Store Presence checklist: descriptions, tags, capsules, at least five gameplay screenshots, a trailer if you have one, the content survey and the AI disclosure.
2. Set the release date display: an exact date, a month, a quarter, a year, or Coming Soon with no date. Keep an exact intended date set behind it.
3. Press Mark as Ready for Review at least seven business days before you want the page live. Review usually takes 3 to 5 business days.
4. After approval, press Post as Coming Soon. Approval alone does not publish the page.
5. Announce it: an event on the page, and posts that link to it with a plain wishlist ask.

From that day, the page has to stay up for at least two weeks before the game can release, and you can edit it at any time.

Valve's advice is to post once you are ready to talk publicly about the game, with its art direction and core features fairly settled, because players who wishlisted an early version may be confused if the game changes a lot. It also says a long lead time is not a strong downside: players who wishlist two years ahead are about as likely to buy as those who wishlist two weeks ahead.

The data adds a caution. GameDiscoverCo found that games which underperformed at launch had spent an average of 411 days on Steam before release, against 214 for games that did well. That is a correlation, not a cause: long pre-release periods often belong to troubled projects. The lesson is not to post late, but to keep a long-running page alive. Our guide to when to make your Steam page goes further.

A Coming Soon page left alone for a year collects a trickle; one that is fed collects a curve. A cadence that works for many small teams:

• Every two to four weeks: an announcement or event on the page about something visible, a new area, a mechanic, a playtest.
• Every milestone: refresh the screenshots and trailer so the page shows the game as it is now.
• A demo when it is good: it can live on the page, and its release unlocks one email to your wishlisters within two weeks.
• Every festival you fit: themed fests, Next Fest once, independent showcases.
• Every link you share points at the page with a wishlist ask: trailers, devlogs, social posts, press emails.
• Every month: read the wishlist report by day and source, and note what moved it.

The page evolves with the game:

Posting early only pays if the page can earn interest. A page with placeholder art and a vague description posted a year early can collect followers who never return and set a first impression you then have to undo. If the game cannot yet show five screenshots you are proud of, the time is better spent making them; a strong page posted later beats a weak page posted early.

Flockbay drafts the Coming Soon page from the game itself, store copy, tags, capsules and screenshots from real frames, as a .zip you upload yourself, and drafts the posts that send players to it. Its Steam numbers read your followers and an estimated wishlist range for free, and your exact wishlists from your own Steamworks key, which never leaves your machine. Preparing the page by hand and its .zip are free; drafting is free in beta until 1 December 2026.