How to fill in Steam's content survey

The content survey looks like paperwork, the last box to tick before review. It is closer to a distribution setting. Its General Content answers produce the age ratings shown on your page in regions that require them; its Mature Content answers decide whether players who filter out certain content see the game while browsing; and its Generative AI answers become the AI disclosure printed on the store page, which a third of 2026's new releases now carry.

Valve uses the answers twice: to review the game before release, comparing them with the build and the store page, and to help players understand whether the game matches their expectations and account preferences. An answer that does not match the game fails the first use and misleads the second.

What each section asks and what it controls:

Questions about the content that may appear in the game: violence and its intensity, language, sexual themes, drugs, gambling and gambling-like mechanics, and similar topics. Steam uses the answers to generate ratings for several regional rating boards, which appear on the store page at release in the regions that need them. If the game already holds official ratings from rating authorities, enter them in the game's Ratings section.

Answer for the game as it ships, including optional modes. Gambling-like mechanics deserve care: loot boxes, slot-machine minigames and anything purchasable with a random outcome are what rating boards look at most closely now.

Disclose any mature content players may meet. Valve's rules: disclose all adult content you uploaded in your builds, even if it is not accessible or presented in the product; answer honestly and accurately; and the content rules apply whether or not you disclose. The answers decide how the game appears to players according to their own preferences, which they set in five categories from General Mature Content to Adult Only Sexual Content. Our mature content guide goes through the categories and the edge cases.

Describe AI-made content that ships with the game and is consumed by players, such as artwork, sound, narrative and localisation (pre-generated), and anything an AI makes while the game runs (live-generated), with the guardrails that stop it producing illegal content. Valve evaluates pre-generated content the same way as content made without AI. AI used only as a development efficiency tool, with nothing generated shipping, is not the focus of the section since Valve's January 2026 rewrite.

Valve does not currently allow live-generated adult-only sexual content. For games that call a paid AI service while running, Valve lists ways to charge for it: include it in the base price, use microtransactions, sell a subscription, or sell a single-purchase DLC. In Flockbay's measured sample, 35.04% of games released from January to August 2026 carried an AI disclosure. See our AI disclosure guide for wording.

1. Inventory the build, not your design document: every scene, asset, line and mechanic, including cut content left in the files and content behind settings or unlocks.
2. Answer General Content for the shipping game; enter any official ratings you already hold.
3. Answer Mature Content with "some" versus "frequent" judged honestly, and describe it plainly in the free-text fields.
4. Answer Generative AI from a list of generated assets that ship, and describe any live generation and its guardrails.
5. Check the store page against the answers: screenshots, trailer and capsule must match what you declared, and at least four screenshots should be marked suitable for all ages.
6. Submit the survey before you submit the store page and build for review; Valve requires it first.
7. Keep it current. When a patch or DLC changes content, update the survey before it ships; locked answers need Steam Support.

Some answers cannot be edited once the game is approved. To change them, contact Steam Support, explain what changed, and say how a tester can reach the affected content. Plan for that before a content update: a horror DLC with new gore, a translation made with AI, or a new mode with gambling-like rewards all change the answers, and the survey should change before players meet the content. Keep a copy of your answers beside each version's release notes, so every update starts from exactly what Valve already has on file.

• Answering from the pitch, not the build. Reviewers compare the answers with what ships.
• Leaving out unreachable content. Valve's rule covers everything in the build.
• Forgetting the store page. Generated capsule art and AI-written store text count as AI content; a gory trailer counts as content players see.
• Ticking everything to be safe. Over-declaring hides the game from players who filter categories it does not deserve.
• Treating it as done at launch. Updates and DLC change the answers.

Flockbay's Steam page drafts the content survey from your game's scenes, scripts and art, and the AI disclosure from its own record of what it generated, each marked Drafted by Flockbay for you to check before you upload. Steam holds you to the answers, so read every one. Preparing the page by hand and its .zip are free; drafting is free in beta until 1 December 2026.