Setting up trading cards

The surprise first: even after approval, cards do not drop for players until your game passes Valve's confidence metric, an internal threshold based on real sales and player activity designed to stop card-farming shovelware. Build the set, get it approved, and the drops switch on automatically once your game qualifies. Plan for this, don't promise cards at launch.

What you must create

Item	How many	Notes
Trading cards	5 to 15	Card art in portrait format. Players collect a full set to craft a badge. Use distinct, attractive art per card; lazy screenshot crops get rejected.
Badge	5 levels + 1 foil	Six versions of your badge icon, visually progressing in prestige.
Emoticons	At least 3, up to 15	Small square icons readable at chat size. Test them at actual size before uploading.
Profile backgrounds	At least 3, up to 15	Large artwork players display on their Steam profile.

Exact pixel dimensions for each item type are shown next to every upload field in the Steamworks editor and occasionally change, so treat the editor as the source of truth.

The process

Open the Community Items editor

Steamworks → your app → Community → Community Items. The editor walks one item type at a time and previews each in context.

Upload the complete set

You cannot submit a partial set. Card names should be evocative (characters, locations, moments), not "Card 1". The editor warns about size or format problems immediately.

Submit for review

Valve reviews trading card sets by hand. Expect several business days. Common rejection reasons: text-heavy art, near-duplicate cards, plain screenshots, badge levels that don't progress visually.

Approved, then wait for the metric

Once approved, the set is live but dormant. When your game passes the confidence metric, drops begin: players receive roughly half a set of cards through playtime and trade or buy the rest, which is the entire economy.

Worth it? Cards generate small marketplace revenue for you (you earn a cut of community market sales of your items) and make your game look established. But do them after your launch art is finished, never instead of it.