Build Upload Tool
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Introduction
So you have built your game and you're ready to push it up to Steam but you are not quite sure how to do this. This article will describe the two main methods to getting your game build up to Steam as well as some of the administrative features around Steam builds and depots as they relate to the topic.
Valve's official documentation on the subject is required reading!
Quick Start
The simplest way to upload your game to Steam is with Heathen's Steam Build. The tool is available in both Foundation and Complete and is described in the Steam Build section below.
Steam Build
Steam 2FA tends to be a problem when using the Build Tool from within Unity. If you are using a personal account with 2FA on it then it would be better to learn to use Steam CMD directly and avoid this issue. If you are using a separate company account that doesn't use mobile authenticator and uses the email 2FA then it should be suitable for iterative builds. All that said use of the Steam CMD tool directly is generally the better option for most devs. The build tool in Unity is simply using it in a simplified and limited manner saving you a couple of clicks when your situation is very simple.
Heathen's Toolkit for Steamwork includes the Steam Content Builder tool which can be used to build and upload your game to Steam. The feature uses the Steamworks SDK's Steam CMD tool and automates the process in the Unity Editor.
Where to find the tool
This can be accessed from the File\Steam Build or Window\Steamworks\Builder menu:
Configuring the tool
When you first open the tool in your first project you will see a message asking you to configure the Steamworks SDK location
You can click the Update Configuration button to open the Steam Content Builder Configuration where you can edit the Steamworks SDK Content Builder location and modify other settings.
Depots
The Content Builder Config is where you will define the depots your project has, these are stored in the Scriptable Object and so would be shared with your team if you're using source control or similar.
Most Steam games will have 1 depot for each platform they support
Content Builder Folder Path
This is the local folder path to the Steamworks SDK's ContentBuilder folder. By default, this would be located at sdk/tools/ContentBuilder the tool has a button you can press to help you get started downloading the Steamworks SDK from Valve.
Username and Password
You will need to provide the tool with a valid Steam Username and Password that has access to upload builds to the target app. This is the same username and password you use to log into Steam Developer Portal.
The Username is stored in the Scriptable Object configuration asset encrypted with a simple cypher. This is not meant as a security measure but simply to ensure the username cannot be read as plain text. The Password is not stored by default and is held in temporary memory, cleared each time Unity is restarted. If you choose to toggle the "Remember Password" option then we will store the password in the Scriptable Object as well again encrypted with a simple cipher. While the cipher prevents reading the password as plain text it is not a replacement for proper security ... do not share the configuration with anyone you wouldn't trust with the username and password
Application ID
Finally the Application ID will default to the App ID of the project it's in if known but can be set to any value that suits. This should be the App ID of the application you are uploading to and for which the depots are defined.
Run the tool
With everything configured correctly, you can now select the Depot you wish to upload your build to and then choose Build & Upload or simply Upload
Build & Upload This will compile a new build and store it in the
sdk\tools\ContentBuilder\content\<AppName>\<Platform>\where once build it will upload it to Steam displaying progress as it goes.Upload This will simply upload whatever if any content is located in
sdk\tools\ContentBuilder\content\<AppName>\<Platform>\
How Does it work?
Heathen's Content Builder tool uses Steam CMD and is simply doing the work of constructing a VDF for you based on the configuration you provided. You can view the VDF it creates in the sdk\tools\ContentBuilder\scripts\simple_app_build.vdf file.
This is mechanically the same as if you created the VDF yourself and copied your build into the SDK content builder content folder yourself as described in the Steam CMD upload option.
What do I do after?
Once the tool has uploaded your content to Steam you need to log into your Steam Developer Portal, select the App from your Dashboard, select the Steam Pipe Builds tool and set the build active to the desired branch.
Why doesn't this set the branch live for me?
Because Valve doesn't allow Steam CMD to set a build live on the default branch automatically. It is possible to set non-default branches automatically live but not the default and so we do not expose the feature at all as the best practice is to log into your portal and review the build there before setting it live.
Zip Upload
If your game is small enough you can upload it as a zip file in the Steam Developer Portal.
In short, if the resulting zip file is smaller than 2 GB you can upload it in the Steam Pipe -> Builds -> Upload Depots option.
Steam CMD
Steam CMD has a feature "Content Builder" which is the traditional way to upload your games and in our opinion the better method. Your first step is to download the Steamworks SDK, this is a zip file that has a slew of tools and examples meant to help you get to terms with the Steamworks tools.
Once you have that downloaded you should unpack it to a location on your local machine. The folder you're looking for within the SDK is the SDK -> Tools -> ContentBuilder folder.
In short, you can use a couple of simple commands to upload your build to Steam via Steam CMD. This setup can even be scripted so that all you need to do is run your script.
Run Build Script
To get started let us create the script that you will execute to upload your builds, follows is a template you can use.
To use the above template open up Notepad or your preferred plain text editor and paste that command in. Next, we are going to replace the following text
[Username] This should be your Steam User Name that you use for the Steam Developer Portal
[Password] This is the password for that same account
[appid] This is the numeric app id that you want to upload
Next, save the file to the ContentBuilder folder ... we suggest you give it a name such as run_build_MyGameName.bat this will make it easier to sort, search and remember which app this goes to.
This script does the following things
Run SteamCmd
Log in as the indicated user
Indicate the script
..\scripts\app_build_#####.vdf
The final command there is passing in a file as part of the argument ... a file located in the scripts folder, it's that vdf file that describes what is to be uploaded, where the content should be read from and what depots it should be pushed to.
You can create variations of this script for different builds and different apps, this gives you a 1 click way to upload all your content and you can even have it upload multiple builds at once.
How? The next section covers it.
VDFs
The .vdf format from Valve does 2 things, there are:
"appbuild" These VDFs describe what is to be uploaded e.g. the app id, the description of the build, the content folder the build content can be found in, etc.
"DepotBuildConfig" These VDFs describe the depot itself that an upload should push to, this will include the depot ID and its file mapping information as well as any file exclusion rules such as excluding *.pdb files from being uploaded
Template App Build VDF
This should be saved in the scripts folder with a name such as app_build_####.vdf where the ### is your app ID.
You should replace the text defined below with the values appropriate for your game
[appId] The app ID this build is about
[description] The description of this build ... is usually something like "MyGame's base build" or "MyGame's Windows Build"
[gameFolder] This is the location of your build content, and as you can see we assume you're putting your build in the SDK -> Tools -> ContentBuilder -> content folder. We recommend you make sub-folders in that for each game ... and for each platform ... for example
sdk/tools/ContentBuilder/content/MyGame/Windows
sdk/tools/ContentBuilder/content/MyGame/Linux
sdk/tools/ContentBuilder/content/MyOtherGame/Windows
[DepotId] This is the list of DepotBuildConfig files to be included, it is an array so you can include more than 1 for example
The Depot Build Config define what content they will read or not from the content folder they are pointed to. How this works will make more sense as you read over the template for the Depot Build Configuration
Template Depot Build Configuration VDF
This should be saved in the scripts folder with a name such as depot_build_####.vdf where the ### is your depot ID.
Here we will replace the following text
[DepotId] This is the depot's ID as seen in Steam Developer Portal and is a number such as 123456
[RootFolderOfTheGame ... where the platform folder live]] This is the root folder where the content will read from ... for example
C:\Builds\ContentBuilder\content\MyGame[Platform] This is a sub-folder within the content root so if I entered the value
.\Windows\*then I am telling it to read all files and folders inC:\Builds\ContentBuilder\content\MyGame\Windows
Run It
Once you have the 3 layers of scripts created that is the Run Build Script, the App Build VDF and the Depot Build Config VDFs you can now upload your build by simply running the "Run Build Script" you set up. This can now be easily tied into your build process if your using one or even ran manually by double-clicking the bat file.
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