What Japanese players see when your Steam page is English-only

Open your own Steam page with Steam set to English and everything looks fine. The trailer plays, the description reads well, the tags make sense.

Now picture a player in Japan opening the same page with Steam set to Japanese. Some parts of the page that Steam provides may follow their language setting, while your own text stays in whatever language you entered. That mix can affect whether they keep reading.

This article walks through what that visitor sees, what Valve says about language and visibility, and the changes that make the biggest difference for the least work.

How many Steam users run Steam in Japanese?

Valve's Steam Hardware & Software Survey for September 2026 shows 2.41% of surveyed users with Japanese as their Steam language. English was 34.20% and Simplified Chinese 31.39% in the same month. The survey is optional and changes from month to month, so treat these as a rough guide, not an exact count.

Valve's own Localization and Languages documentation puts the bigger picture plainly: "Over 60% of Steam users use it in a language other than English." The same page adds that "the less a language looks like English, the higher the expected return," because many customers in Asian territories do not speak English.

Japanese is a small slice of the whole. But it is a slice that reads in a script very different from English.

What the visitor actually sees

Steam itself is officially available in many languages, including Japanese, according to Valve's Localization and Languages documentation, so the parts of the page that Steam provides can follow the player's language setting. Your content is a different matter. The short description, the "About This Game" text and any words inside your screenshots come from what you entered in Steamworks.

If you have not entered Japanese text, a Japanese visitor will most likely see your English text, as the API examples below suggest.

Three real examples

I requested store data for a few well-known games from the Steam store API, once with the language set to English and once with Japanese (retrieved October 17, 2026):

Lethal Company lists English as its only supported language. With the language set to Japanese, the short description still comes back in English:

A co-op horror about scavenging at abandoned moons to sell scrap to the Company.

Slay the Spire lists Japanese among its supported languages, but on the day I checked, its short description in the Japanese store still came back in English. Supporting Japanese in the game and translating the store page are separate steps in Steamworks, and it is easy to do one without the other.

Terraria does not list Japanese in its supported languages, yet its Japanese store short description is in Japanese:

掘って、戦って、探検して、作ろう! 出来ないことは一切無いアクション満載のアドベンチャーゲーム。

(Dig, fight, explore, build! An action-packed adventure game where nothing is impossible.)

That last example matters. A Japanese store page without a Japanese game is a real, allowed configuration on Steam.

Japanese players review English-only games too

Japanese players do buy and review games that do not support Japanese. According to Steam's review API on October 17, 2026:

Two honest observations:

1. Demand exists without Japanese support. Hundreds or thousands of players chose to write their review in Japanese for games they could not play in Japanese.
2. It is a small share of the total. For all three games, Japanese reviews are well under 1% of all reviews. These are huge hits, and a smaller indie game should not expect thousands of Japanese reviews just by translating a page.

If you want this kind of view across many games, SteamPeaks publishes a Localization Watch that tracks reviews written in languages a game does not support, across the 1,000 most reviewed games on Steam.

What Valve says about language and visibility

Two statements from Valve's documentation are worth knowing:

• On Visibility on Steam: "Steam will be more likely to show your game to players that speak a language supported by your game."
• On Localization and Languages: "Language support is determined by the in-game language settings, not the store page."

Put together: translating only your store page does not make your game count as supporting Japanese. What it does is make the page readable for the Japanese players who already reach it, from search, from a stream, from a Japanese news article or from a friend.

Valve also gives a practical reason to translate the store page before the game. If you translate the store page into languages you are considering, "you can look at regional wishlists for your game to get a sense of where your game might be popular and which languages might warrant higher priority for translation of your game."

Why an English page can lose Japanese visitors

From my point of view as a Japanese reader, an English-only page can create three problems in the first few seconds. This is my own view, not measured data.

1. Reading English takes effort. Many Japanese players can read some English, but skimming English marketing copy is slower and more tiring than reading Japanese. When many pages around it are in Japanese, the English one can be easier to skip.

2. The player cannot tell whether the game itself is readable. An English description can make Japanese visitors assume the game is English-only too. Some will check the language table, and if Japanese is missing there, some may stop.

3. Puns, slang and idioms do not land. The phrases English copywriters love, such as "roguelite with a twist" or "cozy but deadly," are often the hardest to read in a second language.

The low-cost fixes, in order

1. Translate the store page, even if the game is English-only

The short description, the long description and the feature list are a small amount of text compared with an entire game. Valve's documentation treats store page and in-game localization as two separate options you can use independently.

2. Be honest about language support in Japanese

If the game does not support Japanese, say so clearly in the Japanese text, near the top of the long description. For example:

※本作は日本語に対応していません（ストアページのみ日本語でご案内しています）。ゲーム内のテキストは英語です。

(Note: This game does not support Japanese. Only the store page is provided in Japanese. In-game text is in English.)

If Japanese support is planned, say that instead, without promising a date you cannot keep:

※日本語版は現在準備中です。対応時期はニュースでお知らせします。

(Note: A Japanese version is in preparation. We will announce the timing in our news posts.)

This can help you avoid refunds and negative reviews from players who assumed a Japanese page meant a Japanese game.

3. Add a localized name if pronunciation is unclear

Steam lets you set a localized name for Japanese, and that name is used in search suggestions for Japanese players. See my guide to Japanese game titles and katakana for when that is worth doing.

4. Watch for text inside images

Valve's description guidelines remind developers that text included in images must also be translated and re-uploaded when you localize the store page. If your feature list is a set of images with English captions, the Japanese page will still look English. Textless images, or images whose text you are ready to replace, make localization much easier.

5. Check the result with Steam set to Japanese

After you save the Japanese text, open your store page with Steam set to Japanese and read it top to bottom. Look for any section that is still in English, any line that was cut off, and whether the language table matches what your Japanese text says.

A five-minute self-check

• ☐ Open your page with Steam set to Japanese. Which parts are still English?
• ☐ Does the short description appear in Japanese?
• ☐ Does the Japanese text say exactly what language support the game has?
• ☐ Is there English text inside screenshots or feature images?
• ☐ Would a localized katakana name help players search for you?
• ☐ After a few weeks, are you seeing wishlists from Japan in your regional data?

Start with the page, not the whole game

Translating a full game is a big commitment. Translating the store page is a small one, and it changes what every Japanese visitor sees from the first second.

JapanOps offers a fixed-price Japanese Steam Store Page Pack for US$99: your short description, long description and feature list (up to 1,000 English source words) in natural Japanese, with one revision. The pack also includes a suggested katakana name and a clear Japanese note about language support, so players know what to expect.

See what the US$99 Steam Pack includes →

Kohey Nishi is a native Japanese speaker based in Japan and runs JapanOps. Store data and review counts were retrieved from the Steam store and review APIs on October 17, 2026, and change over time. Survey figures are from the Steam Hardware & Software Survey for September 2026.