Steam Web API
Formats
Every method can return its results in 3 different formats: JSON, XML, and VDF. Each format represents the data described herein differently:
JSON
- The API returns an object containing the named object with the result data.
- Arrays are represented as an array with the name of the type of the objects in the array (ie. an object named "items" containing an array of objects of type "item" would be represented as an object named "items" containing an array named "item" containing several objects following the "item" structure).
- Null is represented as JSON's null.
XML
- XML Attributes are not used.
- Arrays are represented as a series of sub-elements in the containing element of the type of the array.
- Null is represented by the word "null" between the element's tags.
VDF (Valve Data Format)
- This is Valve's internal data format, as seen in uses like TF2's "scripts" folder (available in "team fortress 2 client content.gcf"). TF2's GetSchema returns data similar to "items/items_game.txt" (although qualities are not expanded into objects with a "value" field).
- Documentation of the format is in progress here.
- Arrays in the data are represented as a VDF array with the name of the type of the objects in the array, with a VDF array being an object with each item being prefixed with its numeric key as a quoted string.
- Null is represented as an empty string.
If no format is specified, the API will default to JSON.
Interfaces and method
All interfaces and method are self-documented through the ISteamWebAPIUtil/GetSupportedAPIList call. This can be found here.
When passed a key=<your API key> parameter, GetSupportedAPIList will show all APIs that your key can access. Without it (as above), it only displays APIs that do not require an API key.
Game interfaces and methods
Team Fortress 2 functions are described at http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/WebAPI.
GetNewsForApp (v0002)
GetNewsForApp returns the latest of a game specified by its appID.
Example URL: http://api.steampowered.com/ISteamNews/GetNewsForApp/v0002/?appid=440&count=3&maxlength=300&format=json
Arguments
- appid
- AppID of the game you want the news of.
- count
- How many news enties you want to get returned.
- maxlength
- Maximum length of each news entry.
- format
- Output format. json (default), xml or vdf.
Result layout
An appnews object containing:
- appid, the AppID of the game you want news of
- newsitems, an array of news item information:
- An ID, title and url.
- A shortened excerpt of the contents (to maxlength characters), terminated by "..." if longer than maxlength.
- A comma-separated string of labels and UNIX timestamp.
GetGlobalAchievementPercentagesForApp (v0002)
Returns on global achievements overview of a specific game in percentages.
Arguments
- gameid
- AppID of the game you want the news of.
- format
- Output format. json (default), xml or vdf.
GetPlayerSummaries (v0002)
Example URL: http://api.steampowered.com/ISteamUser/GetPlayerSummaries/v0002/?key=XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX&steamids=76561197960435530 (This will show Robin Walker's profile information.)
Returns basic profile information for a list of 64-bit Steam IDs.
Arguments
- steamids
- Comma-delimited list of 64 bit Steam IDs to return profile information for. Up to 100 Steam IDs can be requested.
- format
- Output format. json (default), xml or vdf.
Return Value
Some data associated with a Steam account may be hidden if the user has their profile visibility set to "Friends Only" or "Private". In that case, only public data will be returned.
Public Data
- steamid
- 64bit SteamID of the user
- personaname
- The player's persona name (display name)
- profileurl
- The full URL of the player's Steam Community profile.
- avatar
- The full URL of the player's 32x32px avatar. If the user hasn't configured an avatar, this will be the default ? avatar.
- avatarmedium
- The full URL of the player's 64x64px avatar. If the user hasn't configured an avatar, this will be the default ? avatar.
- avatarfull
- The full URL of the player's 184x184px avatar. If the user hasn't configured an avatar, this will be the default ? avatar.
- personastate
- The user's current status. 0 - Offline, 1 - Online, 2 - Busy, 3 - Away, 4 - Snooze, 5 - looking to trade, 6 - looking to play. If the player's profile is private, this will always be "0", except is the user has set their status to looking to trade or looking to play, because a bug makes those status appear even if the profile is private.
- communityvisibilitystate
- This represents whether the profile is visible or not, and if it is visible, why you are allowed to see it. Note that because this WebAPI does not use authentication, there are only two possible values returned: 1 - the profile is not visible to you (Private, Friends Only, etc), 3 - the profile is "Public", and the data is visible. Mike Blaszczak's post on Steam forums says, "The community visibility state this API returns is different than the privacy state. It's the effective visibility state from the account making the request to the account being viewed given the requesting account's relationship to the viewed account."
- profilestate
- If set, indicates the user has a community profile configured (will be set to '1')
- lastlogoff
- The last time the user was online, in unix time.
- commentpermission
- If set, indicates the profile allows public comments.
Private Data
- realname
- The player's "Real Name", if they have set it.
- primaryclanid
- The player's primary group, as configured in their Steam Community profile.
- timecreated
- The time the player's account was created.
- gameid
- If the user is currently in-game, this value will be returned and set to the gameid of that game.
- gameserverip
- The ip and port of the game server the user is currently playing on, if they are playing on-line in a game using Steam matchmaking. Otherwise will be set to "0.0.0.0:0".
- gameextrainfo
- If the user is currently in-game, this will be the name of the game they are playing. This may be the name of a non-Steam game shortcut.
- cityid
- This value will be removed in a future update (see loccityid)
- loccountrycode
- If set on the user's Steam Community profile, The user's country of residence, 2-character ISO country code
- locstatecode
- If set on the user's Steam Community profile, The user's state of residence
- loccityid
- An internal code indicating the user's city of residence. A future update will provide this data in a more useful way.
- steam_location gem/package makes player location data readable for output.
- An updated readable list can be found at quer's steam location
- Getting locstatecode and loccityid, can now be done from https://steamcommunity.com/actions/QueryLocations/<loccountrycode>/<locstatecode>/
GetFriendList (v0001)
Returns the friend list of any Steam user, provided their Steam Community profile visibility is set to "Public".
Arguments
- steamid
- 64 bit Steam ID to return friend list for.
- relationship
- Relationship filter. Possibles values: all, friend.
- format
- Output format. json (default), xml or vdf.
Result data
The user's friends list, as an array of friends. Nothing will be returned if the profile is private.
- steamid
- 64 bit Steam ID of the friend.
- relationship
- Relationship qualifier
- friend_since
- Unix timestamp of the time when the relationship was created.
GetPlayerAchievements (v0001)
Returns a list of achievements for this user by app id
Arguments
- steamid
- 64 bit Steam ID to return friend list for.
- appid
- The ID for the game you're requesting
- l (Optional)
- Language. If specified, it will return language data for the requested language.
Result data
A list of achievements.
- apiname
- The API name of the achievement
- achieved
- Whether or not the achievement has been completed.
- unlocktime
- Date when the achievement was unlocked.
- name (optional)
- Localized achievement name
- description (optional)
- Localized description of the achievement
GetUserStatsForGame (v0002)
Returns a list of achievements for this user by app id
Arguments
- steamid
- 64 bit Steam ID to return friend list for.
- appid
- The ID for the game you're requesting
- l (Optional)
- Language. If specified, it will return language data for the requested language.
GetOwnedGames (v0001)
GetOwnedGames returns a list of games a player owns along with some playtime information, if the profile is publicly visible. Private, friends-only, and other privacy settings are not supported unless you are asking for your own personal details (ie the WebAPI key you are using is linked to the steamid you are requesting).
Arguments
- steamid
- The SteamID of the account.
- include_appinfo
- Include game name and logo information in the output. The default is to return appids only.
- include_played_free_games
- By default, free games like Team Fortress 2 are excluded (as technically everyone owns them). If include_played_free_games is set, they will be returned if the player has played them at some point. This is the same behavior as the games list on the Steam Community.
- format
- Output format. json (default), xml or vdf.
- appids_filter
- You can optionally filter the list to a set of appids. Note that these cannot be passed as a URL parameter, instead you must use the JSON format described in Steam_Web_API#Calling_Service_interfaces. The expected input is an array of integers (in JSON: "appids_filter: [ 440, 500, 550 ]" )
Result layout
- game_count the total number of games the user owns (including free games they've played, if include_played_free_games was passed)
- A games array, with the following contents (note that if "include_appinfo" was not passed in the request, only appid, playtime_2weeks, and playtime_forever will be returned):
- appid Unique identifier for the game
- name The name of the game
- playtime_2weeks The total number of minutes played in the last 2 weeks
- playtime_forever The total number of minutes played "on record", since Steam began tracking total playtime in early 2009.
- img_icon_url, img_logo_url - these are the filenames of various images for the game. To construct the URL to the image, use this format: http://media.steampowered.com/steamcommunity/public/images/apps/{appid}/{hash}.jpg. For example, the TF2 logo is returned as "07385eb55b5ba974aebbe74d3c99626bda7920b8", which maps to the URL: [1]
- has_community_visible_stats indicates there is a stats page with achievements or other game stats available for this game. The uniform URL for accessing this data is http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/{steamid}/stats/{appid}. For example, Robin's TF2 stats can be found at: http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197960435530/stats/440. You may notice that clicking this link will actually redirect to a vanity URL like /id/robinwalker/stats/TF2
![[1]](http://media.steampowered.com/steamcommunity/public/images/apps/440/07385eb55b5ba974aebbe74d3c99626bda7920b8.jpg){kind=link}
GetRecentlyPlayedGames (v0001)
GetRecentlyPlayedGames returns a list of games a player has played in the last two weeks, if the profile is publicly visible. Private, friends-only, and other privacy settings are not supported unless you are asking for your own personal details (ie the WebAPI key you are using is linked to the steamid you are requesting).
Arguments
- steamid
- The SteamID of the account.
- count
- Optionally limit to a certain number of games (the number of games a person has played in the last 2 weeks is typically very small)
- format
- Output format. json (default), xml or vdf.
Result layout
- total_count the total number of unique games the user has played in the last two weeks. This is mostly significant if you opted to return a limited number of games with the count input parameter
- A games array, with the following contents:
- appid Unique identifier for the game
- name The name of the game
- playtime_2weeks The total number of minutes played in the last 2 weeks
- playtime_forever The total number of minutes played "on record", since Steam began tracking total playtime in early 2009.
- img_icon_url, img_logo_url - these are the filenames of various images for the game. To construct the URL to the image, use this format: http://media.steampowered.com/steamcommunity/public/images/apps/{appid}/{hash}.jpg. For example, the TF2 logo is returned as "07385eb55b5ba974aebbe74d3c99626bda7920b8", which maps to the URL: [2]
Community pages parameters
Most of Steam Community information can be returned in XML format by appending ?xml=1 to their URLs. This method does not require API key.
Community data
The Steam community data interface (XML only) is described here: https://partner.steamgames.com/documentation/community_data
Calling Service interfaces
There is a new style of WebAPI which we refer to as "Services". They function in many ways like the WebAPIs you are used to, the main difference being that all service APIs will accept their arguments as a single JSON blob in addition to taking them as GET or POST parameters. To pass in data as JSON, invoke the webapi with a parameter set like:
?key=XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX&format=json&input_json={steamid: 76561197972495328}
Note that the JSON will need to be URL-encoded. The "key" and "format" fields should still be passed as separate parameters, as before. POST requests are supported as well.
You can identify if a WebAPI is a "Service" by the name of the interface; if it ends in "Service" like "IPlayerService", then it supports this additional method of passing parameter data. Some Service methods have parameters that are more complex structures and require this different input format.
Implementations
- Steam Web API library C# library for Steam Friends interaction.
- Steam Condenser Ruby, PHP, and Java library.