Considered by some critics as a mascot for the Minecraft intellectual property, his likeness has appeared extensively in advertising and merchandise, including wearable apparel and collectible items.

Steve became a widely recognized character in the video game industry following the critical and commercial success of the Minecraft franchise. Depending on the version of Minecraft, players have a chance of defaulting to either Steve or any of the other variant skins when creating a new account, although the skin is easy to change from the client or website. His feminine counterpart, Alex, was first introduced in August 2014 for Java PC versions of Minecraft, with the other seven debuting in the Java edition of the game in October 2022. Steve lacks an official backstory by the developers of Minecraft as he is intended to be a customizable player avatar as opposed to being a predefined character. Created by Swedish video game developer Markus 'Notch' Persson and introduced in the initial Java-based version of Minecraft which was first publicly released on May 17, 2009, Steve is one of nine default player character skins available for players of contemporary versions of Minecraft. Steve is a fictional character from the 2011 video game Minecraft.