Providing Steam Keys...

quintond

I would highly reccommend to anyone using Steam to release their game that you use this site to manage your Steam Keys: http://www.keymailer.co/

I made the mistake of not using them from the start and ended up causing myself a world of headaches.

Whether you’re a casual streamer or a YouTube superstar, Keymailer makes it easy for content creators to request and receive keys for Steam games to showcase on their channels.

Just the amount of spam and dodgy requests we were receiving and trying to weed them out alone was worth switching over to this system.

Keymailer is a one-stop-shop for content creators to get game keys directly from publishers and developers, plus it’s a bulletproof way proving who you are without laying yourself wide open to spamming.

I suspect some of the issues we had with piracy was because a few of these dodgy requests got through ... luckily I never issued that many keys, so I am hoping I minimised the damage in the long term.

francoisvn

How does it compare with distribute(), which links in with presskit() easily? How is it with distributing non-Steam keys (like Humble, itch.io, Play Store, etc.)?

quintond

@francoisvn: I actually have no idea. It only seems to support Steam at the moment ... so I think your site would be much better suited.

I might actually switch. 8-}

francoisvn

So I don't think distribute() is necessarily ideal is that regard either. Last time I used it, it didn't allow you to send a URL as a key, which can make it difficult for some platforms, like Humble, where it's not obvious where the code should go. That said, it does allow for a much wider range of platforms, so YMMV.

quintond

So if you wanted a key distribution method, what features would you expect?

Also, how would you vet the requester of the keys?

I am noticing that although KeyMailer is cool, it only supports certain media (YouTube, Twitch, and Twitter). Obviously you want to be able to support Review Sites and other places ... but how would you vet them.

francoisvn

distribute() has a system where they vet press for you, so that's useful. I'd like it if there was a little more flexibility in kinds of keys you can upload. Other than that I guess what I've seen of distribute() does the trick.

I've heard about KeyMailer a few times before, so I suspect it's a reasonable option, I just haven't ever gotten around to do a proper comparison of the two.