this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2026
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That doesn't even make sense tho, why are they giving out 1000s of free keys?
If you have no marketing budget, then shipping keys to streamers. Like small streamers, with 10 concurrent viewers, they might actually install it and play the game.
That's 10 more people exposed to the game. Now send out 10.000 of these keys, even if 1% that'd be 100 streamers, actually play it. That's expose to 1000 people, if you're lucky that's 20 extra buyers - But it's also buyers way more likely to leave a positive review, given they've already seen the gameplay loop before buying it.
The early reviews are incredibly important for Steam to determine whether or not it should boost visibility of the game
Maybe in hopes that youtubers and streamers will play the game on their channels if they got it for free? That's probably what is meant by 'to get content on our game'.
Is me paying for a free key meant for a reviewer or streamer so bad, I leave steam reviews lol
Yeah, I've never bought this. "oh no, someone redeemed a code we gave away/already sold"
So if a person who received a key sells it to someone who might have bought it from the official channels then the devs do not receive that money but the so called “content creator” gets it. The content creator was supposed to make a video or whatever of the game in exchange for the key. It’s also a breach of trust. Basically “content creator” begs for a key and says it’s for video or a stream, but then sells it is just a dick move.
The devs can easily revoke the keys and burn the content creator, they're choosing to be victims here.
This right here is why I never believed the claims either.
I get the claim of they buy the key in lesser off regions for cheaper to sell at a higher price but, steam dashboard allows you to individually disable keys for any reason you like. I wouldn't imagine anyone actually daring to try to resell those(review keys), they would be blacklisting themselves from the industry.
There's the argument that the publisher/dev might be new to it and didn't log who got what key but, I wouldn't bet access to games on that.
It was a gift, no?
Who are you to tell me what to do with a gift. Its mine after you give it.
Software industry understands neither property nor consent.
Okay but then you are still a liar if you pretend to be a content creator so you can source free keys to flip. Why is a dev not allowed to be upset when they got duped by a liar?
I think that's stretching the definition of "gift" a bit far, no? A gift doesn't come with strings attached (even if unenforceable).
If these streamers aren't being contracted, then it is basically the same as a gift. Selling the key is still perhaps morally dubious if there was an expectation of promotion, but that's as far as it goes.
If your justification is "it's not a crime" you're well aware it should be.
My justification for what exactly? I wasn't justifying anything.
And what do you believe should be a crime? Giving out free keys, or selling keys that you got for free?
If theres no formal agreement and no contract between the dev and the recipient of the key, where/what is the crime??
Selling keys you were gifted to play in order to raise the games profile. See your previous comment if you're still confused as to what's being talked about.
As I literally just said, if your justification is that it isn't a crime, you already know it should be. Seeing as you seem genuinely confused, verbal contracts and agreements in writing (e.g email exchanges) are still contracts, even if not formal.