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11 bit studios, builders of the Frostpunk franchise, have introduced that it will cease granting Steam keys to curators. Because of the proliferation of key resellers that 11 bit and different builders have confronted, it is opting to finish the follow fully.
“Beginning right this moment we received’t be granting recreation keys to Steam curators,” wrote 11 bit.
Builders have been utilizing Steam’s Curator system for years to search out content material creators and reviewers who would greatest assist in selling their video games. Even with Valve’s safeguards, it is attainable for scammers and resellers to turn out to be Curators after which, upon receiving a Steam key, flip round and promote it to whoever is prepared to pay.
Past the resellers and scammers, 11 bit freely admitted that what evaluations it receives from Curators did not appear to “convey any worth” for the group of its video games. Tomi Toikka, CEO of Finnish developer Makea Video games, corroborated 11 bit’s declare, saying that Steam keys to his video games would quickly be resold at G2A or activated with none evaluations to indicate for it.
Key reselling has been a difficulty for the PC video games trade for years. In 2016, digital recreation market G2A was referred to as the most effective locations to promote stolen recreation keys, notably for indie video games.
Following that, G2A would each defend its place, and make it in order that key sellers had to offer private info to their consumers as a way to set up accountability.
Beginning right this moment we received’t be granting recreation keys to Steam curators. Primarily based on our and different devs’ experiences, a lot of the requests come from pretend accounts used to collect and resell the keys and the revealed evaluations do not appear to convey any worth for the group anyway.— 11 bit studios (@11bitstudios) September 2, 2022
Lately, PCGamer reported that Valve banned 20 curator pages after indie developer Cowcat accused a number of curators of making an attempt to get free codes from the developer. After spamming Cowcat’s recreation Brok the Investigator with unfavorable evaluations obtained wider consideration, all of the Curators concerned have been banned.
Upon listening to concerning the current bans, 11 bit expressed hope that Valve will enhance the Curator program. It stays unclear if 11 bit’s place is everlasting or, ought to Valve implement adjustments, change its stance.
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