Sending Curator Connect keys without feeding resellers
How many keys to send, to whom, what to write and when to follow up. Short version: fewer keys, to curators who already cover your genre, sent through Steamworks only.
1. Pick by games, not followers
Curator Connect sorts by followers, and followers can be bought. Start instead from three to five games that are close to yours and look at who covered them in the last few months. A curator who covered three of your comparison games is worth ten with big numbers and no overlap. The search does this and hides curators with several warning signs.
2. Check each curator for a minute
- High-value followers under 30%: skip unless its reviews are clearly real.
- Posts the same games on the same days as other pages: skip.
- Twenty posts in a day, or one-line reviews: skip.
- Nothing posted in 90 days: it won't review yours either.
Every curator profile here shows these, with reasons. The scam guide explains each.
3. Send fewer, better keys
Twenty to forty well-matched curators beat two hundred random ones. Keys sent through Curator Connect can't be resold as easily as raw keys in an email, and Steamworks shows you which ones were redeemed. Never paste keys into an email to someone who says they're a curator unless the address is listed on their Steam page.
4. Write two lines
Curator Connect lets you add a note. Say what the game is in one sentence and why it fits this curator in another: "You covered Dome Keeper and Brotato; this is a 20-minute-run base defender with the same upgrade loop." Skip the press release.
5. Time it
Send two to three weeks before launch or before Next Fest starts, so reviews land when people can buy or wishlist. Curators who post do so within a few weeks; after 30 days the chance drops off.
6. Log the keys and follow up once
Tick the curators you sent keys to and press "I sent these keys". I check their posts daily and mark each key when they post. At day 14 your dashboard suggests a short follow-up for curators who list a contact. At day 30 the key counts as no post. Developers have logged 0 keys here; the more who do, the clearer it gets which curators post.
7. Don't pay for placement
Services that sell curator reviews put paid pages in front of you. A recommendation you paid for is an ad, and the pages that sell them are rarely the ones players follow.
Build your send list
Pick games like yours, tick curators, copy the names into Curator Connect.
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