Steam Curator Connect: how it works and where it falls short

How it works

In Steamworks, open your game, then Curator Connect under Marketing. You search and filter curators, write a short message, and send. Valve adds the name, logo, screenshots and tags from your store page. The curator gets an email and a dashboard entry and chooses to accept or ignore. You see how many you sent and how many accepted. Details are in Valve's documentation.

The limits, from Valve's documentation

• Up to 100 curators per game, 5 copies each.
• Your store page must be public, and a build must be uploaded. Pre-release copies are playable at once.
• You can filter by tag, language, OS and name, and see followers on Steam and other platforms.
• There is no obligation for a curator to review. You can't revoke an accepted copy.
• The list only includes curators active in the last six months.

Where it falls short

By default it favours curators with more followers and more overlap in tags. Followers can be bought: among the 718 curators I read with 1,000 or more followers, 258 (36%) have fewer than 30% of their followers rated "high value" by Steam, and 94 post the same games on the same days as two or more other pages. A list sorted by size puts those first. It also can't answer the question that matters: who covered games like mine?

That is the gap this site fills. Pick up to five comparable games and it lists every curator who posted about them, best match first, with the reseller signs and the reason for each. Then you take the names back to Curator Connect and search for them one by one.

A workflow that uses both

1. Build a list of 20 to 40 curators here from games like yours. Skip the ones with several signs.
2. In Curator Connect, search each name and send with two lines on why your game fits.
3. Log the keys you sent here. A daily check marks each one when the curator posts about your game.
4. After two weeks, check Curator Connect for who accepted, and follow up once with the ones that did and did not post.

Questions developers ask

Is Curator Connect free?

Yes. It is part of Steamworks. You need a game with a public store page (Coming Soon is enough), a build uploaded, and the Generate CD Keys permission.

How many curators can I send my game to?

Up to 100 curators, with up to 5 copies each. More than one copy is meant for multiplayer games, so a curator's reviewers can play together.

Does it use keys?

No. Valve says it makes a license available to the curator directly through Steam, so there are no keys or emails. Anyone who asks you for a key by email is outside the intended path.

Do curators have to review my game?

No. Valve says there is no obligation to accept, play or review it, and a curator may reject a game that doesn't fit its audience.

Can I take a game back?

Not after the curator accepts it. You can expire an offer that has not been accepted yet.

Why can't I find a curator in Curator Connect?

Valve limits the list to profiles active in the Steam Community. A curator that has not reviewed a game or been active in about six months does not show.

How does Curator Connect rank curators?

By default it shows curators that name the tags of your game, weighting higher those with more followers and more tag overlap. It does not look at which games a curator covered, and it does not check for bought followers.

Valve's page is the source for every limit above. Check it before you send; limits change.