How to spot Steam key resellers posing as curators
Check four things before you send a key: the share of its followers Steam rates "high value", whether its reviews read like someone played the game, how many games it posts a day, and whether other pages post the same games on the same days. In my crawl of 1,179 Steam curators, 185 of the 712 with 1,000 or more followers (26%) show three or more points of these signs, and 35% have under 30% high-value followers. Numbers updated Nov 1, 2026.
Most "curators" who email you for keys want keys to sell. Real curators exist and some help a lot. Here's how the scam works, what the crawl found, and a five-minute check.
How the scam works
Someone creates a Steam curator page, buys tens of thousands of followers, and posts short positive reviews of whatever games they get keys for. The page looks busy and popular. They email developers, or wait for keys through Curator Connect, and resell the keys on grey-market sites. Some run several pages and post the same games on all of them the same day.
Honest curators have complained about it for years. One wrote that Steam "recommends these curators at the top of the list because of their huge (but totally bogus) follower counts" (Chris Picone). Another estimates a real curator gains 3 or 4 followers a day, so a year-old page with 10,000 has bought followers (Lewd Games Reviewers).
What I found
Steam's directory lists 4,637 curators. I read the latest 100 posts of the 1,179 with 200 or more followers, 104,361 posts in all. Of the 712 with 1,000 or more followers:
- 251 (35%) have fewer than 30% of their followers rated "high value" by Steam. 159 (22%) are under 10%. For half of these curators the share is over 55%, so the low ones stand far apart.
- 134 recommended 8 or more of the same games on the same days as another curator, with mostly low-value followers. 95 do it with two or more others. Publisher families like THQ Nordic post each other's releases the same day too, but their followers look real, so they're left out.
- 185 (26%) have three or more points of warning signs.
How often each sign shows up among all 1,179 curators I read:
None of this proves a given curator is a reseller. It's the pattern bought followers and pages run in groups leave, and it's common. Full report with charts.
A five-minute check before you send a key
- Look at the high-value followers. Steam doesn't show this on the curator page, but it's in the directory data, and every profile here has it. Under 30% is a bad sign.
- Read three of its reviews. Copied store descriptions or one-line praise mean nobody played the game.
- Check the dates. Twenty positive recommendations on one day, or two a day for months, isn't someone playing games. The posting calendar on each profile shows this at a glance.
- Look for twins. If other curators posted the same games on the same days, I count them as one operation. Each profile draws the group.
- Use Curator Connect, not email. Anyone who says they're a curator and asks for keys by email is a red flag, especially from a free email address. In Steamworks you can see whether a Curator Connect key was redeemed.
Is Curator Connect worth it?
It's free and it's the right channel, but expect few reviews. One developer sent keys to 77 curators, some well known, and got one review after two weeks (itch.io). The keys that work go to curators who already cover games like yours. That's why the search here starts from comparable games instead of follower counts.
You can log each key you send. I check the curator's posts every day and mark the key when it posts about your game. Developers have logged 0 keys.
Ways to find curators, compared
| Method | Finds curators of similar games | Flags fakes | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Curator Connect's own list | No, it filters by tag and language | No, and big follower counts come first | Free |
| Similar games' store pages, by hand | Yes | No | An afternoon per launch |
| A scraper (Steam Curators Finder on Apify) | Yes | No | $2 per 1,000 rows, plus setup |
| Key platforms (Keymailer, Gamosy) | Mostly YouTubers and streamers | They vet creators, not curators | Free tiers; paid plans about $25 to $99 a month |
| Curator Match | Yes, ranked by match, recency and activity | Yes, with reasons, plus logged keys | Top 5 free, full list $12 once |
Prices as listed on 31 October 2026. Keymailer's plans come from third-party reviews because its pricing page asks you to book a demo.
Check the curators for your game
Pick a few games like yours; the ones with several signs are hidden.
Find curators