Originally posted by SirViolentDeath:

https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/73jw93/public_scamlist_for_indie_devs_contribute_here/

Thank you, good sir, that's exactly the link I need!

Hey Guardians! I've now received thirteen or so emails that I strongly suspect are fraudulent key requests. Most of these I received over the weekend. I was wondering if there was a place here to report these messages and their senders, to help build up an idea of how these scammers are finding out about games, how they are getting their emails out, and most importantly, how we can combat this evil practice.

These emails prey on the uninformedness of their recipients, and to take the innocent joy of sharing a creation with others and twist it for exploitation is something we as a collective species should not tolerate.

I'd love to hear if sharing these emails all would be useful, and if so, where would be the best place to share it!

Originally posted by 真 MUTANT OVERLORD:

Originally posted by hvyblade:

I'd rather lose sales than end up unintentionally supporting G2A and/or other fraudulent sites.

I barely know who you are yet already you got my vote to support you.
Wish for more indie devs like you in this place.

Thanks, 真 MUTANT OVERLORD, that really means a lot! Losing exposure and sales is a dangerous thing for an indie developer, but it's going to take a lot of us working together to expose the corruption out there and to get gaming back to where it should be.

@Avantyr and @Hibachi It's okay, I appreciate the effort to clarify exactly what Steam Trading Cards are, and what they mean (practically speaking).

@Avantyr Thanks so much! I'm hoping the launch goes well too. One regression bug came out of the woodwork, but that's just been fixed.

Hi Mellow_Online, it's an honor to hear from you! Great, I'm glad the information is helpful! I tried to be careful with the information I posted as well because I'm also not entirely sure where he stands. I won't be responding to him.

@Avantyr That's a good point. I certainly don't blame curators or reviewers from wanting more games to cover! I do however, want to be careful how I tread so as to be a positive influence in the gaming community rather than a negative one. While exposure is remarkably difficult for indie developers, I do feel that potentially dishonest reviews. I believe that if a game is good, it doesn't need false information in order to succeed. If such a path doesn't yet exist, then I guess I'll need to be a trail-blazer.

I'll take your advice on Trading Cards under consideration. Since I came in late to that particular game its never really been a thing for me, but hindering forms of play (including meta forms of play) is not something I should be doing. Perhaps after Vale of Myth is more stable, it would be best to put the notion to a community vote, and let the players decide if cards are something they want.

EDIT: Ah! It seems a lot occurred while I was typing this response. I'll take the time to read all responses over.

Thank you all for weighing in on this!

Originally posted by Avantyr:

The amount of reviews and the games reviewed is somewhat suspicious. It's probably part of one of those Russian bought positive reviews circles as they are most if not all positive and the games are mostly ones used for card farming and sold for cents on steamgroungs, DIG, etc.

I'd expect he asked for a review copy or something, rather than just said, keys please?

Just curious, but which is your game?

He basically said keys please; his exact wording is (in the interest of being transparent and fair):
"Good day dear developer.
And I want to make you an offer - few keys for reviews from me and other steam users. Or just one key for my collection.
I think its a mutually beneficial offer and I hope for your positive reply.
Best regards and good luck with your new projects.
If you want, I can send you examples of writing reviews."

Don't know why he'd message me though - I have a stance completely against Steam cards, and won't be including them in my release.

Thank you for the digging! If he's running a positive review farm, that's more than enough reason not to respond. I don't want in on any of that customer manipulation.

My game is Vale of Myth, it's Store page is here:
https://steamhost.cn/app/670970/Res_Judicata_Vale_of_Myth/
(Our ESRB rating will be live on the ESRB site later today).

Originally posted by Avantyr:

Maybe you should add a permalink to his profile.

Thanks for the reply! Sure thing, but how do I do that? It's not listed under the "gathering evidence" posted discussion. -Apologies, I fixed it out.

Sorry about that, his permalink is: https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/profiles/76561198016096893

This is my first post to the group, so please forgive any ignorance in my post. As a developer, I've been contacted by several scammers (and ignored the lot of them) asking for keys to channels they don't own. As I release today, I received an email within seconds of release from a Steam user Sergej110. He has asked for one or more keys.

Problem is, I don't know the guy and Steam has been home to a lot of shadey behaviour lately. He belongs to a 9,000+ member group, centered around "freeeeeee keys." Combined with his Steam profile - which has thousands of games associated with his account, I feel the need to ask if anyone here has heard of this guy or any schenanigans he may have been up to. His group has published over 800 reviews, but frankly, I can't read the language, so I can't make any statements about the review quality.

I'd rather lose sales than end up unintentionally supporting G2A and/or other fraudulent sites.

Cheers to all of you, and please keep up the great work!