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Steam Curator Connect: How to Send Copies That Get Played
Steam Curator Connect sends your game straight to Steam curators, with no keys and no emails. You can make offers to up to 100 curators, with up to five copies each, and every curator sees a preview of the game, the first three screenshots on your store page and your message. Nothing obliges them to play it. So the result depends on two decisions you control: which curators you pick, and what those three screenshots and your message say. Everything below comes from Valve’s Steam Curators documentation unless another source is linked.
How Curator Connect works
Curators are people and groups who recommend games to the players who follow them on Steam. Their reviews can be positive, negative or simply informational. Curator Connect is the tool in Steamworks that lets you choose curators, write them a message and make a copy of your game available to them. Steam handles the licence, so there is no key to copy, leak or resell.
The limits, from Steamworks
- 100 curators can receive offers for your game.
- 5 copies at most per curator, mainly for multiplayer games a curator’s team plays together.
- 3 screenshots: curators see the first three on your store page, a preview of the game and your message.
- 6 months: curators who have not reviewed a game or been active in the Steam Community in that time may not appear in the search.
- No take-backs: you cannot revoke a copy once a curator has accepted it. You can expire an offer nobody has accepted.
Source: Steamworks, Steam Curators.
Before you send anything
- Permission: your Steamworks account needs the “Generate CD Keys” permission. With it, a Curator Connect link appears under the Marketing section of your app’s landing page.
- A public store page: it has to be visible and approved, at least as a Coming Soon page. The game does not have to be released.
- A build: upload one, because a copy sent to a curator is playable immediately, whether or not the game is on sale yet. Valve’s advice is to make sure the build is in a good state before you send it.
- The package: turning Curator Connect on creates a complimentary reviewer package with the same content as your base store package. If you add depots later, such as a new operating system, add them to this package too. DLC and a soundtrack can go in it as well.
The early copy is the point that is easy to miss. A curator who accepts before launch can play the game that day, so send the build you would be happy to see reviewed, not the one you are still fixing.
Pick curators who fit your game
The search filters curators by tag, language, operating system and VR. Each result shows the curator’s Steam followers and their following on other platforms, such as YouTube and Twitch. By default the list favours curators whose tags overlap with yours, weighted toward bigger follower counts and closer overlap.
That default is a starting point. Valve’s own page says “don’t evaluate Curators by audience size alone”, and that a smaller curator with tailored recommendations can be worth more than a larger, broader one. Before you add a curator, open their page and check:
- the last games they reviewed, and whether any are close to yours;
- their description, which may say what they cover and what they skip;
- the language they write in, against the languages your game supports;
- whether they still review regularly, or posted their last review months ago.
One hundred is a ceiling, not a target. A shorter list where every curator fits is easier to follow up, and it tells you more when you look at who accepted.
Write a message a curator reads to the end
Steamworks already adds your game’s name, logo, screenshots and primary tags to the offer. Your message only has to do what those cannot. Valve’s guidance: keep it brief, get to the point, say why the curator’s audience will care and what makes your game different. Add your contact details if you want the curator to be able to reach you.
A curator message in five lines
Hi [curator name], your list of [their focus, for example short tactics games] is why I am sending this.
[Game] is
The copy includes the full game and the soundtrack. It launches on [date], and there is no embargo.
Questions or bugs: [your name], [email].
Then look at your first three screenshots, because they sit next to that message. If they show a menu, a logo or a cutscene, swap them for gameplay that explains the game at a glance. Our guide on optimizing your Steam page goes through screenshot order in detail.
Multiplayer games: send more than one copy
Curators can be groups as well as individuals, and Valve says the five-copy option is mainly for multiplayer games whose reviewers need to play together. Send as many copies as the game needs for a real session, and say so in the message: “four copies, so your team can play the full co-op mode together”.
After you send
The game appears in each curator’s Curator Connect dashboard for the members who can accept games, and they get an email. Each one can accept the offer or ignore it. On your side, the dashboard shows how many copies you sent to each curator and how many were accepted.
- Accepted does not mean reviewed. Curators can play it and write nothing, or decide it does not suit their audience.
- If you change your mind about a curator, expire the offer before they accept it.
- Answer every curator who writes to you, on the address in your message.
Curator Connect, keys or a press kit
Curator Connect reaches people who run a Steam curator page. A YouTuber or streamer without one is out of its reach, and for them you still need Steam keys, which have their own rules: Valve’s Steam Keys documentation names Release State Override keys for press and influencer access before release, generally limited to 2,500 in total, and warns about fraudsters who pose as journalists to collect keys. Our guide on getting streamers to play your indie game covers that side, and what a press kit needs covers the page both groups will look at.
A free press kit on IndiePump.space adds a third route: creators request a key from your page, and you decide who gets one. These three released games had keys for creators there on 20 October 2026, and Circuit Overload, with online co-op for up to four players, is exactly the kind of game the five-copy option is for.
Released games with keys for creators on IndiePump.space
Released
How IndiePump can help
If you want help building the curator list and the store page it points to, look at our Steam page setup service and our PR and email outreach, or talk to us.
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