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On Sharing Promo Codes and Beta Keys

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by jonaphin, Jul 13, 2012.

  1. jonaphin

    jonaphin

    Joined:
    Dec 31, 2008
    Posts:
    209
    Hi guys,

    Today, our small (but valiant) team is releasing a free tool that in my opinion should be in every Indy Developer's toolbox. It's called ShareBetaKeys.com
    It solves graciously the problem of product key distribution to testers and potential users of your game.

    Pasting a bunch of keys on a forum thread, while good in its intention, is not the right way to impress your potential users with a top-notch experience. Worse yet, it can leave quite a few of them disgruntled or completely locked out of systems like Steam after trying out more keys than they should have.

    With Share Beta Keys, we have streamlined distribution to make it as painless to both you, the developer, and your users.

    In a nutshell, the service works as follows:
    1/ Fill out the form (includes dropping your keys into the corresponding box, 1 per line)
    2/ Share the generated link with your users

    You do not even have to join the site to start sharing access keys.

    Evidently, there are still perks to joining. For example, we will be able to link all your key sets to your account and you'll have more fine-grain options (setting an expiration date, or instructions etc..) available to you at all times.

    Each user accessing your link will be able to redeem one key, until the set runs out of available codes.

    I hope Share Beta Keys helps you as much as we think it will :)
     
  2. Trinda

    Trinda

    Joined:
    Jan 1, 2012
    Posts:
    26
    This looks really useful.
    I was looking at making something like what Garry (Creator of Garry's Mod) did with the Gmod 13 Beta, make a website that has you login to your steam account (via Steam OpenID), and then you would be given a beta key if your account had enough games on it (worth $50 iirc), but this just completely removes the need for that.
     
  3. jonaphin

    jonaphin

    Joined:
    Dec 31, 2008
    Posts:
    209
    Thanks for the kind words, NothAU :)

    There is more coming soon too, as we're set on making this service add value to our dev community.

    Getting quality, legitimate testers is definitely an area we're looking into as well.
     
    Last edited: Jul 14, 2012
  4. pivotraze

    pivotraze

    Joined:
    Feb 4, 2012
    Posts:
    593
    I can see this will be a great thing to have for one of my future games, so I joined instantly. I actually think I might have been one of the first people to join haha :)

    I will most definitely use this in the future, currently, my game is a free game regardless
     
  5. jonaphin

    jonaphin

    Joined:
    Dec 31, 2008
    Posts:
    209
    Hey guys,

    Just wanted to give you a small update.
    You can now export data (key, first name, last name, email, date of redemption) on the users that redeemed a key for your game.

    To do so, make sure you're logged in, go to My Key Sets > Click on "Export Users to .CSV" under "Stats".

    Would you guys be interested in an API that would allow you to build plugins, such as redeeming keys in-game, or generating new keys from Unity?