Steam Simplifies Requesting And Joining Betas

For many people on Steam, one of their favorite gaming activities is to join the beta testing for various video games ahead of their official launch. Frequently on Steam, developers will giveaway beta keys. In Valve speak, those beta keys are “release override keys.”

Valve traditionally requires developers to contact them directly if they want more than 1000 release override keys. It’s a system with many flaws, and Steam has simplified the system allowing users to register the interest in the game by clicking the “Request Access” button on the store page for the title.

Developers can then grant access to batches of players from the Steam Control panel with no keys sent or redeemed. Playtest also solves other behind-the-scenes problems with beta keys. Playtest betas will have their own identity on steam that’s different from the actual game that’s tested, so the playtest won’t mess up a player’s wish list containing the real game.

Valve wrote, “We saw a number of other surprising or unofficial solutions to the same set of problems. Stuff like offering a demo that was really just an Open Beta, or shipping a free ‘Prologue’ game to build momentum. Devs were using whatever tools they could to build community and gather playtesting data. Those are great problems to solve, so we want to provide an official, well-supported solution that is easier for developers and more consistent for players.”