Valve bans alleged scammers after indie developer uncovers potential resale racket

gamesradar.com:

Valve has banned several Steam curator groups following accusations of key reselling and false negative reviews regarding a new indie game. 

Events were initially set in motion when beat ‘em up point-and-click game Brok the InvestiGator was hit with negative reviews from Steam curators after its developer used prologue keys in an attempt to determine whether some of those who asked for access to the game were simply trying to resell their keys. 

In the wake of its release last week, the indie title had accrued many positive user reviews, but developer Cowcat spotted that several reviews from Steam curators had switched from a positive 'Recommended' rating to 'Not Recommended'. After looking into it, Cowcat concluded that the resulting switch was likely backlash from those they'd handed out free keys to. 

In a Twitter thread (below), Cowcat explains that they didn’t want to give the game for free to resellers posing as reviewers, but wanted to make sure they didn't inconvenience legitimate critics. As such, they sent a demo version of the game to every user who requested one, believing the actual reviewers would reply to flag the error. As Cowcat goes on to explain, you can’t fully confirm the contents of a Steam key without activating it, which would likely catch a reseller out if they’re simply passing it on to someone else.

BROK is currently being mass targetted by Steam curators sending negative reviews