From a top-level perspective, the concept is fairly simple: Earn free games by writing game reviews. Obviously there's a lot more to it but let's start with that.
In a nutshell, our system is designed to help you secure the games of your choice (picked from our library of over 700 Steam keys with more being added every day) by writing reviews for the games you've played on Steam:
- Sign up for the site using your Steam account
- Write a review for a game in your existing Steam library
- The site's algorithm calculates a score for the review
- You are awarded points based on the review's score
- You use the points to redeem a game OR write another review to get more points first
Points are earned by writing high-quality, thorough, and insightful reviews. Write a great review, get more points. It's that easy.
What Makes a Good Review?
You might ask yourself "who are you to decide what makes a game review great?" And it's a fair question. To be honest, we're not looking to impose much editorial will upon your reviews. It's mostly just about keeping a baseline. For example, here are just a few of the guidelines to maximizing your points:
- Minimum of 200 words
- Add at least 3 images (we recommend screenshots taken from the game)
- Make sure there is a "visually even" balance between words and images
- Add at least "Pros" and/or "Cons"
- Your review should be written in English (we'll accept more languages as time goes on) with a minimum of typos
- Use our dedicated section for "Facets" (i.e. Graphics, Sound, Controls, etc)
Lastly, and likely the most important, DO NOT use AI to write your entire review. We check for this and penalize point totals on reviews that rely on heavy use of AI, with frequent abuse leading to a site ban and a removal of the reviews you've written.
If your submitted review comes in short of the minimum 2000 points, we flag it and send it back with suggestions for making it better.
The point is, we want to work with you to craft entertaining, informative, and readable reviews. We're not looking to influence your opinion, change your tone, or beat you over the head with an Oxford comma. In fact, most times I'm guessing our moderators won't have to contact you at all, and instead just approve and publish it, at which time you'll receive your points. It's that simple.
How Do You Calculate Points?
Points are calculated based on the following criteria:
- Word count (up to a maximum of 500 words although you can write more if you want to)
- Images (up to a maximum of 5 images even if you add more than 5)
- The ratio of images to words
- Whether or not you use all the available sections (General Info, Text, Images, Facets and Pros/Cons)
- How much of your content is flagged as AI-generated
- Your Steam statistics in the game as compared to the average player
We do weigh these criteria differently, and I regularly tweak how criteria are weighed in an effort to create a genuine balance, based on metrics we aggregate from the users themselves. The average submitted and published review comes in around 3800 points, and that's the same average of cost in points on a redeemed game. It's a system that we want to be fair, but leaning in favor of the user. We don't want people to run out of points. After all, that would defeat the purpose. So it's an ongoing mechanism that we hope to perfect over time.
The Basics
Once you sign up for an account, just go to your profile and click the button to review a game in your Steam library. If you've signed up using a code, you will already have points you can use to redeem up to 3 games, even before you have to review anything. Once you've reviewed your game and submitted it, and it has been approved for publishing by our moderators, you will receive points in your account, which you can then spend on redeeming new games.
Side note: Due to Steam's latest privacy changes, please make sure your library is public so the system can fetch and verify the games you already own.
Games that you can redeem are worth anywhere from 120 points to several thousand. We use a number of factors to calculate how many points a game is worth, including:
- Retail price
- Review score on Steam
- How many reviews it has on Steam
- Release date
From your user page, a link is provided to a list of games with available keys. If you're unsure about a game, we have a quick link on this page for you to look at the game on Steam. Once you decide on a game, the points are automatically deducted from your total. At the same time, the key will show up on your user page, in a list of keys assigned to your account. You can have 3 games redeemed at any one time that have not been reviewed yet.
Once a game is redeemed, you can choose to review that game from your user page at any time. Obviously, we recommend you play it first, as much as you can to consider it reviewable, but it doesn't necessarily need to be beaten. Once a review is submitted for moderation, it is no longer editable. However you can save your review as a draft for as long as you need, and come back to it periodically to add to it before you feel it is ready.
Writing a Review
Reviews are structured using a handful of different sections. I like to think creating one is a straightforward process, but I'm hoping to get some good feedback on what we can do to make it easier for everyone.
At the moment, the create/edit form consists of 4 standard parts:
- The Featured Image, which shows up directly below the game title, and is also used in thumbnails throughout the site.
- The Main Content, which is categorized by the Subhead (a main headline directly below the Featured Image), Overall Score, Copy Sections and Images, which are inserted between the copy.
- Facets, or essentially what could be considered the industry standard aspects of a game (Graphics, Sound, Controls, etc) but you are free to define your own.
- Pros and Cons - These are limited to five apiece and are typically a sentence or two long.
While we HIGHLY recommend using all of these different features to maximize your points, we don't require it. For a general idea of how these parts fit together on a full page, check out the reviews linked in the Featured Reviews section of the home page.
Moderation
Reviews that are sent up to moderation are looked over only so that they meet our general guidelines. For the most part, we try to stick with fixing typos only. If any parts of the review feel like they would be more readable with a couple minor edits (typically spacing and formatting) then our moderators will contact the author to discuss with them. That's about as heavy-handed as we want to be, and the idea is to give more freedom to writers once they've submitted a reasonable amount of issue-free articles.
Moderators will then publish the review, you will receive your points for said review, and the review will show up in a list of your published works on your user page. From there, you're free to pick a new game to redeem, and start anew.
The Long Game
It bears repeating that the site, at this stage, is in beta and we are regularly updating the core functionality. However, we have big plans already for additions to the site, including:
- Different ways to earn points outside of publishing articles
- User engagement and rankings for reviews
- New components to add value to your reviews (galleries, videos, etc)
- Social spaces to discuss specific games
- Enhanced Steam account connectivity
- Personalization and recommendation engine for keys and reviews
Looking forward to the future, we're excited, and we hope you enjoy the site and everything it has to offer.
Sincerely,
~Serverus