So... where to start.

since release of SSTD, we got a couple "good natured" emails from "streamers" wanting keys for "streaming and publicity" at first i thought they meant it, but as any proper brain does, my 3 brain cells collectively decided that it was best to contact Frog (crazyamphibian) first
about it, since if people were sending ME emails, that probably meant they couldn't talk to him.

thankfully since I was careful about it, it just so happened that he saw my messages and decided I should handle checking their veracity and checking if we got any sort of notoriety somehow, since people asking for things wasn't something we expected so early, let alone 2 days after release.

I did. they SEEMED legit, but then I noticed a thing.

There was a site selling keys for our game.
and then i connected the dots.

Someone is selling our game for cheaper than we do. People we never heard of, who had medium sized channels but were inactive for quite a while started asking for keys for marketing. And as far as I had checked, I dont think Frog sold anyone or gave away keys to be sold by key distribution sites at any point.

ding ding ding: they are trying to scam us for keys to sell.

I checked and yeah it seems its common-ish practice from key selling sites to pretend to be streamers and ask developers for keys. Small devs think its real people, send them
without much thought. Bigger devs are too busy to care and end up sending, no thought involved.

Of course, there's a slim chance that those people were real. so I set up a *devious* little **scheme**. I made an template, with a proper greeting and polite words
asking that they would contact me through the twitch DMs themselves or, send me a message through any of the linked social media. And sent to all of them
and also plan on sending to any other people asking for keys.

if they are real, cool! a streamer should be able to message me directly through their own account and such, so there's no problem, job done, call it a day.

if not, they can't message me through an account that they do not own. If so, woops, no keys for you buddy, too bad, you get nothing, you lose, good day sir. oh and i will be sending those to EVERYONE. So guess there's a real chance there's a guy on the other end being a waste of company money and reading the same emails

so i am happy to be a waste of a few dollars/euro to some guy trying to rip us off.

see yall

from your buddy

-Elo.
"the best damn PR on this planet" - Frog