Beta & Press Access — invite-only access without bearer keys

Your game isn't out yet, but your beta list is. The usual move — emailing out keys — means the moment you hit send, you've lost control: keys get shared, resold, dumped on forums, and you can't take one back or say who's actually playing.

This is also how you stop press keys from leaking. Review keys are one of the classic grey-market taps: fake "curators" farm them by email, spares end up on key sites undercutting your launch, and a bearer key carries no fingerprint — you never learn which list leaked. An email-bound pass can't be resold (there's nothing to paste), every recipient is attributed, and when the review window closes you revoke the whole wave in one click. Label a wave "Press — Launch" and it's a managed press list, not a key blast.

FlipKey.gg's beta service replaces the key blast. You paste your email list; each address gets a personal invite bound to that email. The invitee clicks, confirms their email with a 6-digit code, and holds a beta pass that cannot be traded, shared, or resold — and that you can revoke per-person at any time. No crypto anything on the tester's side.

What you get over key distribution

• No leakage: an invite only works for the email it was sent to. A forwarded link dead-ends at the email check.
• Per-person revocation: NDA breach? Leaked build? One click and that tester's access check starts failing — before or after they've claimed.
• Identity-attached telemetry: every access check tells you which invitee it is — feedback, crash reports, and bans map to real invited people.
• A launch channel, not a dead list: your testers end up with accounts holding your beta pass — at release, they're one click from buying, and you can reward them with a founders item.

Setup (10 minutes)

1. Open Beta Waves and create the pass right there — name it (e.g. "Closed Beta — Wave 1"), set the seat count. It's untradable automatically and never appears on the public marketplace: invite-only by construction.
2. Pick the pass, paste your emails (up to 500 per wave), send. Each address gets the invite email; already-invited addresses are skipped, so re-pasting your full list is safe.
3. Watch the invite table: invited → claimed, with revoke buttons throughout.

Gating your build

Your launcher, server, or web build asks FlipKey.gg whether a tester is in — one authenticated GET with your API key (Webhooks page):

GET https://flipkey.gg/api/beta/check?drop_id=123&email=tester@example.com
X-Api-Key: <your key>

→ { "granted": true, "status": "claimed", "drop_id": 123 }

Deny when granted is false — status tells you why (not_invited, active = invited but unclaimed, revoked). Ask the tester for their email at your login/launcher and check it server-side; or use the wallet parameter if you've integrated FlipKey.gg identity more deeply. Revocations take effect on the next check — no re-issue, no key rotation.

Pricing

Two limits apply: your beta invite cap (1,000 invites per publisher — contact us to raise it) and your mint credits — each invite reserves one promotional mint from the same 1,000-free-then-$0.02 pool every campaign type shares. Sending waves needs the minting role (or admin) on your team. FlipKey.gg earns its cut when you sell — betas are how we meet.