Running a beta test on Steam is usually difficult because developers have to hand out individual Steam keys to everyone who wants to participate. But Valve is apparently trying to eliminate this deterioration by adding a new option that allows developers to include test registrations directly on their Steam pages.
The new feature was unveiled by Steam Database creator Pavel “xPaw” Jundik, who tweeted about his presence on the Steam page for the Creative Assembly Total War: Elysium strategy card game, which is now in closed beta. Just below the “add to your wish list” option is a button to request access to the playlist: Click on it and it changes to indicate that you have requested access, and “to monitor the Steam email notification when the developer is ready to accept more participants. “
Interestingly, this update arrived so quietly, given how publicly Valve has announced, tested and released new features via Steam Labs, such as Interactive Recommender, Play Next and News Hub. It’s obviously a developer-oriented feature rather than something for end users, but we had to notice it sooner or later, right?
Valve confirmed that this is a new feature that has recently started testing, and said that in the future there will be more information and official presentation.
