The Scam With Your Friends playtest is a free, separate listing on Steam (a playtest app attached to the main game) that went live on September 19, 2026. Signups are closed: the developer announced more than 12,000 registrations and then shut the form, and access is now handed out from that pool.
How access works right now
- Signups are closed. There is no open form to fill in.
- Access is granted from the existing signup pool, in limited waves.
- Once you have access, you can invite up to three of your friends. That is the official invite rule, stated in the developer's own announcement.
- The playtest requires a broadband internet connection, because every call runs through live AI generation.
So the practical answer to "how do I get in" is: either you are already in the signup pool, or you know someone who is and they have an invite slot left. Community posts asking for invites are common for exactly this reason.
What the playtest contains, and what it costs
The playtest is free. The one optional purchase is an $8 Unlimited AI access add-on sold on the developer's site. Its own terms matter here:
- It includes no game key and no playtest access. It is not a way in.
- It lasts only while the playtest is active.
- One purchase covers the whole lobby, through the buyer's Steam account.
- The full game has unlimited AI anyway, so you will not need it for the release.
If a site or a message offers to sell you "playtest access" or a playtest key, it is not the developer. Access comes from the signup pool and from invites, both free. See safety and scams and official channels.
Why the playtest exists
The playtest is a load test for the part of the game that is hardest to fake in the office: hundreds of simultaneous live AI conversations. It also feeds the roadmap. The developer has been shipping the real game as an Early Access release planned for October 2026, and the playtest is the bridge between the announcement and that window.
What playtesters have shown so far
Community recordings from the playtest are the reason several mechanics on this wiki are documented at all, including the daily scam rotation and the end-of-day clock out. Those are labelled as community-sourced wherever they appear, starting on the how to play page.