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Choosing a key station — hosted, your own droplet, or your own stack

FlipKey sells the license; your key station hands one key to one verified buyer at redemption. Your keys never touch FlipKey. There are three ways to run the station. Pick the one that fits the studio you are today; you can move up later by exporting your keys.

The three options

  • Hosted — $20/year founding price (regular $40/year). Our partner GameLicense.org runs a station for you at yourstudio.gamelicense.org. No server, no setup: subscribe from the Key Station page and it's built and connected for you (see Getting a hosted station). GameLicense bills you directly, yearly, upfront. It's GameLicense's service, not FlipKey's, used at your own risk. Key redemptions only: a hosted station stores keys and hands them out. It can't grant in-game content, so campaigns redeeming there can't carry a freebie.
  • Your own droplet — about $6/month to DigitalOcean, about 10 minutes. One command from the Key Station page sets up the full starter kit on a server you own. No key cap, nobody else's box, and you can add your own code later. The rest of this page walks through it.
  • Your own stack — for studios with a backend. Run the Publisher Starter kit wherever you like (Docker, any Node host, MySQL/Postgres/SQLite), or keep your own backend and add the Redeem SDK and the redemption spec. Everything is on SDKs & Downloads. This is the route for in-game unlocks, freebies wired into your game, and your own account system.

Key Station Plus

Any of the three hands out keys. If your game's backend can also put an item straight into a player's account, add Key Station Plus: it unlocks freebies, items you sell, creator giveaways and watch-drops. Wire the item webhook, then pass the one-click test on the Key Station page (details on Webhooks). A hosted station or a fresh one-command install can't pass it on its own, because neither knows your players' accounts.

Getting a hosted station

Buy it through FlipKey. It's the quickest way, and everything after checkout is automatic.

  1. On the Key Station page, click Subscribe — $20/year.
  2. Pay on GameLicense's Stripe checkout. Have a promo code? Click Add promotion code there; a founding-studio code makes the first year $0.
  3. You land back on Key Station, which now shows how long you're paid through. Pick a name and click Create my station.
  4. About a minute later the station is running at yourname.gamelicense.org, your sales point at it, and you get its upload page and login for your keys.

Owner or admin only. Subscribing on gamelicense.org directly works too, but then GameLicense has to connect it to your FlipKey account by hand; starting from Key Station skips that.

Renewal: the subscription renews yearly at $20, and Stripe emails you before it does. To cancel, email support@gamelicense.org; the station keeps running until the paid year ends. If a year ends unpaid, Key Station warns you to export your keys; the station is not switched off automatically.

Your own droplet: what to pick

In DigitalOcean choose Create → Droplets, then:

  • Image: plain Ubuntu, the latest LTS (DigitalOcean's own image, so the web Console works out of the box). The installer brings Docker with it. Skip the Marketplace Docker image: it's a third-party build and the droplet agent the Console needs isn't always on it. Other providers are fine as long as it's Ubuntu or Debian and you're root.
  • Size: Basic, Regular, 1 GB / $6 a month is enough with the default SQLite database. Go to 2 GB only if you'll pick MySQL on the same server. The installer adds 1 GB of swap so the first build doesn't run out of memory.
  • Region: the one closest to most of your buyers. It barely matters for a key hand-off.
  • Authentication: an SSH key if you have one, otherwise a strong password. You'll paste the command into the droplet's web Console, so you don't need SSH to install.
  • Then wait about five minutes before opening the Console. The agent it relies on installs itself on the droplet's first boot, and until it's done DigitalOcean shows "droplet agent not installed". That is not an error on your side; make a coffee and reload the page.
  • Backups: turn them on (DigitalOcean charges 20% of the droplet price). Your unused keys live on this server, and backups are how you get them back if something breaks.

The address buyers visit

Use a subdomain of your game's site, like redeem.yourgame.com. The installer shows the exact DNS record to add where you manage the domain (an A record pointing at the droplet's IP); on Cloudflare set it to DNS only (grey cloud) so the certificate can be issued. HTTPS is automatic.

No domain yet? For a test run you can use the droplet's IP with dashes and .sslip.io, for example 203-0-113-7.sslip.io, with no DNS record needed. Use your own domain before real sales: the redemption URL is fixed on each listing once it's created.

Install

  1. On the Key Station page, click Get my install command (owner or admin). It works once and expires in 60 minutes.
  2. Open the droplet's Console, paste the command, press Enter.
  3. Answer two questions: the address, and the database (press Enter for SQLite). It then offers to take your own Steam Web API key (optional, press Enter to skip; add it any time later from the console with flipkey-station steam-key). Any Steam account with Steam Guard can get one in 30 seconds at steamcommunity.com/dev/apikey; it powers the buyer's profile card and account score.

It installs Docker, downloads the starter kit and your settings, starts it behind automatic HTTPS, then asks FlipKey to run the link test. When the test passes, your sales are pointed at the new station. Everything lives in /opt/flipkey-station; your upload login and next steps are saved to /root/flipkey-station.txt.

After it's up

  1. List a Game with the redemption URL the installer printed (https://your-address/redeem/{tokenId}). The listing gets a drop number.
  2. Open https://your-address/vault/upload, sign in as vault, enter the drop number, and paste your keys.
  3. Check on it any time from the console: flipkey-station status, flipkey-station logs, flipkey-station restart.

Before real sales

  • Your keys are already encrypted at rest. The installer sets KEY_ENCRYPTION=local with a master key it generates into .env — keep that file with your backups, the database is unreadable without it. When your inventory is worth a targeted attack, step up to your own AWS KMS key (about $1/month); Keys at rest has the move.
  • One account runs one station. The install command is refused while a station is live: one that reported in the last 30 minutes, or a hosted station on your account. Moving servers? Stop the old one first (flipkey-station stop, or shut down the hosted station from the Key Station page); the account clears 30 minutes later, or the owner can click Replace this station to retire it at once. Export its keys before either.
  • Watch for the upgrade notice on the Key Station page and run the one-command upgrade when it appears. Nothing breaks if you wait, but Upgrading your station lists what each release adds.
  • Keep backups on, and keep the upload password out of chat and screenshares.
  • Read the Publisher Starter key-security checklist once.