Question for anyone who got the key to the city at release

For anyone who doesn’t know, the ‘key to the city’ challenge was an event Rockstar held when GTA4 was released. My understanding is that a limited number of players who beat the game to 100% within the first week of release, could receive a real collectible key from Rockstar with a congratulatory note. I’ve also heard it was extended to 2 weeks but I’m unsure if that’s true or not.

Ever since I first heard about the key to the city competition that happened when GTA4 came out I’ve been wondering all about how people must’ve done it. Firstly, 2008 wasn’t exactly the peak of the internet, especially for game guides and walkthroughs etc. Secondly, the game had only just been released so even if the first point wasn’t an issue, nobody had much knowledge on the game to post anyway. For a while now I’ve been seeing people selling the keys on eBay. They’re very valuable and rare from what I’ve seen. It’s been on my mind and I’m just so curious about how the people who applied, and got the award, actually did it.

I don’t know when the physical strategy guide was released but if it came out alongside the game then it’s obvious that’s how they must’ve done it. But I don’t know if it was, that’s what I wanna know. I’ve beaten the game myself a few times and The story missions can be done pretty quickly, especially for someone with that sort of motivation. But all the side stuff, especially the RATS. How on earth did they find all the flying rats? Again, if the physical guide was used then this’ll seem like a pointless question, but i wanna know from anyone who did it, how they did it. Because there’s no way you found all 200 without help, it’s a pain even with walkthroughs.

Any info on this would be appreciated. I’ve always been curious.