How to Get Press Coverage for Your Indie Game

In a 2014 GDC Europe talk, Rami Ismail cut through a lot of the confusion around press coverage in one sentence:

They want a news story. That is what they do.

Not a review. Not a favor. A news story. Everything else in this article follows from that.

Does press coverage still matter for indie games?

In the 2024 Big Games Machine journalist survey, 12% of respondents reported receiving over 50 pitches per day. One reported over 250 daily. They're not ignoring your email because your game isn't good enough. They probably never saw it.

Chris Zukowski of How To Market A Game, who has analyzed hundreds of indie game post-mortems, is blunt about where press fits in the current landscape. From his GDC podcast:

I don't think the press matters as much as it used to... the IGNs of the world, GameSpot, those sort of things. They don't matter as much.

In his analysis, streamers and YouTubers now drive discovery for most small indie games more reliably than traditional outlets do.

That doesn't mean ignore press. It means be strategic about it instead of spraying and praying.

Who you're actually targeting

The instinct is to pitch Kotaku, IGN, and PC Gamer. Lewis Denby, founder of indie game PR agency Game If You Are, did a three-day content audit of Kotaku and found they ran roughly 120 stories, of which only 2 covered indie games. AAA titles got 2-6 stories each. Kotaku's audience skews heavily toward console and AAA; the comment sections on indie coverage tend to be hostile. The reach numbers look impressive but the audience isn't yours.

Better targets for PC indie games: Rock Paper Shotgun actively champions indie projects. PC Gamer has dedicated indie coverage. Niche outlets like GameReactor or genre-specific sites may send you far more interested readers than a Kotaku mention ever would.

More importantly: start with smaller outlets and work up. Coverage from a niche outlet is proof-of-interest when you approach a larger one. Build the ladder.

Simon Carless of GameDiscoverCo has written about this repeatedly: for most indie games, a handful of mid-size YouTubers who cover your specific genre will drive more discovery than traditional press. Look at who's actually covering games like yours, then build your list from there.

You need a news hook, not a pitch

"I made a video game" is not a story. Neither is "my game launches next month." Journalists report news. That means your outreach needs a specific reason to exist right now.

Valid news hooks:

• A trailer release (announcement, gameplay, launch)
• Demo going live or a Steam Next Fest entry
• A meaningful content update or milestone
• An interesting aspect of how the game was made ("we wrote our own physics engine," "the game's dialogue system generates different conversations every playthrough")
• Something unusual about your situation ("I made this while recovering from surgery," "it took seven years")

The last category is underused. As Denby writes, the story around how a game was made is often more compelling to journalists than the game itself. The developer of Unexplored used exactly this: after removing the in-game UI following player feedback, they pitched that design decision as a news story. Adam Smith at Rock Paper Shotgun covered it. The hook wasn't "check out my game." It was a specific, interesting thing that happened.

If you can't identify a news hook, you're not ready to do press outreach yet. Wait until you have one.

How to write the pitch email

The Big Games Machine survey found 91% of journalists prefer pitches under 200 words. That's shorter than this paragraph and the two before it combined.

Here's the structure that works:

Subject line: game name + purpose + urgency. Lewis Denby recommends putting the purpose in brackets: [REVIEW CODE] or [TRAILER] or [NEWS]. Something like: Starfall [review code], launching March 15. Keep it under 50 characters. Never use ALL CAPS or words like "amazing" or "groundbreaking."

Body: One sentence on the hook (what's happening, why now). One sentence on the game (genre, one-line description). Link to your press kit. Link to your trailer. The Steam key, just included. Don't ask if they want one, just give it. One clear ask: review, coverage of the trailer, a preview.

Address them by name. Not "Dear Editor." Their actual name. And mention a specific piece they wrote. One sentence showing you actually read their work and know why you're emailing them specifically.

That's it. Under 200 words. Everything they need to decide is in that email.

On follow-ups: one follow-up after 2-3 days is fine. Send it as a new email thread rather than replying to the original so it appears fresh in their inbox. After one follow-up, move on. No more.

When to reach out to journalists

Denby's rule of thumb: online media needs your review copy two weeks before launch. Print media needs it six weeks out. If you're past those windows, your chances of launch-day coverage drop sharply.

In practice:

• 6-8 weeks before launch: Send preview pitches. Previews typically run 3-5 weeks before launch.
• 2-3 weeks before launch: Send review copies. Include everything they need; don't make them ask.
• Launch week: It's too late to start. The game isn't newsworthy from a timing standpoint once it's out.

If you're participating in Steam Next Fest, start reaching out to journalists 4-6 weeks before the event, not the week of. By the time Next Fest starts, one journalist documented receiving emails for 157 participating games. Getting in early matters.

A note on Next Fest as a press strategy: it's getting harder. The February 2026 fest had over 3,500 demos. The median game earned around 200 wishlists from the event. Press coverage during Next Fest mostly goes to games that already have some traction. It's still worth participating, but don't count on it to be your press breakthrough.

Build a small, targeted list

The developers who get press coverage don't usually have a list of 500 journalists. They have a list of 20-30 journalists who have actually covered games like theirs in the last six months.

Finding that list: go to the outlets you want to appear in, search for reviews of games in your genre, note the bylines, check their recent articles. You're looking for journalists who demonstrably care about your type of game. A pitch to 20 of those people is worth more than a blast to 200 generic contacts.

Register your game on Games Press. Journalists use it actively to find games to cover. Having a presence there is free and means journalists can find you even if your pitch gets lost. For a broader list of databases, YouTuber lists, and festival resources, we compiled them in our press kit guide.

Why your press kit is what makes this work

Every journalist friction point you remove increases the chance of coverage. A press kit at a permanent URL means they don't have to dig. Screenshots in the right format means they don't have to ask. A Steam key in the first email means they can start playing immediately.

The game's chances don't just depend on quality. They depend on how easy you make it for someone with 250 emails in their inbox to say yes.

How Gamebase Helps

If you haven't built your press kit yet, the checklist of everything it needs is here.

Gamebase generates a press kit page automatically from your Steam data. Screenshots, descriptions, trailer, and a downloadable ZIP are all organized in the format journalists expect. Use just the press kit, or turn on the full game website too. Everything lives at yourgame.gamebase.gg.

See it in action.