With over 14,000 games releasing on Steam every year and editorial teams shrinking at major outlets, journalists have seconds to decide whether to cover your title. A professional press kit removes that friction: it gives media everything they need in one place, instantly, no login or reply-from-you required. This guide walks through every section of a high-converting indie press kit, the tools to build one today, and the quiet mistakes that kill coverage chances.
Table of Contents
You don’t need a publisher or a five-figure PR budget to pull this off. A well-structured, publicly accessible press page can put your game on equal footing with larger releases — if you know what journalists actually need.
Quick Answer
An indie game press kit is a publicly accessible web page — ideally at yourgame.com/press — containing a factsheet, short and long game descriptions, at least six high-resolution screenshots (1920×1080 minimum, no watermarks), a downloadable MP4 trailer, transparent PNG logos in light and dark versions, and a direct press contact email. No passwords, no Google Drive hunts, no sign-up walls. Everything downloadable in under 30 seconds.
What to Include: Every Section Explained
Start with a factsheet sidebar — the most-scanned element on any press page. Include: game title, developer name, publisher (or ‘self-published’), platforms, release date, price, genre, engine, and player count. Add your website and social links. A journalist should be able to read this in under ten seconds and know exactly what they’re looking at.
Descriptions come next. Write a one-to-two sentence short pitch that is quotable, jargon-free, and written as if it will open an article about your game. Follow it with a longer description of two to three paragraphs plus five to eight feature bullets covering your game’s core hook, mechanics, and tone. Use concrete details over adjectives — ‘a 40-hour open-world RPG with fully voiced dialogue’ lands better than ‘an epic, immersive adventure.’
Screenshots are the single most critical asset in your kit. Include 6–12 images at 1920×1080 resolution or higher, saved as JPEG at 90–95% quality. Show variety: active gameplay, environmental breadth, UI in context, and content from both early and late in the game. Never include watermarks, debug text overlays, or heavy compression — these get your game skipped instantly by visual-forward outlets.
For video, embed your main trailer on the page and also provide a direct downloadable MP4 link at 1080p minimum. Pair this with 60–90 seconds of unedited B-roll gameplay footage and three to five GIFs for outlets that want quick social embeds. A YouTube-only link forces journalists to screen-record your trailer — many simply won’t.
Logos should be provided as PNG files with transparent backgrounds in both light and dark variants. Include your key art at 1920×1080 or higher, with and without text overlays. Close the page with team information (studio name, location, size, and key member names), a dedicated press contact email address, and a single ZIP file containing all assets. That one-click download is used constantly by writers working on deadline.
How to Build and Host Your Press Kit
Host your press kit at yourgame.com/press rather than on a third-party subdomain. Self-hosting keeps all link equity and SEO value on your own domain — critical when journalists are searching for your game’s name directly.
The most practical free tool today is presskit.gg, a WordPress plugin that generates a professional press page layout on your own domain with no coding required. It is the modern successor to presskit() — the original tool created by Rami Ismail of Vlambeer that defined the format for over a decade but is no longer maintained and requires deprecated PHP 5 hosting. If you don’t use WordPress, Press Kitty by IMPRESS is the best hosted alternative: it has a free tier, fast WYSIWYG setup, and is built specifically for indie game studios. The trade-off is that your press kit lives on their domain rather than yours.
On timing: build your press kit during beta, or at the very latest the day you make your first public announcement. Journalists who spot your reveal will visit your site immediately — your press kit needs to be live and fully stocked at that moment. Update it every time something significant changes: new trailer, new screenshots, delay announcement, or platform additions.
Common Mistakes That Kill Coverage
Password-protecting your press assets is the fastest way to get ignored. Journalists will not email you for access credentials — they will move on to the next pitch in their inbox. Make everything publicly accessible with no account required.
Linking only to YouTube for your trailer is a common and costly mistake. Many outlets need a local MP4 file to embed properly or to include in video productions. Always provide a direct download link alongside the embed.
Using low-resolution, compressed, or watermarked screenshots signals an unpolished studio. Outlets that would have run a feature on your game will pass if the only available images look bad at print or full-screen resolution. Invest time in capturing clean, well-composed shots at native resolution.
Skipping a dedicated press contact email — or using a generic info@ address nobody actively monitors — means pitches and review key requests go unanswered during the window that matters most. Create a press@yourstudio.com address and check it daily through your launch period.
Finally, do not let your press kit go stale. A page with screenshots from an early prototype and a launch date that has already passed tells journalists the game is either abandoned or the team is disorganized. Set a monthly calendar reminder to review and refresh your press page — it is one of the highest-leverage maintenance tasks in your entire marketing operation.
Explore more: Game Development guides.
indie game press kit FAQs
When should I create my indie game press kit?
During beta at the latest, and ideally before you make any public announcement. Journalists who see your reveal trailer will visit your site immediately — your press kit needs to be live and complete at that moment, not ‘coming soon.’
What is the best free tool to build an indie game press kit?
presskit.gg is the top free option for WordPress users — it generates a professional press page on your own domain with no coding required. If you are not on WordPress, Press Kitty by IMPRESS has a free tier and is quick to set up. Both are active, modern replacements for the original presskit() tool by Rami Ismail of Vlambeer, which is no longer maintained.
Do I need separate press kits for Steam, consoles, and mobile?
One unified press kit handles most cases. If a platform version has meaningfully different visuals or gameplay — such as a mobile port with a redesigned UI — add a platform-specific screenshots section rather than building an entirely separate kit.
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Photo: Joel McDonald (Polyculture) / CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.