What a Presskit is and Why Every Game Should Have One
So you’re about to begin promoting your game to the public. You have a game logo, icons, screenshots, a gameplay trailer, and a few bullet points describing what your game is about. Your pre-registration pages on the App Store and Google Play are complete. What else is there to do?
Make a presskit. It’s quick, easy, and one of the most time-effective things you can do to make discovery simple for both members of the gaming media and players alike.
Presskit vs. Official Wesbite
Imagine you’re a member of the gaming media and you want to write a news story about this cool new game you’ve heard about. You could check out some trailers on YouTube. You could scour the official website for more details. You could read about what gamers have to say on Reddit or Discord. You could do all of those things in an effort to fully understand what this game is about. Or you could land on one simple webpage that has all of the information you need to create your newspiece. That’s what a presskit is—it’s a “one stop shop” for anyone seeking more information about your game.
An official website, on the other hand, is a heavily stylized and media rich representation of your game. Sure, all of the information is there, but its scattered across pages and obscured in the styling, animations, and menus. Furthermore, less tech-savvy visitors may not be able to easily extract videos or images from this kind of website.
Advantages of a Presskit Website
- The cost/benefit ratio is extremely high. A presskit website can be made in a matter of hours, not days or weeks. It costs almost nothing to deploy.
- Quick and easy information collection. All basic information is readily presented in a clear format. Members of the media can quickly find crucial details and assets like: launch date, platforms, genre, core game mechanics, official trailers, high quality logos, images, icons, banners, etc. They don’t need to scour multiple platforms or websites to dig up enough information about your game. They don’t need to wait for your email reply.
- Asset quality control. Since you’re directly providing the assets, this makes it less likely people will use low quality screenshots, low quality logos, or random YouTube gameplay videos that don’t represent how you want your game to be presented.
- Accuracy. Rumors abound on social media platforms like Discord and Reddit. Humans naturally speculate and spread rumors. Your presskit website has the official information.
- Discoverability. Every little bit helps. This website will be indexed and found on search engines by people searching for your game.
- Website replacement. If you’re a small studio or indie dev, a well-made presskit website can take the place of an official website entirely. This is especially true for early stage projects. You can deploy it in under a day and get back to the core work of developing your game.
What’s Should a Presskit Include?
- Game name, genre, platforms, and release date
- Developer/publisher names and contact info
- Social media and store page links
- A short description + main features
- Trailers and high resolution screenshots (GIFs are a bonus)
- Logos and icons (transparent backgrounds, high res)
- Key art and banners
