Every few months, someone on r/gamedev asks if there's a master list of game journalist emails they can buy. There are companies that sell these lists. They charge anywhere from $50 to $500. And they are, almost universally, a waste of money.
TL;DR: Building your own press list takes 10-20 hours but outperforms bought lists by 5x or more. Research journalists who actually cover your genre, verify they're active, and find current contact info. Aim for 200-400 contacts across press and content creators.
Key Takeaways
- Bought lists give you volume without relevance, with half the emails outdated and a quarter covering irrelevant genres
- Manual research filters for three things simultaneously: covers your genre, is currently active, and has valid contact info
- Content creators (YouTubers, streamers, TikTokers) often drive more wishlists than traditional press, so include them in your list
- Start building your list the day you decide to announce, not two weeks before launch
- Update your list before each milestone since game journalism has high turnover and lists degrade 15-20% every six months
A bought list gives you volume without relevance. You get 2,000 email addresses, half of which are outdated (journalists change outlets constantly), a quarter of which cover genres nothing like yours, and the remainder have already received the same bought-list pitches from every other developer who purchased the same database. Your email lands in an inbox pre-poisoned by association. This is the opposite of what you want when trying to get press coverage for your indie game.
Building a press list manually is slower. It takes 10 to 20 hours of research for a solid initial list. Developers who ship regularly report that this upfront investment pays off across every marketing milestone, since you'll reuse and refine this list for years. It's the RPG grind of game marketing. But the list you build yourself will outperform a bought one by a factor of five or more, because every contact on it is someone who actually covers games like yours.
Why Manual Research Beats Databases
The core problem with pre-built lists is relevance. A journalist at PC Gamer who covers competitive multiplayer games is useless for your narrative puzzle game. A YouTuber who reviews horror games won't touch your cozy life sim. A contact at an outlet that shut down six months ago is dead weight.
When you research contacts manually, you're filtering for three things simultaneously:
- This person covers my genre. You've read their recent articles or watched their videos. You know their beat.
- This person is active. They published something in the last 30 days. They're not on hiatus, between jobs, or writing about a completely different topic now.
- This person is reachable. You have a current, valid email address or a confirmed way to contact them.
No bought list gives you all three. You get a name and an email. Maybe an outlet. That's it. The filtering work still falls on you, and at that point you've paid money to save time you didn't actually save.
The Manual Research Process
Set aside two to three focused sessions of 3-4 hours each. Put on a podcast. Open a spreadsheet. Settle in.
Step 1: Identify Target Outlets
Start with outlets that cover your genre. Not just the big names. Think in tiers.
Tier 1 (major outlets): IGN, PC Gamer, Kotaku, Polygon, Rock Paper Shotgun, Eurogamer, GameSpot, GamesRadar, Destructoid. These are hard to crack for cold pitches but worth having on your list. Response rates for unknown indie devs hover around 3-5%.
Tier 2 (mid-tier and specialty): Shacknews, TheGamer, PCGamesN, Siliconera, DualShockers, UploadVR (for VR games), TouchArcade (for mobile), Pocket Gamer, Hardcore Gamer, Noisy Pixel. Higher response rates, often 10-20%. These outlets are actively looking for indie games to cover.
Tier 3 (niche and genre-specific): GamingOnLinux, IndieGamesPlus, Indie Game Enthusiast, RPGFan (for RPGs), Shmuplations (for shooters), Adventure Gamers (for adventure/puzzle games), genre-specific blogs and newsletters. Response rates can be 20-40% because you're matching exactly what they want.
For a deeper look at why these smaller outlets often deliver better results, see our guide on getting coverage from small and mid-tier outlets.
Step 2: Find the Right Writers
Don't just find the outlet. Find the specific person at that outlet who covers your genre.
Go to the outlet's website. Search for articles about games similar to yours. Note the bylines. If someone at PCGamesN writes three articles a month about upcoming roguelikes and your game is a roguelike, that's your person.
Most outlet websites have a staff page or masthead. Check it. It often lists each writer's beat or focus area. Some include email addresses directly.
Step 3: Find Contact Information
This is the tedious part. Embrace it.
Author bio pages. Many outlets include a short bio for each writer with a contact email or social media links.
Twitter/X and Bluesky. Most game journalists are extremely active on social media. Their profiles frequently list a business email or DM instructions. Search for them by name. Their bio often says something like "DMs open for pitches" or "email: name@outlet.com."
Mastodon. The games journalism community has a notable Mastodon presence, especially on instances like mastodon.gamedev.place. Some journalists who left Twitter are now primarily reachable there.
LinkedIn. Less common for initial outreach, but useful for finding someone's current outlet if they've moved jobs recently.
Google. Search "[journalist name] email" or "[journalist name] contact." Personal websites, old GDC talk bios, and podcast guest pages sometimes surface contact info not found elsewhere.
The outlet's general tips address. If you truly cannot find a personal email, tips@ or news@ is your fallback. It's not ideal, but it's better than not reaching out at all. Some outlets (Kotaku, for example) have publicly stated that their tips email is actively monitored.
Step 4: Add Content Creators
Your press list shouldn't only be traditional journalists. YouTubers, Twitch streamers, and TikTok creators drive significant (sometimes more) wishlists and sales for indie games than traditional press. The pillar article on press coverage details how Tape to Tape made $635,000 in its first eight days primarily through streamer coverage.
Search YouTube for your genre plus "hidden gems," "best upcoming," or "you need to play this." The creators making those videos are your targets.
For content creators, the research process is similar but the contact points differ:
- YouTube about page: Almost always has a business email.
- Twitch panels: Streamers often list business inquiries in their About section.
- TikTok bio: Smaller creators list email. Larger ones use link-in-bio tools.
Track content creators in the same spreadsheet but mark them differently from press. Their needs are slightly different (they want keys and gameplay footage, not press releases).
Your Spreadsheet Template
Google Sheets works perfectly. Don't overthink the tooling. Here's the column structure:
| Column | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Name | First and last name |
| Outlet/Channel | Where they publish |
| Type | Press / YouTuber / Streamer / TikTok |
| Beat/Genre | What they typically cover |
| Primary contact | |
| Social Handle | Twitter, Bluesky, or primary platform |
| Tier | 1, 2, or 3 based on reach and relevance |
| Date Contacted | When you first emailed |
| Response | No response / Interested / Covered / Declined |
| Key Sent | Yes/No + date |
| Notes | Anything useful: "prefers DM first," "on parental leave until March" |
Color-code by response status. Green for covered, yellow for interested, red for declined, gray for no response. What consistently works is keeping this spreadsheet updated after every interaction—the developers who treat their press list as a living document rather than a one-time project see dramatically better response rates on subsequent campaigns. This visual shorthand saves time when you're scanning a list of 300 contacts.
Pro tip: Add a "Last Article/Video Date" column. If someone hasn't published anything in three months, they may have moved outlets or gone inactive. Check before you email.
Maintaining and Updating Your List
A press list degrades fast. Game journalism has high turnover. Journalists change outlets, go freelance, shift beats, or leave the industry entirely. A list that's six months old will have 15-20% dead contacts.
Update before each milestone. Before your announcement, demo launch, and full launch, spend 2-3 hours verifying your list. Check that emails still work, journalists are still at the outlets you have listed, and they're still covering your genre.
Track bounces. When emails bounce, update or remove that contact immediately. Multiple bounces from your sending address can hurt your email deliverability for future campaigns.
Add new contacts continuously. When you see a journalist write a great article about a game in your genre, add them to the list. When a new YouTube channel pops up covering your niche, add them. Your press list is a living document, not a one-time project.
Remove irrelevant contacts. If you pitched someone and they politely said "this isn't my beat," remove them or move them to a separate tab. Respecting their preferences builds long-term goodwill.
Free Tool: Press Email Generator — Generate a ready-to-send press pitch email in 60 seconds. Runs in your browser, no signup required.
Content Creators vs. Press: Different Lists, Different Approaches
While I recommend keeping everyone in one spreadsheet, understand that the outreach approach differs.
Journalists want a professional pitch email, a clear news hook, and easy access to assets. They're evaluating whether your game is worth covering for their audience. Your pitch email should be concise and newsworthy.
Content creators want gameplay that looks good on camera, a key they can redeem immediately, and maybe some b-roll footage they can use in their production. Many prefer a more casual tone. Some want to be surprised by the game and specifically ask not to be told too much about it.
Key differences in outreach:
- Journalists need a news angle. Content creators need a gameplay angle.
- Journalists want downloadable press kit assets. Content creators want a Steam key and maybe a press kit link for reference.
- Journalists typically don't ask for payment. Some content creators do (and that's a separate negotiation).
- Journalists publish articles on their outlet's schedule. Content creators publish on their own schedule, which means longer and less predictable turnaround times.
GDPR and Legal Considerations
If you're emailing anyone in the European Union (and if you're emailing European gaming outlets, you are), GDPR applies to your outreach.
The good news: GDPR doesn't prohibit press outreach. It requires that you have a legitimate basis for processing personal data (in this case, the journalist's email address). For press outreach, "legitimate interest" is the typical legal basis. You have a legitimate interest in promoting your game, and journalists have a professional interest in receiving relevant pitches.
The key requirements:
Be transparent. If someone asks how you got their email, have an honest answer. "I found it on your author bio at PCGamesN" is fine. "I bought a list" is legally questionable and professionally embarrassing.
Honor opt-outs immediately. If someone says "please don't email me again," remove them. No exceptions. No "but what about our next milestone?" Remove them.
Don't store data you don't need. Your spreadsheet should contain professional contact info for outreach purposes. Nothing beyond what's needed for your PR work.
Retention limits. If someone hasn't responded to your last three milestones across two years, they're probably not interested. Clean them from your list.
For developers based in or targeting the EU, it's worth reading the ICO's direct marketing guidance (UK) or your local DPA's guidelines. The rules are more common sense than most developers fear. Be professional, be honest, respect opt-outs. That covers 95% of compliance.
How Many Contacts Do You Need?
The pillar article suggests 200 to 400 contacts as a sweet spot. That's solid guidance. Here's how the breakdown typically looks:
- 20-30 Tier 1 outlets (major press, dream coverage)
- 80-100 Tier 2 outlets (realistic targets, mid-tier press and larger creators)
- 100-200 Tier 3 contacts (niche outlets, smaller creators, genre-specific blogs)
If you're making a game in a very specific niche (say, submarine simulators), your total addressable press list might be smaller. That's fine. 80 highly relevant contacts will outperform 400 generic ones.
If you're making a broadly appealing genre game (roguelike, survival crafting, horror), you can push toward the higher end. There are hundreds of outlets and creators covering these genres.
Tools That Help (Without Replacing the Work)
Games Press (gamespress.com). Upload your game and press releases. Journalists browse this platform actively. It won't replace direct outreach but it supplements your list's reach.
Keymailer. Primarily a key distribution platform, but its database of verified creators and journalists is valuable for discovering contacts you might have missed.
Terminals.io. Similar to Keymailer. Focus on key management and creator outreach.
Twitter/X Lists. Create a private Twitter list of game journalists you're tracking. This lets you monitor their activity and stay informed about what they're currently covering, which helps you time your pitches.
None of these replace manual research. They supplement it. The contacts you find yourself, through reading their work and understanding their beat, will always be your highest-quality leads.
Start Now, Not at Launch
The biggest mistake developers make with press lists is waiting until two weeks before launch to start building one. Building a quality list takes 10-20 hours. Start the day you decide to announce your game. Add contacts as you discover them. By launch day, your list should be a well-maintained asset, not a frantic scramble.
Your press list becomes one of the most valuable marketing assets you own. It transfers between projects, grows with each milestone, and makes everything else in your press outreach actually work. Think of it as a save file that carries over into New Game Plus.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I find journalist email addresses when they're not publicly listed?
Check author bio pages, Twitter/X and Bluesky profiles (many list business emails), LinkedIn for current outlet info, and Google "[journalist name] email" or "[journalist name] contact." If all else fails, most outlets have a tips@ or news@ general address that gets monitored.
Should I separate press and content creators into different lists?
Keep them in the same spreadsheet but mark them differently. Their needs differ: journalists want news hooks and downloadable press kit assets, while content creators want Steam keys and maybe some b-roll footage. The outreach tone is different too, as many creators prefer more casual communication.
Is it okay to email journalists in the EU under GDPR?
Yes. GDPR doesn't prohibit press outreach. The legal basis is "legitimate interest," since you have a legitimate interest in promoting your game and journalists have a professional interest in receiving relevant pitches. Just be transparent about how you found their email, honor opt-outs immediately, and don't store data you don't need.
How many contacts is too many?
There's no upper limit, but there's a point of diminishing returns. 200-400 contacts is the sweet spot. If you're in a very specific niche (submarine simulators), 80 highly relevant contacts will outperform 400 generic ones. Quality beats quantity every time.
Related Guides
This article is part of our series on press coverage. Start with the complete guide:
Also in this series: