Every indie developer dreams about the IGN feature. The Polygon write-up. The PC Gamer review. And those are great goals. But if your entire press strategy depends on landing coverage at five major outlets, you're attempting the final boss with starter equipment. Cold pitch response rates at top-tier outlets hover around 3-5% for unknown indie developers.
TL;DR: Mid-tier and niche outlets have higher response rates and often better wishlist conversion than major publications. A genre-specific site with 50K readers who all love your genre outperforms a major outlet with 5M readers who mostly don't care. Stack small coverage to create momentum.
Key Takeaways
- Response rates: top-tier outlets 3-5%, mid-tier 15-20%, niche genre sites up to 30-40%.
- Traffic from niche outlets converts to wishlists at significantly higher rates.
- Steam Curators are an underused free channel. Enable Curator Connect in Steamworks.
- Newsletter coverage (GameDiscoverCo, Buried Treasure) can drive meaningful discovery.
- Five articles across mid-tier outlets in one week creates more momentum than one article anywhere.
Meanwhile, a mid-tier outlet like Shacknews, PCGamesN, or DualShockers might respond to 15-20% of relevant pitches. A niche genre site might hit 30-40%. And here's what most developers don't realize: the traffic from those smaller outlets often converts to wishlists and sales at a significantly higher rate than traffic from the giants. This matters more than raw page views, and it's one of the most underappreciated parts of getting press coverage for your indie game.
Why Small Outlets Convert Better
The math behind this is straightforward once you see it.
A major outlet like IGN reaches millions of people. Their audience spans every genre, every platform, every level of gaming interest. When IGN covers your cozy narrative RPG, the article reaches people who play Call of Duty, FIFA, and Fortnite alongside the RPG fans. Maybe 5-10% of that massive audience cares about your genre. The rest scroll past. Developers who track their traffic sources consistently report that niche outlet coverage punches above its weight in wishlist conversions compared to raw page view numbers.
A genre-specific outlet like RPGFan, Adventure Gamers, or IndieGamesPlus has a smaller total audience, but a much higher percentage of that audience is your exact target player. When RPGFan covers your narrative RPG, nearly everyone reading the article cares about narrative RPGs. The click-through rate to your Steam page is higher. The wishlist conversion rate on that traffic is higher. The eventual purchase rate is higher.
Chris Zukowski at howtomarketagame.com has written extensively about how external traffic quality affects Steam's algorithm. Steam's Discovery Queue favors games that convert well when traffic arrives. If 1,000 visitors from a niche outlet hit your page and 15% wishlist (150 wishlists), that signals stronger interest to Steam's algorithm than 10,000 visitors from a generic source where only 2% wishlist (200 wishlists). The absolute numbers might be similar, but the conversion signal is different.
Developers who track their Steamworks external traffic sources consistently report that niche outlets deliver higher wishlist-per-visitor rates than broad outlets. The numbers vary by game, but the pattern holds across genres.
Finding Niche Outlets for Your Genre
Every genre has its own ecosystem of outlets, blogs, newsletters, and communities. Finding them takes research, but it's some of the highest-ROI time you'll spend on marketing.
Strategy RPGs and Tactical Games
- RPGFan (rpgfan.com), one of the longest-running RPG-focused outlets
- RPG Site (rpgsite.net)
- Siliconera covers Japanese-adjacent RPGs and strategy games extensively
- Dualshockers has strong RPG coverage
Horror Games
- Rely on Horror (relyonhorror.com), dedicated horror gaming outlet
- Bloody Disgusting (bloodydisgust.com) covers horror across all media including games
- DreadXP has become both a publisher and a media presence in the horror space
- Niche horror YouTubers are especially active; search YouTube for "indie horror" and you'll find dozens of dedicated channels
Simulation and Management Games
- Simulation Daily, niche outlet focused on sim games
- Strategy Gamer / Wargamer covers simulation and strategy
- Various dedicated subreddits and Discord communities double as discovery platforms
Roguelikes and Deckbuilders
- Post-Balatro, this genre has exploded. PCGamesN runs regular roguelike roundups. Rock Paper Shotgun has dedicated tag pages for the genre.
- Several newsletters focus specifically on roguelikes. Find them by searching Substack for "roguelike" or "deckbuilder."
Cozy and Narrative Games
- Cozy gaming has a dedicated media ecosystem that barely existed three years ago
- The Cozy Gaming Club (TikTok/YouTube) has significant reach in this niche
- Several Substack newsletters cover cozy and narrative games exclusively
- Touch Arcade and Pocket Gamer cover cozy games that release on mobile
Linux and Alternative Platforms
- GamingOnLinux (gamingonlinux.com), the definitive outlet for Linux gaming news
- Boiling Steam covers Linux gaming
- UploadVR for VR-specific games
- Touch Arcade and Pocket Gamer for mobile
This is not a complete list. It can't be. New outlets and creators emerge constantly. The research method matters more than any specific list. When building your press list, search for "[your genre] game review site" and "[your genre] gaming blog" and dig through the results.
Steam Curators: Free Coverage You're Probably Ignoring
Steam Curators are an underused press channel for indie developers. Curators are Steam users or groups who recommend games to their followers directly within the Steam storefront. Some Curators have followings in the hundreds of thousands.
Why Curators matter:
Visibility inside Steam. A Curator recommendation appears on your Steam page. It shows up in the Curator's followers' activity feeds. This is on-platform discovery, which tends to convert well because the user is already in their Steam client, one click from your store page.
No outreach overhead. Many Curators proactively browse upcoming games and request keys through Steamworks' Curator Connect feature. You can see which Curators are interested, review their profiles, and grant keys directly through the Steamworks dashboard.
Compounding recommendations. A game with 20+ Curator recommendations looks more credible to browsers than one with zero. It's social proof within the storefront itself.
Curator Connect is free and built-in. Valve built Curator Connect specifically for this. You upload your game, Curators discover it and request access, you approve or decline. No external platforms, no email chains.
How to work with Curators effectively:
- Enable Curator Connect in Steamworks as soon as your store page is live.
- Identify top Curators in your genre by browsing the Curators page (store.steampowered.com/curators/) and filtering by games similar to yours.
- Send keys proactively to Curators who cover your genre, even before they request one. Developers who actively reach out to relevant Curators report faster recommendation accumulation than those who wait passively for inbound requests.
- Don't ignore small Curators. A Curator with 2,000 followers in your exact niche is more valuable than a general Curator with 100,000 followers who covers everything.
Some developers report that Curator reviews drove meaningful wishlist spikes, particularly from Curators with engaged followings in their specific genre. The traffic per Curator is small, but it stacks. Ten Curator recommendations across a month create a steady drip of discovery traffic.
Newsletter-Based Outlets
Email newsletters have become a significant discovery channel for games, and most indie developers are barely aware they exist.
GameDiscoverCo (Simon Carless). The most influential newsletter in the game discovery space. Coverage here reaches thousands of industry professionals, developers, and publishers. Getting mentioned in GameDiscoverCo doesn't directly drive consumer wishlists, but it gets your game on the radar of people who amplify it further.
Buried Treasure (John Walker). Specifically focused on discovering indie games that aren't getting enough attention. John Walker co-founded Rock Paper Shotgun and now runs Buried Treasure as an indie game discovery newsletter. If your game fits their editorial angle (small, overlooked, genuinely good), reaching out is high-value.
Genre-specific Substacks. Dozens of newsletters on Substack cover specific game genres. Horror gaming, cozy games, retro games, strategy games. These newsletters have small but highly engaged subscriber bases. A feature in a genre newsletter with 3,000 subscribers who all love your genre can drive more wishlists than a mention in a general outlet with 300,000 monthly visitors.
Steam-focused newsletters and communities. SteamDB and various Steam-tracking communities don't publish editorial content in the traditional sense, but being visible in these spaces (through trending wishlists, Next Fest popularity, or review scores) drives organic press pickup.
How to pitch newsletters:
Newsletter editors are often one-person operations. They read every email personally. Your pitch doesn't need to be as formal as a press release, but it needs to be as respectful of their time. Short, specific, with a clear reason why their readers would care.
Many newsletter editors have publicly stated their preferred contact method in their "about" pages. Check before you pitch. Some want email. Some want Twitter DMs. Some have submission forms.
Building Relationships, Not Transactions
The biggest advantage of working with smaller outlets is the relationship potential. A journalist at a large outlet covers hundreds of games per year and may not remember your email. A writer at a niche outlet who covers 20-30 games per year is far more likely to develop a genuine interest in your work.
Here's how relationships with smaller outlets tend to develop:
First contact: You pitch your game. They cover it (or they don't, but they remember the pitch).
Second contact: Your next milestone. You email them again. They remember your name. Maybe they cover it this time.
Ongoing: They follow your studio's work. They reach out to you when they're doing roundups. They mention your game in year-end lists. They cover your next game unprompted.
This compounds over multiple projects. Developers like Lucas Pope (Papers, Please, Return of the Obra Dinn), Toby Fox (Undertale, Deltarune), and the Yacht Club Games team (Shovel Knight) built their press presence partially through consistent relationships with mid-tier and niche outlets that followed their work over years.
Practical steps for relationship building:
Engage with their content genuinely. Share their articles. Reply to their tweets. Not in a "please cover my game" way. Journalists notice who engages with them versus who only reaches out when they need something.
Be a useful source. If a journalist is writing about indie game pricing and you have relevant data, share it freely. Being helpful without always asking for something builds goodwill.
Remember details. If a journalist mentioned they're excited about a particular genre or mechanic, reference that in your next pitch. "I know you mentioned wanting to see more games that experiment with time loops, and we've built our core mechanic around exactly that." This shows you're paying attention.
Thank them for coverage. A brief email after an article publishes ("Thanks for the write-up, we appreciated the thoughtful coverage") costs nothing and is surprisingly rare. Journalists notice when developers acknowledge their work.
Don't burn bridges over criticism. If a smaller outlet gives your game a mixed or negative review, do not respond publicly or privately with complaints. That review is their honest assessment, and responding poorly guarantees you'll never get coverage from them again. Worse, journalists talk to each other. Bad behavior at one outlet travels to others fast.
Free Tool: Press Email Generator — Generate a ready-to-send press pitch email in 60 seconds. Runs in your browser, no signup required.
Practical Outreach Strategy for Small Outlets
When you're building your press outreach plan, structure it around a tiered approach that prioritizes small and mid-tier outlets.
Tier 1 (dream coverage, 20-30 contacts): Major outlets. Low response rate. Include them, but don't depend on them.
Tier 2 (primary targets, 80-100 contacts): Mid-tier outlets and genre-specific sites. This is where most of your coverage will come from. Spend the most time personalizing pitches for this tier.
Tier 3 (broad reach, 100+): Smaller blogs, new YouTube channels, Steam Curators, newsletter editors, genre-specific communities. Volume matters here, but relevance still beats quantity.
For content creators specifically, our guide on How to Get YouTubers to Play Your Game covers the outreach approach in more detail.
Allocate your time accordingly. Spending two hours personalizing a pitch to a mid-tier outlet that's covered three games in your genre will generate more return than spending two hours crafting the perfect cold pitch to IGN. Both are worth doing. But if you have to choose, choose relevance.
The Compound Effect of Small Coverage
A single article on a small outlet doesn't move the needle in isolation. But press coverage stacks. Five articles across five mid-tier outlets in the same week creates a sense of momentum. Journalists check what other outlets are covering. When a game appears on three sites simultaneously, it signals relevance and triggers more coverage from outlets that were on the fence.
Small outlet coverage also has outsized SEO value. An article titled "Best Upcoming Tactical RPGs 2026" on a mid-authority site will rank on Google for months or years. Players searching for games in your genre find that article, find your game, and land on your Steam page. This long-tail traffic accumulates steadily and doesn't depend on a single news cycle. What tends to happen in practice is that these "roundup" articles become evergreen wishlist generators—developers often find they're still driving traffic years after publication.
The developers who get the most from press coverage aren't the ones who land one big feature. They're the ones who build a web of coverage across dozens of outlets that collectively reach their target audience from multiple angles. Small outlets are the threads that hold that web together. Treat them with the same care and professionalism you'd give to the big names. Every article is an XP point. The returns will surprise you.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I find niche outlets for my specific genre?
Search for "[your genre] game review site" and "[your genre] gaming blog." Check game pages for similar titles and see who covered them. Browse Steam Curators filtered by your genre tags. Build your list over weeks, not hours.
Should I bother with outlets that have under 10,000 monthly readers?
Yes, if they're focused on your genre. A small outlet with 5,000 readers who all play strategy games will convert better than a general outlet with 500,000 readers where 2% care about strategy. Relevance beats reach.
How do Steam Curators actually help my game?
Curator recommendations appear on your Steam page and in followers' activity feeds. They're social proof inside the platform where purchases happen. Enable Curator Connect, proactively send keys to relevant curators, and watch recommendations accumulate.
How do I approach newsletter editors differently from traditional press?
Newsletter editors are often one-person operations who read every email. Keep your pitch short and specific. Check their about page for preferred contact method. Be respectful of their time and explain clearly why their readers would care.
Related Guides
This article is part of our series on press coverage. Start with the complete guide:
Also in this series: