The indie game press kit template: eight sections and what goes in each
Copy the structure below: eight sections, each one folder or one block on the page. A press kit is one publicly accessible page holding every asset and fact a journalist, streamer, or YouTuber needs to cover your game without emailing you first. It does not live on Steam; it lives on your own site, and you link to it from every outreach message.
| Section | What goes in it | Why it is there |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Factsheet | Game title, studio name, release date (or "TBA"), platforms, price, genre, engine, player count, languages, Steam URL, social links | The reference block a writer copies fields out of while writing |
| 2. Short description | One or two sentences naming the genre and the core action, written to be quoted verbatim | Becomes the summary line under an article's headline, or a video's opening sentence |
| 3. Long description | 200 to 400 words covering premise, core mechanics, and what makes it different from the nearest three games in its genre | Supplies the body of an article without an interview |
| 4. Screenshots | At least 10 files, 1920 x 1080 or larger, PNG or high-quality JPG, gameplay only, no watermarks or UI overlays that hide the game | Publications need a lead image and a gallery |
| 5. Trailer | A downloadable full-quality file plus the YouTube link, and a shorter clip or two if you have them | A YouTube embed is not always usable; a downloadable file always is |
| 6. Logos and capsule art | Game logo and studio logo on transparent backgrounds (PNG), plus your Steam capsule art at its uploaded sizes | These are the assets people email you for when they are missing |
| 7. Studio and contact | Two or three sentences on the studio, team size, location, and one press email address that a person actually reads | Tells a writer who made it and how to reach you |
| 8. Permissions and keys | A plain statement that monetized video and streaming are allowed, and one line on how to request a Steam key | Removes the legal question a creator would otherwise have to ask |
A factsheet is the fixed-fields block in section 1: title, studio, date, platforms, price, links. Nothing narrative, just the values a writer needs to get right.
If you would rather not build the page yourself, presskit() (at dopresskit.com) is a free tool by Rami Ismail that generates a hosted press kit page from roughly this same field set.
Where to host the press kit and when to send it
Put it at a fixed public URL on your own domain, something like yourstudio.com/press, with no login and no access request, and make every asset downloadable individually and as one zip. If a writer has to ask you for permission first, you have added a step at exactly the moment they were deciding whether your game is worth the effort.
Build it before the Steam Coming Soon page goes public, not after. That page is the moment strangers start finding the game, and a creator who finds you first and cannot find assets moves on.
The press kit is the follow-up, not the pitch. Keep the first email to four to six sentences: proof you have seen their work, why the game fits their audience specifically, the offer, the thing that is newly happening (a trailer drop, a demo going live, a Next Fest entry), and a no-obligation ask. Link the press kit and the trailer; attach nothing.
Curator Connect is Valve's built-in tool for sending Steam review copies to Steam Curators, the accounts that publish game recommendations on the storefront. It shows exactly why the press kit has to carry its own weight: you can send offers to 100 curators at a maximum of five copies each, and Valve auto-attaches only your game name, logo, primary tags, and the first three screenshots from your store page. Your trailer, your long description, and your permissions statement are not in that message. They are only reachable if your one short note links out to them.
Five mistakes that make a press kit unusable
Gating the assets. A Google Drive folder set to "request access" is the most common version of this. The writer's next click is the back button, not the request button.
Shipping concept art and cinematics as screenshots. Valve applies the same rule to your Steam store page: screenshots must show actual gameplay, not concept art, pre-rendered cinematics, or marketing copy. Ten gameplay screenshots at 1920 x 1080 are worth more than thirty mixed files, because a writer picking a lead image is looking for one frame that shows what playing this game looks like.
Leaving out the permissions line. A creator deciding whether they can monetize a video of your game will not email to check. One sentence granting monetized video and streaming rights removes the question entirely.
Letting it go stale. A press kit still showing a release date that has passed, or a trailer two builds old, actively damages you: it tells a writer the game may be abandoned. Re-check it at every moment that brings new traffic, which for most games means the Coming Soon page going public, the demo release, Steam Next Fest, and launch week.
Treating it as a one-off. The press kit is the shared asset behind every coverage conversation you will have, including creator outreach. For the outreach side of that, see game influencer marketing; for where press sits among the other pre-launch channels, see Steam game marketing.
Coverage is also the channel where it is easiest to lose track of what worked. An article and three videos land in the same week your wishlists jump, and Steam's own link tracking will not tell you which one did it. Attribution connects ad spend, Steam link-tracking data, and wishlist and conversion numbers by channel, so a weekly check shows which coverage actually moved the number rather than one blended total that hides it. See Attribution.
Sources: Valve's Steamworks documentation on Curator Connect and standard store assets, and presskit(). The eight-section field set is Immutable's own, consistent with the field list on our Steam store page guide.
