Advice from a Game Critic: How to Pitch Your Mobile Game for Press Coverage

Insights & Best Practices

March 18, 2015

3

min read

So you?ve finished hours of coding and your mobile game is complete. Now you just need to get it into players? hands.Contrary to popular belief, you don?t need a huge PR or marketing team to get the word out about your indie mobile game. You don?t even need to buy a mailing list. Bloggers, reporters and freelancers typically include their email addresses in their online bios specifically because they want to hear about new apps and mobile games ? from the people who create them! Really.As a contributing writer to VentureBeat's GamesBeat, I depend on the emails I get every day from mobile developers to help me discover great new games. But I?ll be honest: I don?t read all of them. I only have so much time, so some get more attention than others.I don?t claim to be the typical pitchee (there's no such thing), but I know what works for me. If you've just launched a mobile game and are hoping to be reviewed by or featured in a publication, here are a few ways you can keep your pitch from languishing in a game critic's inbox:Craft a killer, creative subject lineJust like in the App Store, an email?s first impression is important: The subject line is the first point at which a critic will decide if they want to know more about what you?ve made. If you took the time to come up with a ridiculously awesome title for your mobile game like ?Nun Attack Origins: Yuki?s Silent Quest,? by all means, use that in the subject line.But even if you don?t have a crazy name in your corner, you can still be ridiculously awesome. As much as I claim not to like the ?It?s like ___ meets___? trope for describing things, it does work ? especially if you get creative. One mobile developer described his game as ?sort of like Tetris vandalized by Scrabble,? for example, and you?d better believe I clicked. (The image of Scrabble messing up Tetris? stuff was just too funny to ignore).Sending out cold pitches can often feel like shouting into a hole, but just remember that the person receiving them is also working hard ? so everyone wins if you make the experience fun, genuine and memorable.Share what makes you stand outBeing different isn?t just good advice for your game; if you can add something really cool and memorable to your message, recipients will notice.One mobile developer, for example, pitched a board-based puzzle game, and he included screenshots with his email. That?s cool and super helpful for me (sidenote: always save writers work!). But it was this line that really stuck out: ?I even made all 800 levels by hand, arts and crafts-style, at my dining room table before coding them.?

Board Based Game

Photo via Andrew SchielAnd sure enough, there among the screenshots, he?d thrown in a picture of himself with a whiteboard at said dining room table. While it?s a small thing that has nothing to do with the quality of the game (which I really liked, for the record), it caught my attention, and I still remember that pitch a year and a half later.Research the reporter?s ?beat?Form emails are fast, easy and convenient. They?re also impersonal and potentially disastrous if you make a mistake. The other day, I got a message that literally read:

Hello [message recipient],

I have been following your work on [site name]

Naturally, I stopped reading (wouldn?t you?). But I?ve received other emails from people who had done the diligence and managed to tailor their pitches for me, and that goes a long way (and, no, it?s not about playing to my ego it?s about knowing what I?m into and what I write about). Here?s a sample:

Hey Evan,

I've been following some of your posts over on Venture Beat [sic] and was really excited to see your coverage of Road Not Taken. That game is really beautiful, both design wise and aesthetically. I keep seeing creepy children-themed games and am wondering if they have to be dark in order to send the message that they're for adults, too? Have you noticed that?

You?d better believe that I read the rest of that email, and I even ended up covering the game ? Cannon Brawl. It turned out to be really fun, but it was the pitch that got me playing.Evan Killham is a freelance writer who can absolutely point you toward some crazy stuff on Netflix. His work has appeared on GamesBeat and Cult of Mac. Follow him on Twitter.