- "At what point do you start contacting members of the press?"
2 - 12 month before release, a little bit depending on how long we think we can have some kind interesting flow of material going. Best thing is to start with a bang and have something really interesting at first, and then keep the promotion in form of screenshots, trailers, blogs, dev videos, interview,etc going until release.
- "Who do you contact?"
Best is to send your press release to
http://gamespress.com/ along with trailer, screens and what not. Can also send it straight to indiegames.com and rockpapershotgun.com (both have details on their site). Other larger sites are much harder and Gamespress is usually better. New aggregates like bluesnews might also be worthwhile sending a tip though.
- "What do you say?"
Can start by looking through gamepress and see what other write. When you release most write crap, you feel less pressure when writing something yourself
I think just trying to sum up the game quickly, have a good headline and include screens and/or a video is a good basic template.
Also, include a mail address in case anybody from the press is interested in contacting you directly. This is normally the way you get press contacts, by them contacting you.
- "How do you format it, if at all?"
Simple text or what ever works the best. Most sites are lazy and will just copy your press release text, so best if you have it in a format that makes that easier (and makes it look good to the reader). Videos youtube and some common format.
Also do not forget to send preview copies and a demo is also good tools for promotion. When it comes to preview copies, I would say start with small and do some research on what sites might be interested. RPS and IndieGames are obvious choices, but there might be tons of other sites that could be of interested. This change a lot though and one has to do some research.
- "Where the hell do you even start?"
I think that you should simply try and have a campaign (meaning somewhat planned release of info, screens, videos, etc) that would make yourself interested. Try and do stuff that have not been tried, but that is not always easy so check and what other games have done for their releases and be inspired.
Also be aware that this takes a lot of time! We usually spend half a day on a single screen shot just making sure it looks as good as possible. Do not just take something directly from the game, but do fake a bit with the set up and show more than what you would see in a game normally. The thing is that in a game you can move around and thus have a different experience than looking at a still image. The screen shot should try and emulate the game experience, not just be a still shot from it. Of course, trailers take even longer and I think the same applies there. If possible, do not show directly gameplay footage, but make a special trailer bit and make a video out of that. Tons of work, but usually really worth it.
Finally I think it is important to give the impression of being serious and professional. For example, when first hearing a bout Jeroen's "Dinner Date" I thought it was going to be a game that was thrown together in a few days. But then when seeing the trailer and website I released sombody had put a lot of thought and time into it, and I got a lot more interesting in it.
Hope some of this was helpful!
