Anita Wong, Head of PR at Indigo Pearl, considers whether press releases are dead, and tells you how you can better engage with media directly in a saturated and rapidly changing landscape
SO WHAT IS EVERYONE GETTING WRONG WITH PRESS RELEASES? #1 — They’re too long.
Google claims the average person reads around 238 words per minute. For all my love of carefully crafted puns, I don’t think I could fit many into 238 words, alongside the necessary information around publisher, developer, game, pricing and more. If we can’t watch a trailer or TikTok longer than one minute, how do we have time to read the whole press release?
P
ress releases. Despite the term itself inspiring boredom, they’re considered to be the backbone of any PR campaign as a reliable way of communicating a key message and delivering information. Whether it’s for a new game announcement or an exclusive trailer in a showcase, it’s common practice to send out a press release to inform gaming media and creators. That’s been the standard practice for decades, but with everyone now fighting busy inboxes, shrinking attention spans and — let’s face it — their own FYPs, do press releases even matter in 2025? … and more importantly, if they’re on their way out … what’s next?
36 | MCV/DEVELOP February/March 2025
After talking to a few ex-journalist friends, the common consensus is that bullet points or summaries would be easier to digest. Considering that AI integrations will soon dominate our inboxes (I’m not sponsored by Copilot, I promise) and summarise all our emails into bullet points anyway, why not have control over those bullet points from the beginning and stick it to the robotic man? #2 — There’s too many. Oversaturation and how to cut through the noise have long been a problem for games in general. Most B2C PR campaigns will have a minimum of two beats and therefore two press releases (announcement and launch). Now look at how many games are being released each month, and well… you can do the maths. #3 — They’re going to the wrong audience.
The way to a creator’s heart is not via a 700-word wall of text — no matter how funny those puns might be (or not be, we’re not all comedians). Without high-quality video or GIFs that creators can share with their audience, your news won’t get covered. Again, length is an issue here, but the sad reality is that the average press release is not tailored to assist
creators in identifying the kinds of content that could be created for the game.
SO… ARE THEY DEAD? CAN WE MOVE ON NOW? Well… sort of. It’s not that press releases no longer have merit at all. They’re just moving to a supporting role, increasingly being used as a supplementary tool alongside direct engagement efforts and announcements from developers through social media, Discord, company blogs, and more. For all their inefficiencies, press releases
are still a respected form of communication, and function particularly well for corporate news. In an era of fragmented media and disinformation rife on social media, press releases can provide a source of credible information and enhance a company’s professionalism. On top of that, they can serve as an archive for company news, which can be accessed by media, consumers, and even the company’s internal staff.
SO… WE STILL NEED THEM? WHAT NOW?
Much like the rest of 2025, press releases need a makeover. (Sometimes, looks do count.) Not only do they need to be cut down in size, they also need to be part of a much more strategic approach. To combat oversaturation, press releases should be paired with personalised outreach, whether that comes with an exclusive or tailored asset or otherwise. The goal is to add value to your journalist’s or creator’s lives — not to heap another issue onto their inbox. Jools Lebron’s words are still true — we want to be very demure, very mindful, and very considerate.
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