Pitching guidelines for PRs

Video Games Industry Memo (VGIM) is a weekly explainer of the policy, commercial and cultural trends shaping the video games sector.

We do accept pitches for stories from PR professionals working within, or on behalf of, companies and organisations who work within (or intersect with) the games business.

While we do consider a range of stories and perspectives each week - and maintain flexibility along with the wider news agenda - we do have advice on how to increase your chances of pitching successfully to VGIM.

Stuff we like

In particular, we are looking for pitches that meet a number of the following criteria:

  • Feature stories that match our focus on the policy, commercial and cultural trends shaping games. Specific areas of interest include: video games policy; tech policy that aligns with the games industry (e.g. online safety, competition rules); the media landscape around games, geopolitical developments and impact on games; the overlap of games into wider society (e.g. AI, healthtech); data about how the industry functions; commercial and financial updates from businesses; discussions with cultural institutions and NGOS on their view of games.

  • Provide access to senior leaders, executives and societal figures who align with the profile of our readership. Past interviewees for Video Games Industry Memo have included figures such as Leo Varadkar, former Prime Minister of Ireland, Elliot Higgins, Founder of Bellingcat, Laura Higgins, Senior Director of Community Safety and Digital Civility at Roblox and Stephen Bush, Columnist at the Financial Times.

  • Access to events, launches and locations. We’re also very interested in getting access to actual people (shocking!) in the real world at events, launches and locations across the world. This includes conferences, relevant games PR launch activities and studios where possible.

  • Offers engaging insight that meets our entertaining tone. VGIM has always sought to make the big topics in games digestible for our broad audience of games industry professionals, journalists, policy makers, politicians and senior business leaders from beyond the sector. Insight that matches our conversational approach is always welcome.

  • Gives readers access to exclusive data as it arrives. We also prioritise delivering useful data and information to readers as soon as we get our hands on it. Providing us with market moving insights, polling or other private information will increase your chance of being accepted.

  • Tips and chatter. We also want to hear tips, chatter and gossip from the industry, especially where it can support the creation of content for our jobs, forthcoming events or forthcoming game release segments.

Stuff we don’t like

And on the other hand, we do not accept the following pitches:

  • Consumer games content. We love to share news about key video games releases and run the rule over what certain game releases mean for the business. But we won’t run previews, reviews or guides unless it somehow also overlaps with our recommended content guidelines.

  • Overly narrow business pitches. VGIM is a broad church and pretty much platform agnostic. If you’re pitching a business story, take a moment to ask whether it will appeal to such an audience or whether it may sit more successfully within another outlet.

  • Sponsored content pieces. We do not send sponsored content emails to the VGIM subscription base. If you’d like to promote a piece of content via VGIM, we would be happy to arrange a sponsorship package for the newsletter.

  • Soft ball interviews. We know that PRs have to work hard to balance providing access to someone and protecting them. But equally, we do expect people to be able to handle fair but tough questions. If you’re thinking of pitching someone and can’t guarantee it, then pause on sending us that email until they’re ready to go.

Pitching practicalities

Right, ready to pitch? If you are, send an email to george@videogamesindustrymemo.com with:

  • A summary of the story you’re pitching.

  • A one line explainer of why VGIM is the place you’d like to land your story.

  • The exclusive access to event/person/data that’ll catch our eye.

  • Timelines from your end we need to pay attention to.

We will be in touch if the pitch catches our interest.