Indie Game Presskit and Link in Bio: What to Include

Two pages do most of the work when someone hears about your game. The presskit is for people writing or making videos about it: they need facts, art and a contact, fast. The link in bio is for everyone else who taps your name on a social profile: they need one obvious next step, which before launch is usually a Steam wishlist.

This post covers both. makerhandle is our product and can do a light version of each, which we come to at the end; the checklist works wherever you build your presskit.

The presskit() layout most indie presskits follow

Many indie presskits look alike for a reason. presskit() is a free tool Rami Ismail of Vlambeer released for indie developers to generate press pages (source on GitHub), and the layout of its pages became a de facto standard. A presskit() page has a factsheet column (developer, release date, platforms, website, price) beside the main sections: a description, the history of the project, features, videos, images, the logo and icon, awards and recognition, selected articles, additional links, a short "about" for the studio, credits and contact.

You do not have to use the tool to use the layout. Journalists have seen it many times, so they know where to look, and that is the point.

A presskit checklist

Unity published a press kit checklist for its developers that marks each item recommended or optional. The recommended ones, grouped:

The summary

• Game title and a one-sentence logline
• A description of three to five short sentences
• Release date, or the month, season or year
• Genre, platforms, the inputs it needs (gamepad, mouse and keyboard, touch) and the price
• A link to the website that is the game's hub online

The studio

• Contact details for a real person: name and email
• A short bio of the developers, one to three sentences, with past games if you have them

What makes it worth covering

• A list of features
• The unique selling points: what makes it different from the games it will be compared with
• A link to a playable build or keys

Assets

• One link to download everything in high resolution
• Game logos, a banner image and the main key art
• Screenshots of key moments, a trailer and short GIFs of the selling points

Social and press

• Links to your social accounts and community, Discord included
• Links to existing coverage
• One to three sentences that give the press permission to use the material

Optional extras on the same list include quotes, awards and conferences, gameplay modes and length, comparable games and funding. Two habits help more than any single item: keep the facts identical to your store page, so nobody quotes the wrong date or price, and update the kit at each milestone rather than once.

The link in bio, before and after launch

Steam lets anyone wishlist a game as soon as it has a public store page. Valve's wishlist documentation says that wishlisters get an email or mobile notification when the game launches, in Early Access or full release, and when it goes on sale at a discount of 20% or more. It also answers whether a game needs a minimum number of wishlists before Steam starts showing it: no.

Valve's Coming Soon guidance asks for a store page at least two weeks before release, and recommends publishing it as soon as you are ready to talk about the game in public. So for most of a game's development, the most useful thing your bio link can do is send people to that wishlist button.

A good order for the page behind your bio link:

1. The wishlist button for the game you are making (after launch, the buy button).
2. The trailer, for people who want to see it move before they click a store.
3. The newsletter or Discord, for people who want to hear when it ships.
4. The presskit, labelled as such, for press and creators.
5. Your other games, so a fan of the last one finds the next.
6. A contact, for publishers, platforms and everyone else.

The fifth one matters more than it used to. Valve said in 2024 that it would remove links embedded in Steam store pages, as How To Market A Game reported in August 2024, so pointing players from one of your games to the next has to happen somewhere else: in the games themselves, in your newsletter and on a page you control.

Doing both on makerhandle

On makerhandle each game is a project on your page, and each project opens its own project page with the description, up to twelve captioned screenshots, the trailer, highlights for awards and press quotes, the timeline and the engine you used. It has buttons for Steam, itch.io, the Epic Games Store, Nintendo eShop, PlayStation Store, Xbox, Kickstarter and Discord, and while a game is marked Coming soon or Building, the Steam button reads Wishlist on Steam.

It is a light presskit, not a full one: there is no download of every asset in one zip. Link a shared folder labelled "Press assets" from the page and you have covered the checklist. Studios can use their name instead of a person's, see the page for indie game studios; solo developers can start from the game developer page. Free covers five games; Pro is $20 a year with your own domain.