Every Steam game needs a press kit. Here is a free hosted one, built from your store page in a minute.
A press kit is the page a journalist opens when they have ten minutes for your game, and the page a YouTuber opens when they need your logo for a thumbnail at 2 a.m. Most indie games either do not have one or keep it in a Google Drive folder called "press stuff". This post covers what goes in a press kit, how the tools available in 2026 compare, and the free hosted press kit we just added to the Mad Octopus Dev Hub: it reads your Steam store page and gives you a public page plus a ZIP, and you only fill in the parts Steam does not know.
Founder, Mad Octopus
Why a press kit, and who actually opens it
Three kinds of people open a press kit, and none of them are patient. Journalists writing a roundup want a fact sheet, one paragraph they can quote, a trailer and three screenshots, and they want them without writing you an email first. Content creators want the logo as a transparent PNG and the key art at full size, because a thumbnail with a screenshot of the store page looks cheap. Festival and award juries, platform holders and potential publishers want the same things plus the history of the project and who is behind it.
The format was standardised in 2012 by Rami Ismail's presskit(), a free PHP tool that gave every indie game the same sections in the same order: fact sheet, description, history, features, videos, images, logo and icon, awards, selected articles, additional links, about the studio, contact. That order still works, because the people who read press kits have read hundreds of them and know where to look. What changed is that presskit() is no longer maintained and most developers do not run a PHP host any more, so the kit moved into Drive folders, Notion pages and itch.io descriptions, and it got worse at the one job it has: being found and copied from in ten minutes.
What goes in a game press kit
The list below is the presskit() structure with the parts that matter in 2026 added. If you build yours in the Dev Hub, the first five are filled from Steam automatically and you write the rest.
Fact sheet
Developer, publisher, release date, platforms, price, genres, languages, the Steam link, your website and a press contact. One glance, no scrolling.
Tip: Put a real email in the press contact. A contact form loses half the people who would have written.
Description
Two to four paragraphs a journalist can quote directly. Your Steam 'About the game' text is the right starting point.
Tip: Lead with what the player does, not with the setting. 'You sweep gold coins and feed them to a glutton king' beats 'In a kingdom far away'.
Trailers and videos
The Steam trailers plus any YouTube videos you want people to embed: gameplay overview, launch trailer, a dev diary.
Tip: Journalists embed YouTube, not Steam. Upload the trailer to your own channel and link it even if it is the same file.
Screenshots
Full-size screenshots, not the 600px store thumbnails. Eight to fifteen is plenty; more than that and nobody looks.
Tip: Make sure the first three show the game at its best; those are the ones that get used.
Logo and key art
The logo on a transparent background, the header capsule, the main capsule, the library art and the hero image, all at full size and each with a direct link.
Tip: Creators cut thumbnails from the logo and the hero. If either is missing they will screenshot the store page, which looks worse and is out of your control.
Features
Five to eight short bullets: what the game does that other games in the genre do not.
Tip: Concrete beats grand: '22 achievements, runs on a 2014 laptop' is more useful than 'an unforgettable adventure'.
History
How the game came to be: the team, the jam it started at, the pivot, the Early Access story. Optional, and the section journalists love most.
Tip: One paragraph with a date in it. Interview questions come from here.
Awards, articles, links
Festival selections and nominations, the two or three best pieces written about the game, and the links that matter: demo, Discord, soundtrack, console versions.
Tip: An empty awards section is fine. A section with 'Selected for Steam Next Fest' in it is better than fine.
About the studio and contact
Who you are, where you are based, what you shipped before, how to reach you, and your social links.
Tip: Two sentences. Nobody reads the studio history; they scan it for a city and a previous game.
The options in 2026, compared
You can build all of the above by hand. These are the tools people use instead, with what each one asks of you. The last row is ours, so read that one with the usual scepticism.
| Tool | What it is | Cost | Catch |
|---|---|---|---|
| presskit() | The 2012 original: PHP files you host yourself, the sections above, a data.xml you edit by hand. | Free | Unmaintained, needs a PHP host, no Steam import, no downloads or view counts. |
| presskit.gg | A WordPress plugin that builds the kit on your own domain, with Steam import. | Free | You need a WordPress site. Good if you already have one, a weekend if you do not. |
| Press Kitty (IMPRESS) | Hosted press kit builder made for indie studios, WYSIWYG editor. | Free tier, paid plans | Another account and another dashboard; the free tier is capped. |
| indie.io Press Kit Builder | Hosted kit built from your Steam page, part of the indie.io publisher's tool suite opened up in September 2026. | Free tier with usage limits, $19.99 and $49.99 a month for higher caps | A funnel into their publishing deals; daily usage limits on the free tier. |
| A Drive or Notion folder | What most indies actually have. | Free | No fact sheet, no direct image links, no ZIP, and the link changes every time you reorganise. |
| Mad Octopus Dev Hub press kit | A hosted page at madoctopus.fun/press/your-game built from your Steam page: fact sheet, trailers, screenshots, store art, tags, plus your own texts, videos, awards, articles, links, studio and contact. ZIP download, view and download counters, a preview link before publishing. | Free, no limits (part of the free Dev Hub plan) | It lives on our domain, and you need a Dev Hub account with the game approved in the pool, which takes a day. |
The free hosted press kit in the Dev Hub
We built this after a week of watching what creators and journalists ask developers for in the hub: logos, key art and a paragraph to quote, over and over. The tool sits under Developer tools in the Dev Hub, next to the release date planner and the Steam page audit. Here is the whole flow:
- Create from my Steam page. One click pulls the description, every screenshot at full size, the trailers, the store art (header, capsules, library art, hero, the logo as a transparent PNG), the tags, price, platforms and languages, and prefills the fact sheet.
- Add what Steam does not know. Features, history, YouTube videos, extra images, awards, selected articles, additional links, the studio blurb, a press email and your social links. Plain text boxes, one item per line.
- Preview, then publish. Until you publish, the page is private and you get a preview link. After that it is live at madoctopus.fun/press/your-game, indexable, with Open Graph tags so it unfurls properly on X, Discord and LinkedIn.
- The ZIP builds itself. Every page has a download button: logo, all store art, full-size screenshots, a 1280x720 thumbnail base with your logo already placed, trailer links and a PRESS_KIT.md fact sheet. It rebuilds whenever you edit.
- You see who uses it. Page views and ZIP downloads are counted per game in the editor, and Refresh from Steam pulls new screenshots and trailers whenever you update the store page.
One more thing the page does that a folder cannot: if your game has Steam keys deposited in the Creator Hub, the press kit tells creators so and links them to the key. A YouTuber who lands on your press kit from a Google search leaves with a key instead of an email to write.
Where to put the link
A press kit nobody can find is a folder. Put the link in four places and it starts working on its own:
- Your Steam page. Steamworks lets you add links under the store page (the Links section in the store page editor). Add the press kit next to your website and Discord.
- Every mail to press and creators. One line under your signature: "Press kit: madoctopus.fun/press/your-game". It saves the follow-up asking for the logo.
- Your Discord and socials. Pin it in the server, put it in the X and Bluesky bios during launch month.
- Festival and award submissions. Most forms have a press kit field. Paste the link instead of uploading a ZIP that is out of date by the time the jury opens it.
FAQ
What is a press kit for a video game?
A single page (and usually a ZIP) with everything a journalist, creator or jury needs to cover your game without asking: fact sheet, description, trailers, screenshots, logo and key art, awards, articles, links, studio background and a contact. The structure comes from presskit() (2012) and has not changed much since.
Do I need a press kit before the Steam page is live?
Build it the week the store page goes up. That is when you start mailing creators and press about the demo and the wishlist, and they will want the logo and art immediately. The Dev Hub kit works for coming-soon games; the fact sheet shows the release window.
What image sizes should a press kit include?
The Steam set covers what most people need: header capsule 460x215, main capsule 616x353, library capsule 600x900, library hero 3840x1240, the logo as a transparent PNG, and screenshots at their full size (1920x1080 or larger). Add a 1280x720 thumbnail base for YouTubers; the ZIP in the Dev Hub includes one with your logo placed.
Can I host the press kit on my own domain?
Not the Mad Octopus page itself, it lives at madoctopus.fun/press/your-game. The ZIP is portable and the assets are yours, so you can mirror the kit anywhere. If you already run WordPress, presskit.gg does the same on your domain.
Is the hosted press kit really free?
It costs nothing to run: no hosting fee, no subscription and no usage caps. For accounts created since October 2026 it comes with the $9.99 one-time Dev Hub plan, together with the other developer tools; earlier free accounts keep it at no charge.