Everything you wanted to know about games journalism from a PR veteran (but were afraid to ask)

Games journalism is in a pretty different state to how it was five or ten years ago. Sell-offs, layoffs, the rise of content-harvesting AI, worked-owned outlets, and wildly unpredictable shifts in Google’s search algorithm are just some of the factors that have brought enormous change to the space.

In the midst of this, journalists are busier than ever. With far too many games to cover, but developers and publishers still largely dependent on them for awareness, their time has never been more precious.

As PR agency Renaissance turns 10 this year, GamesIndustry.biz asks founder and ex-Ubisoft veteran Stefano Petrullo the hard questions about dealing with journalists, from blacklisting to crisis management.

How review embargoes work

Review embargoes gives publishers and developers the opportunity to create a lot of noise at once around their new release. An embargo that falls too close to release, however, is usually a red flag to press and consumers that a game isn’t up to scratch in some way.

“For me, an early embargo for reviews is always the right choice,” Petrullo says. “It needs to be one embargo for everyone, possibly 24 hours before launch.

“With the current state of the landscape, embargoes have to be seen as the starting point for when the coverage begins appearing. The times of everyone going live with their coverage on the same day, at the same time, are long gone, especially for games outside the AAA space.”

So, what happens if a journalist breaks an embargo?

“It depends on the cause,” Petrullo explains. “If someone leaks something, media outlets have the right to report it. We cannot pretend to enforce an embargo if there is a leak. Leaks usually, but not always, come from outside PR. In PR, we are the ones most attentive to not leak stuff, generally speaking.

“Often, you’ll find leaks will come from the company that sets the embargo. Maybe 80% of the time, it’s because the client couldn’t keep all its embargoed materials under control.”

Reviews, though, carry additional complications around embargoes, like journalists getting hold of copies through other means that don’t involve them breaking the law.

“In terms of reviews: if boxed copies are on the market, again, we cannot penalise people that trust us and agree to an embargo. In this case, the best course of action is to contact the reviewer that uses a copy obtained by a street date break and politely ask if they can hold the review.”

“Outrage spikes fast but fades – unless the issue cuts into trust, ethics, or community respect.”

Stefano Petrullo, Renaissance PR

This, of course, depends on the stance of the reviewer in question. Petrullo says not pursuing takedowns of reviews in these kinds of situations is a choice he may need to justify to a client.

“If they agree, great, if not there will of course be no hard feelings as they got something via a legitimate route outside of our control,” Petrullo says. “At the same time, when this happens, we alert the other reviewers under embargo asking them either to maintain the embargo, or lift the embargo to avoid confusion.”

Ultimately, the key is making sure that journalists who stick to the rules don’t feel like they’re being punished for it.

“Our goal is always to protect and help media and influencers that work with us and make sure they are not penalised in cooperating with us because of outside factors,” Petrullo says.

Is blacklisting ever the answer?

Outlets being blacklisted by publishers is certainly not unheard of, though maybe less so in the past five years. Is blacklisting ever a fair consequence of breaking an embargo?

“I believe we work with humans, and humans make errors,” Petrullo says. “Most of the time those embargoes are errors, and if it’s a one-off, I don’t like there being consequences. If it is a persistent or malicious action, then my strategy is to sit down with the ‘offender’ and understand why and how we can stop this from happening.”

Ultimately, though, there is a symbiotic nature to the media outlet/PR dynamic that means holding a grudge and denying access can negatively affect both parties.

“In reality, blacklisting people and seeing media or influencers as the enemy that want to trick PR, or whatever the imaginary motive might be, is not only toxic but also counterproductive in the long term.”

Crisis management and bad press

It’s something every veteran PR has dealt with at some point: a journalist is working on a piece that paints their client in a negative light, or leaks some information they don’t want out in the wild.

The journalist is then legally obliged to request comment from the company’s PR representative on the information in question. This is usually how the publisher or developer finds out the article is even happening in the first place.

We ask Petrullo how he would deal with this kind of scenario. “Be honest, acknowledge [the request] and ask how much time you have to respond. Most of the time we go with 12 or 24 hours depending on the story. We then contact the client and check the facts.”

Petrullo continues: “If the facts are correct, we tend to go back and acknowledge while providing context.”

“If they are not correct, either we do not comment as it is based on something speculative and unverified, or we take control of the narrative, contextualising and enriching the story with details.”

“The best crisis management strategy is for there to be no crisis to manage at all. To do this, you need to have an eye for all possible scenarios before they happen so you’re ready to respond swiftly.”

Still, once journalists have offered the right to reply, the negative piece might go up anyway.

We ask Petrullo how permanent the damage is for publishers and developers from bad PR these days.

“Do not blame the reviewer if you are not able to create the best possible conditions for them to do the job.”

Stefano Petrullo, Renaissance PR

“It’s both less sticky and more dangerous,” he explains. “Attention spans are shorter, but the digital footprint is permanent. Outrage spikes fast but fades – unless the issue cuts into trust, ethics, or community respect. Then it sticks and resurfaces at every opportunity.

“Temporary damage is often about technical issues or messaging misfires – you can fix it with honesty and responding quickly. Permanent damage comes from breaking trust: misleading the community, abandoning games, or treating players like wallets. That’s when reputational scars become part of the brand narrative.”

If asked whether he has any other tips for crisis management, Petrullo suggests a lot of it comes down to tone, patience, and good judgment.

“This sounds so cliche but be open and honest,” he says. “Try not to be overly corporate and always remember you are a human that deals with other humans. Do not rush a response, do not see the person you’re dealing with as an ‘opponent’.

“Try to understand what happened and if it is reported correctly. Decide the outcome and if it’s worth addressing. When something is factually wrong you have the right to reply. Ask help from a communication professional if you need it.”

Dealing with bad review scores

So, do PR staff land in hot water when a big game takes an absolute kicking from a reviewer at a top-tier outlet? Going back a decade or two, it wasn’t unheard of.

“I think this doesn’t happen anymore. We have a clause in our contract to protect us from review score blame,” he says.

“At the end of the day, a review score ultimately depends on the game quality for the vast majority of cases. However, there is something that generally annoys me a lot, and this is when a review strategy damages a game.”

By review strategy, Petrullo refers to the process of rolling a game out to press ahead of release. Embargo timing, messaging, and documentation are usually up for discussion.

“The wrong review strategy can dramatically alter the score of a game,” Petrullo asserts before sharing his take on the biggest factors behind the spread of review scores that hit when an embargo lifts.

“Most of the biggest successes we’ve seen are based on games that have a niche audience, where niche doesn’t mean small, but rather a particular type of player.”

Stefano Petrullo, Renaissance PR

First up, according to Petrullo: “Incorrect or zero messaging about what the game is will lead every reviewer to have different expectations, increasing polarisation of the score.”

Not giving reviewers enough time is another factor behind a less predictable spread of scores, according to Petrullo.

“Sending a 100-hour game to review on the day of launch or one day before will push them to write a rushed review. Do not blame the reviewer if you are not able to create the best possible conditions for them to do the job.”

Finally, documentation matters. “No documentation is another thing… [you see] a lot of people sending a key to the reviewer and the info [provided] is just, ‘look at the Steam page’. If you do not package your game to look the best, explaining what it actually is in review documentation, you can’t blame reviewers if you don’t get the outcome you want.”

Of course, that game might end up in the inbox of a freelance writer who never even opens the PDF that came with the Steam key.

Still, how does Petrullo advise keeping a client happy, if the game’s reception doesn’t live up to their expectations?

“We do a lot of expectation management from the very beginning, using mock reviewers as much as possible and making sure that the flaws of the game are known internally and sometimes also externally,” he explains.

The value of in-person relationships after the pandemic

Yesteryear’s media landscape of journalists and PRs phoning each other would probably horrify introverts in either field. If a journalist wanted to know when review code was coming in back in the day, they dialled the PR in question. Every writer’s desk in Future’s UK offices had a phone, back in the day. Using it was part of the job.

Since the pandemic, it’s common for journalists to hear from PR people they’ve never met or interacted with before, exclusively via email. It’s why relationships built in-person, either at events, in coffee shops, or office visits where relevant, have more value than ever.

“I believe it matters a lot,” Petrullo says. “In person, it is so much easier to have empathy and discuss opportunities, ideas, and brainstorm. Emails are hard to cut through.”

Petrullo offers advice for anyone trying to build relationships with influencers and journalists. “Be honest, do not overhype, and respect the person you have in front of you.”

“Chase, don’t hassle. Try to understand that the media and influencers are literally bombarded with requests. Make sure to remember that you need media and influencers more than they need you. Be humble and ambitious, but grounded in reality.”

Securing coverage for lesser known games

Everyone knows digital storefronts are drowning in games. Journalists don’t have nearly enough time to play them all.

So, you’re a PR professional, and you believe you’re working on the next Balatro. How can you convince journalists that your new indie game is worth their valuable time?

“This is hard, especially now,” Petrullo says. “We tend to work a lot on building anticipation and try to find the unique element of the game(s). Ideally, [we try] to let major media know in advance what we’ll be working on in a few months so they can allocate resources on potentially covering it.”

Petrullo gives the example of the game Quantum Witch, made by solo developer NikkiJay, who escaped a cult and made a game about it.

“The traditional ‘send press release and code’ did not work, so we started focusing pitches around the story behind the game, the human factor, and we started getting coverage on Newsweek and Edge to name a few. In general, most of the time it’s about trying to get the initial attention and not using the terms roguelike, FPS, RPG, and the labels that make your game one of the many.”

Then, of course, the real value of a PR professional is knowing who the journalists actually are, and what they like. A grand strategy game, for example, requires more specific expertise than the latest Assassin’s Creed game.

“Another factor is human relationships and knowing ‘that’ journalist who will like the game and potentially cover it, and not just bombarding the editors and targets at the usual big websites.

“Most of the biggest successes we’ve seen are based on games that have a niche audience, where niche doesn’t mean small, but rather a particular type of player. Because of that you should work hard to not just send yet another press release, but speak with people that are relevant in the media.”

How things have changed versus five years ago

“It’s very different,” Petrullo says in reflecting on how the media landscape has evolved in recent years. “We have many more games and a lot fewer journalists, more smaller influencers and less money in the market.

“But perseverance and keeping an eye on how the media landscape is evolving is really important. Journalism is not dead, but it is becoming different and evolving with some big journalists becoming their own brands and starting their own Substacks, video channels, Twitch shows and so on.”

While influencers are a key part of how games are sold, journalists will always have a distinct role in the process of a marketing campaign.

“It’s always good to remember the journalists are the best vehicle to position a game, while an influencer is where the big amplification of that set message occurs to reach the big numbers.”