Tips For New Gaming Webmasters

If you’re thinking of starting a video games website or a site aimed at gamers then there are a couple of resources/websites that you absolutely need to know of before you get started. We’ve highlighted two of our favourites below.

GamesPress.com - Artwork, Screenshots, Press News

Gamespress.com is not only a great entry point for all things gaming but an essential resource for any gaming webmaster. The site itself is a trade only affair for established games journalists, retailers, distributors and PR managers so you’ll have to show you run a site/blog or some other sort of publication related to gaming before you gain access (as long as you genuinely own a gaming site etc you’ll have no problems gaining access within 24 hours).

Many of you at this point maybe wondering is it really worth the hassle of signing up, I mean surely we can just go it alone and contact the games companies ourselves ? Well yes you can but there are a few cool things that you’ll have access to here that you won’t have on your own.

Experienced Gaming Journalists

Firstly and most importantly membership grants you access to forums that contain members who are often experienced both as gaming webmasters and as journalists. This means you’ll find hundreds of threads and posts answering the questions you’ve always wanted to ask.

From details of PR contacts within certain niches of the gaming industry to real advise on how to go about making first contact with the big game publishers, this site pulls up a whole treasure trove of information and advise for any newbie webmaster.

Press Mailing Lists & PR Contacts

Secondly the gamespress mailing list supplies huge amounts of fresh content, artwork, screenshots and videos direct from the game companies themselves. What this means is you no longer have to rely on images and videos watermarked with IGN, Gamespot and the various other large gaming sites. You’ll be getting input direct from the games publishers themselves which takes you yet another step closer to becoming an independent games reporting machine!

If you treat this site professionally, respect the members and don’t spam it with useless questions you’ll find that the people here are more than generous with their advise and suggestions towards your specific problem/question/dilemma. If there’s one resource you need to sign up to, this has to be it.

VGamin.com - Gaming Webmaster Forums

For many of us veterans who’ve been writing about games on our blogs and sites over the last 10 years the VGamin.com forums was the place to be if you were a gaming webmaster. With regular press updates and loads of gaming webmasters all under one roof it was not only a great place to build affiliations and relationships with other gaming websites but an everything under one roof guide to starting your own gamer website.

Yes the community side of things is largely dead now (you’re better off heading over to gamespress.com) but despite this the site is still a great asset to any new gaming webmaster thanks to the search facility which still serves up some amazing old threads, links and articles which in most cases are still relevant to any of todays gaming websites. In summary a great archive of old discussions related to gaming webmasters.