A thing you should definitely do
Hello! We regularly receive pitches from freelance writers. Many of these pitches are excellent, many of them are bad, and many more forget to include the article idea and just yell at us at length for stopping them from ad blocking on the site.
If you’re interested in pitching an article of your very own to us, read on, as we’re about to explain how to be in the first category of people. This page explains where and how to pitch, outlines our current freelance rates, and makes it extra easy for you by explaining the kinds of articles we’re currently looking for.
Where to send your pitch
Please send your pitch to:
Our standard article rate is £200 for an article in the region of 1000-1500 words. This covers most features, reviews, etc.
We will endeavour to adjust the rate fairly according to the amount of work the article requires. Reviewing a particularly long game or interviewing multiple subjects might warrant £250, while an exceptionally short game might warrant us to offer £125 or £175. We’ll discuss this with you to agree on a rate. ForJoy Ofarticles, which are not more than 500 words, we pay £60.
It also doesn’t matter to us where in the world you’re based: we work with writers all over the world, and the agreed fee is simply converted to your local currency using the conversion rates at the time.
What’s below is a list of some article types we currently need. It isnotan exhaustive list of every kind of article we’ll accept. Often our favourite pitches are for wild, one-off ideas we would never have thought of, so if what you most want to write doesn’t fit the below, don’t fret. Use the advice above and send it anyway.
With that said, sending ideas of these types will increase your chances of us buying your pitch.
In-depth and expert coverage on big gamesDo you rush to play each new Path Of Exile expansion? Are you deep into the latest Minecraft mod craze? Is no day complete for you until you’ve played a few rounds of Magic Arena? Then you should consider pitching stories about those games to us. We want to write about patches, expansions and DLC packs. We want analysis of the latest meta, and recommendations of the newest mods. We want the kinds of informed opinions you can only have when you truly know a game. If it’s a popular game, and you’re an expert, then we want to hear from you - and if you’re good, we’ll probably want you to write about the game for us for months or years to come.
Community-focusedWe want reporting on what the communities that love their games are doing, whether it’s complaining, dressing up, collecting gifs, or playing in new and fascinating ways. We like looking at popular mods, community turmoil and wider impact, and hearing all about what kind of fun players are making for themselves.
Retro PC gaming stuffWe like looking back at classics (like the bigQuake retrospective) or re-discovering weird things about old PC gaming we didn’t know about before. Are you still playing your old favourites? Are you in love with games from way before your time? Do you have an eye for old mods, shareware or DOSBox beauties? Give us a shout.
Fundamentally, we believe that all kinds of games writing are valid. That said, we’re unlikely to use our limited freelance budget for certain kinds of articles.
Close textual readsWe are very pleased for you if you read a lot of books or watch a lot of films, or did a degree on a certain subject. These days, however, we’re not likely to commission you doing a close analysis of the themes of a game, especially without any external input (like interviews with the devs or an expert in the field in question).
Op-eds, generallyIf you have a unique perspective, unique expertise, and a timely take about a big game or evergreen issue, then yes, we might be interested. However, op-eds currently form the vast majority of the pitches we receive, and we say no to almost all of them because they fail to meet any one of those criteria. Think of it like this: if your article can only be written if you interview other people, or because you have played a game for a hundred hours, then you stand a better chance of us commissioning you.
Reviews, or articles on short gamesReviews: we choose what we want to cover and assign them to writers ourselves, and so tend not to need pitches. As for short games: if it’s something we can play and write about ourselves in 3-5 hours, then probably we’d do it ourselves. We commission freelance writers to cover things we cannot because they are prohibitively time-consuming or to fill gaps in the knowledge of our team, and short games, a lot of indie games, most art games, are not that.
Don’t see what you want to write on the what we want list? As mentioned, these are suggestions for things we need more of right now, not the only things we’ll commission. See what what you want to write on our ‘what we don’t want’ list? Then think again and find a different idea - or pitch it anyway, if you think your idea is so good we should make an exception. Don’t see your question answered here? Email and ask - we’re happy to help.
