While I have more than ten years of experience in marketing, I'm pretty new to PR. I've a lot to learn and I can't think of a better way than asking games journalists direct.

I recently read this article on reviving the press release. Be warned, the blogger is one who uses twenty words where one would do. And most of those twenty are new-media-guru-waffle. Still, buried in the web2.0 nonsense is something worthwhile I think.

I'll save you time by summarising the main point - the standard press release format is tailored for print media, therefore it is not effective for online media.

The writer suggests including images, links, tags, embed codes, social bookmarks and a bunch of other stuff in the press release, bundling it together in something he calls a "social media release". (I know this is the sort of wank that gives marketers a bad name. Please try and look past the packaging and think about the idea.) 

Question 1: Would this additional content (images, links, etc) make it easier for you to turn a press release into a story? Would it be welcome?

I found it odd that this so-called expert didn't address the quality of writing in press releases. Every press release I've seen, including his example, is written in an awkward, overly-formal corporate style that just seems to get in the way of sharing the story. I've never seen this style of writing used in any other form of marketing and don't understand why it's required for a press release.

Question 2: Does the formal style of the press release make it easier for you to write your content? Would it help if the release was written in an everyday style? 

The blogger works in PR, so it's not surprising that he also failed to ask the fundamental question which is:

Question 3: Is a press release even necessary at all? Do you prefer to get your stories from press releases or would you rather get the news direct to your inbox, Twitter or RSS reader?

Thanks for sticking with me though this long post and a double-thanks to anyone who takes the time to reply. If you have wisdom to share on the role of the press release from the journalist's point of view, please do so. 

Is this a serious question?

*Question 1: Would this additional content (images, links, etc) make it easier for you to turn a press release into a story? Would it be welcome?

Absolutely!  As an amateur member of the gaming press, hunting down non-watermarked screenshots and videos of a new game can be an extremely annoying task!  If that could all be added to press releases, I'm sure every person in the gaming press would greatly appreciate it!  Even if it did not become the industry standard, the games that adopt it would have a competitive edge over the other games.

*Question 2: Does the formal style of the press release make it easier for you to write your content? Would it help if the release was written in an everyday style?

The formality gives a sense of professionalism and tradition that I agree with.  Sometimes it can be a bit of a task to sift through all of the formalities to get to the meat of the press release, so perhaps a little informality can't hurt!

*Question 3: Is a press release even necessary at all? Do you prefer to get your stories from press releases or would you rather get the news direct to your inbox, Twitter or RSS reader?

I think they're still necessary, but some way to subscribe to them as a feed would be very helpful!

I often find that the gaming industry seems to release a press release every time a CEO ties their shoelaces, and due to this some of the effect of a press release has worn off on me. I also work in a few other industries and UK anime and manga is one of them and press releases are fairly few and far between and when one is released it makes you take note and they tend to provide direct links to images and additional material.

I would say that press releases should always contain extraneous material as it comes in handy to those who want to update on it. Press Releases of course should be formal, as it's a public announcement of a corporate company but there's only so much marketing and pr wankyness that people can put up with - I know that it's trying to promote something but plain English and common sense goes a long way too.

@ Eric

Shall I put that down as a yes? Links and images are a given. I don't know if you read the article I linked to, but that author also suggests including technorati tags, all the social bookmarking icons (Digg, Facebook, Twitter, etc), links to YouTube channels, Flickr accounts, and all sorts of other stuff. Is that helpful, or is it just cluttering up the release?

@ Dan

Thanks for your thoughts. I agree with you that a press release should be professional, but to me that means that the message should be clear and to the point, not vague and padded out with corporate fluff and awkward language. As you say, sometimes it can be a chore to claw out the real meat of the story.

@ Ian

I completly agree with your first point. We've been guilty in the past of putting out releases that really should have been updates in our forum or a short email to our friends in the press. "CEO ties shoelaces" would make a fine Twitter update though, don't you think?

Press releases aren't stories. They're press. Nine out of ten press releases were probably never worth sending and will never be publicised other than by sites that exist simply to deliver the most amount of "news" possible in any given day with whatever sort of dreck the author chooses to attach to it to make it look like an original story. The question was embarrassing and goes a long way towards explaining why "gaming journalism" is a misnomer of epic proportions. For the rare cases where a standard press release is sent to reveal something that's actually interesting, there's almost no worthwhile content past the headline anyway. So, to answer your question, you can include whatever you want, I don't think clutter matters because most of the time it won't get read anyway.

This site needs a preview button.

Edit: I just noticed question #3. Are press releases necessary? Not really. The moment anything gets posted in one single place, it's posted everywhere on the web. It's part of the reason that exclusives for the gaming press don't really matter in the big scheme of things either. I don't really see the Press Release paradigm shifting towards going away anytime soon, but hey, might as well limit PR to 140 characters.

It's the epitome of laziness to copy and paste press releases and call it reporting. Having the hyperlinks and images ready to go as well would be... well, a very clever way for PR to manipulate the journalists, basically. If you'll print everything verbatim, they've got an easy ride.

I get ludicrous amounts of press releases on a daily basis. Which is funny, considering we're pretty vocal about the fact that we opted out of having a news section on our site, for the reason Eric discusses. Everywhere does it. There's nothing unique.

If anything, I use them as a starting point for deciding what we want to talk about. New game announced? Great, we'll get on the phone and try arrange an interview or first-look preview. New batch of screens? Awesome - are there any more we could have as exclusives? Game's gone gold? Awesome, we'll put in a review code request then. So in a way, I'm glad I get this stuff. But I'd always steer clear of posting exactly what they sent to me, or even anything resembling it.

@ Eric

This is good feedback. I'm sorry if my first question was naive, as I said in my original post, I'm not a journalist and I have little experience in the PR field of marketing. Hearing how press releases are viewed and used by journalists is exactly the insight I am after.

Oh, don't take anything I say as representative of gaming journalism. My ideal view of gaming journalism is a lot different than what's presented right now. See where Lewis talked about asking for previews. I'm pretty sure I've never even done a real preview. Previews are nothing but bad for the industry also. I'd take a million choreographed gameplay videos from a dev over a journalist writing about pre-release code. Ugh ugh ugh previews suck.

Screenshots suck too for the most part.

And interviews are mostly crap outside of the odd post-mortem type one.

Like I said - NOT representative.

@ Lewis

Your reply made me smile. I came at this thinking, "How could I make our press releases more useful to the people who receive them?" and the interpretation of that is that it would be "a very clever way for PR to manipulate the journalists". Brilliant! Is the gap in trust between marketers and press really so wide?