We’ve worked with a ton of different freelance writers at Kotaku over the years. Maybe you want to be one of them! Here’s what you need to know before submitting stories to us.
What kinds of stories interest us?
The good ones. Especially if you have a unique angle or access to provide our readers with high-quality ideas, information, or exclusive writing about something they never thought they’d want to read before. This includes, but is not limited to, features, opinion pieces, essays, reported scoops, in-depth investigations and fascinating interviews.
Most of the pitches we receive are for reviews and previews. They’re also the easiest things to say no to, because everyone will post them. What Kotaku The most exciting thing about freelance pitches are original stories that readers won’t be able to find anywhere else because of the unique angle you’ve developed, the ideas you’ve discovered, the experience you’ve had, or the information you’ve obtained.
It could be an interview with a developer who brings out a fascinating insight into a game they worked on ten years ago. It could be a bizarre but intriguing drama that unfolded in a video game Discord community last month. It could be a studio’s intel on why a struggling project still hasn’t delivered, or a profile of a group of modders attempting something incredible in one of their favorite games.
The best stories inform and entertain. They have characters, conflicts and tensions. Some stories have exciting conclusions. Others remain unresolved and get rich because of it. You don’t need to present the next Pulitzer Prize-winning paper to think about this stuff.
What should you send us?
Send us your idea of what you want to write with a projected word count and submission schedule. Suggest an example headline and explain what makes the story interesting, why we need to have it, and why there isn’t a version of it that we can find online within five minutes of Googling it. This pitch must be brief, impactful and as exciting as the final version of the article that you are going to submit.
Please also share a link to relevant previous work and any public profiles you maintain. We don’t need to know your entire life story or everything you’ve written, just one or two strong samples, whether posted on a mainstream website or your personal blog, that help demonstrate your ability to implement the ambitious idea you just presented to us.
Send them to (email protected). Or you can contact individual staff members. Please feel free to follow up if you don’t get a response right away. And while we can’t guarantee we’ll revisit every presentation, we certainly read them all. We do not accept work produced by or written with the assistance of AI agents.
What do we pay?
Our rates start at $50 for short news articles (300-450 words). Our standard rate for short films (750-1,000 words) is $150. These include light research and original sources (quotes or information revealed for the first time in this story), and often attempt to show a trend, convey a broader point, or present a broader argument about the game and the world, although this is certainly not required. Sometimes hyper-detailed anecdotes or chains of events within niche communities make for the most interesting reads of all.
We pay up to $300 for more in-depth articles that require multiple interviews, more intensive research, or lots of hands-on time with a game. Rates for anything between and beyond are negotiable on a case-by-case basis. If you show up with a leaked version of Half-life 3 or an exclusive interview with Shigeru Miyamoto, we can talk.
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