Lucy James spent over a decade as a video producer and on-air personality at GameSpot. Now she’s leaving to join the growing ranks of games media talent who are going independent. But unlike many of them, she’s not going to places like Patreon or Substack. Instead, she’s partnered with Player.gg, a platform aimed specifically at helping people discover new games. The platform is going public this week and partnering with Geoff Keighley’s Summer Game Fest to kick things off. James’ lookingfor.game newsletter will curate PC gaming recommendations for those who sign up.
“GameSpot has been my home for 12 years; it’s taken me all around the world and given me incredible opportunities,” James, who is co-hosting Summer Game Fest Live with Keighley, told Kotaku over Bluesky. “It’s an extremely special place full of talented, creative people who constantly punch above their weight. The output might fool you, but GameSpot is a much smaller team than you’d think. Everyone there loves what they do and does it incredibly well, despite the various headwinds and challenges that have come their way over the years.”
Some news from me! I quit GameSpot to launch something new.
Introducing lookingforgame, an independent weekly newsletter where I highlight upcoming PC games and deliver demo codes straight to your inbox.
Sign up at https://t.co/UOWBvDgFDE 🥳
— Lucy James (@lucyjamesgames) June 1, 2026
She continued, “12 years is a long time to be anywhere, even a place you love. I’ve known for a while that I wanted to pursue something in the indie game space, and when everything aligned with Geoff and FirstLook, I knew I just had to make the jump. The support for my indie coverage on Friends Per Second has reassured me that there’s an audience for lookingfor.game, and I’m excited to build a community and start sharing awesome games.”
FirstLook, which launched in 1.0 earlier this year, is a “player relationship platform built for the games industry” that was acquired by gaming infrastructure startup Pragma. It facilitates private online platytests for everyone from Subnautica 2 publisher Krafton to Alan Wake 2 maker Remedy Entertainment. Player.gg will be another layer on top of that stack, helping users keep track of new games getting announced, recommending stuff that’s already out, and organizing things like Steam wishlists. Summer Game Fest will provide the first high-profile opportunity to prove its usefulness.
“There is no effective cross-platform game discovery,” Player.gg cofounder Robert van Hoesel told Kotaku over Discord. “If you play on PC, Xbox, and Switch, there isn’t a straightforward way to find all those games in one place. More importantly, the focus is solely on getting a wishlist, while many studios want to build and nurture relationships with players through playtests, inviting them to Discord, and showcasing progress. With player.gg, we strive to achieve both: making it easy to find games in the stores you use and allowing you to sign up for playtests or join a game’s community.”
It’s an ambition born partly out of the increasing fracturing of the internet and the fact that no other platform has found a way to fill the gaps left by Steam, social media, and existing websites. While anyone can sign up for Player.gg, only selected curators will be able to send newsletters and charge subscriptions. “We’re essentially launching Substack for games, and the subscriptions are something that curators care about and helps them to write high quality content,” van Hoesel said. “We are charging a fee for payments and sending the emails, but our core revenue is certainly from b2b.”
How do you find your next favorite game?
I’m excited to partner with @lucyjamesgames to launch https://t.co/xG1X0hxnBg (LFG), a new game discovery newsletter and platform built with @playerdotgg
Sign up at https://t.co/01EkFzNwcQ to be notified when it’s live later this week. pic.twitter.com/QggIdHuDug
— Geoff Keighley (@geoffkeighley) June 1, 2026
While many game journalists have found success on Substack, including former Kotaku EIC Stephen Totilo and former Waypoint editor Patrick Klepek, there’s a running joke on the platform about how it still doesn’t have a dedicated gaming section among its broader categories of newsletters. “FirstLook understands gamers,” James said. “I had a very underwhelming meeting with beehiiv and quickly realized that beehiiv/Substack/etc were never going to give us the attention/tech we need or understand the project like FirstLook does.”
As just one example, Player.gg benefits from integrations with Steam and the Internet Game Database (IGDB) for pulling information. “Curators are free to partner with studios and games in their content, which may include exclusive beta invites or paid promos,” van Hoesel said. “For FirstLook the value is in building the ecosystem itself, and we of course hope more developers will make use of our products, which are neatly integrated into player.gg.”
Those more direct relationships with game developers and companies might provide a virtuous cycle that helps Player.gg get a foothold in an incredibly competitive space. FirstLook is planning to add more features and continue building out the platform. And while Player.gg hosts lookingfor.game, it remains wholly owned by James.
