How We Pick
The method behind every pick on the site.
Every pick on Press Start Co is chosen and ranked on verifiable, reproducible facts- not vibes, and not a lab we don't have. Here's exactly how it works, so you can judge whether our recommendations are worth trusting.
What we check on every pick
- Situation fit.Does the game actually work for the stated setup - the player count, online versus couch, and crossplay across the specific platforms involved? A game that's perfect for two on one couch can be useless for four across three consoles, and we rank accordingly.
- Verified availability and crossplay.We confirm which platforms a game is on and whether it has crossplay against the game's official store page(Steam, PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo) and the developer's crossplay documentation. We link that source on the pick so you can check it yourself.
- Player count and mode.Taken from official listings, not memory - so “up to 4 online co-op” means the store page says so.
- Current price.Pulled live from Amazon and stamped with the date we last checked it. When a live price isn't available, we show “Check price” rather than a stale or guessed number.
- An honest skip. Every roundup names at least one title to skip for that situation. If a popular game is the wrong fit for your group, we say so - that's usually the most useful line on the page.
The thing we don't claim
Plenty of “best games” lists imply the writer personally ran all thirty titles with a full squad. We don't claim that, because it isn't true for a brand-new single-author site, and it's the easiest claim in the world for a reader to falsify. What we do claim, we verify: crossplay support, player counts, and platforms come straight from official store pages, and we link them.
A few numbers that matter, framed honestly - these are the things where zero is the point:
- Sponsored placements: 0. Nobody pays to appear on a list or to move up it.
- Picks changed by commission: 0. We earn an affiliate commission on some buy links (see our disclosure), but which games we recommend and the order we rank them are never influenced by payout. If a cheaper option is better for you, it ranks higher - even if it pays us less.
- Free copies accepted in exchange for coverage: 0.
How prices stay honest
Prices come from a live data layer, refreshed regularly, and every displayed price carries an “as of” date. If a price becomes stale, it disappears and the buy button falls back to “Check price on Amazon” - you will never see a made-up or out-of-date number presented as current.
When we update
Crossplay status changes, games get delisted, and new releases arrive. We review our roundups regularly and bump the “Last updated” date only on a real change, not just to look fresh. Found something out of date? Tell us on the contact page and we'll fix it. Full standards are on our editorial policy page.