How to Run B2B Lead Generation in Gaming (Studios and Publishers)

TL;DR

• Gaming sells to a small committee: a founder or CEO, a publishing or business development lead, a marketing or user acquisition head, and a studio technical lead.
• Sizing the list takes minutes and costs 0 records. A test pull of 25 people costs 25 of the 1,000 records on the free plan.
• Total time is about 30 minutes: three filters, one count, one search, one enrich.

Gaming is a bad fit for generic "VP of Sales" lists. Studios are small, titles are odd, and the person who signs off on your tool is often the founder. This guide shows how to find them with the LeadOcean API.

Prerequisites

• A free LeadOcean account at app.leadocean.io (no card, 1,000 records for life).
• An API key exported as $LEADOCEAN_API_KEY.
• curl and jq, or the hosted MCP server at https://api.leadocean.io/mcp in Claude.
• A clear offer. Know whether you sell to studios (tools, services, payments) or to publishers (ad tech, analytics, localization).

Step 1: Map the buying committee

Pick roles before filters. Gaming committees are short.

In a small studio the founder often owns the buying decision. In a larger publisher, expect the committee to split across all four roles. Check each company's headcount before you pick the message.

Step 2: Resolve the gaming industry values

Industry filters are exact strings. Look them up instead of guessing.

curl -s "https://api.leadocean.io/v1/enums/industry?q=gam" \
  -H "x-api-key: $LEADOCEAN_API_KEY" | jq -r '.data.values[]'

The same lookup runs free through the MCP tool leadocean_list_enum_values with name: industry and q: game. On 21 October 2026 the values that matter were:

• Computer Games
• Mobile Games
• Mobile Gaming Apps

Gambling and Casinos and Gambling Facilities and Casinos also exist. They are a different buyer, so leave them out unless you sell to casinos.

Step 3: Size the list for free

Count before you search. A count spends 0 records. Send count=true as a query parameter and limit 1 in the body.

curl -s -X POST "https://api.leadocean.io/v1/people/search?count=true" \
  -H "x-api-key: $LEADOCEAN_API_KEY" \
  -H "content-type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "industry": ["Computer Games", "Mobile Games", "Mobile Gaming Apps"],
    "seniority": ["founder", "c_suite"],
    "limit": 1
  }' | jq '.meta'

The response has an empty data array and meta.countOnly: true. Read meta.total (capped at 100,000). Run the same call through MCP with leadocean_count_leads and you also get distinctCompanies, the number of employers the people span.

For a company-side view, GET /v1/companies/count is also free and takes the company-search filters. It returns an exact total with breakdowns by industry, headcount band and HQ country.

Step 4: Add role and region filters

Narrow the founder list into a committee by running one search per role. The marketing and sales filter looks like this:

curl -s -X POST "https://api.leadocean.io/v1/people/search" \
  -H "x-api-key: $LEADOCEAN_API_KEY" \
  -H "content-type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "industry": ["Computer Games", "Mobile Games", "Mobile Gaming Apps"],
    "jobLevel": ["C-Team", "VP", "Director"],
    "jobFunction": ["Sales & Business Development", "Advertising & Marketing"],
    "country": ["US", "GB", "DE"],
    "limit": 25
  }'

Rules that save records:

• Filters are arrays, even for one value.
• limit runs 1 to 100. Page with the cursor from the last response.
• One search pages to 10,000 rows. If meta.depthCapped is true, narrow the filters.
• Region filters cut the list fast. In the sales and marketing count below, the US held 1,117 of 3,144 mailable people, the UK 290 and Canada 165. Start with two or three countries.

Check the size of each variant with the free count first. Then spend records on the smallest list that covers your offer.

Step 5: Enrich one person at a time

A search returns profile data. Enrich the people you want to contact. Enrich takes exactly one of linkedin_url, email, phone or person_id.

curl -s -X POST "https://api.leadocean.io/v1/people/enrich" \
  -H "x-api-key: $LEADOCEAN_API_KEY" \
  -H "content-type: application/json" \
  -d '{ "person_id": "PERSON_ID_FROM_SEARCH", "reveal_email": true }'

Since October 2026 the enrich response also carries career history: past roles, education and certifications. For gaming this is useful. A UA lead who came from a big mobile publisher reads differently from one who came from an indie team. Past employers have no company_id yet, so match them by name.

Read email_status before you send. LeadOcean does not refund records for bounced emails.

Step 6: Write to each role

Keep the first message to the buyer's problem, not your product.

• Founder or CEO. One line on the cost of the thing you fix, one line on proof, one ask.
• Publishing or BD lead. Lead with pipeline: how you help them find, sign or ship more titles.
• Marketing or UA lead. Lead with a number they track: cost per install, day-7 retention, payback. Only name a metric you can back up.
• Technical lead. Lead with the integration: engine, SDK, build pipeline. Skip adjectives. Show the endpoint or the docs link.

Time the message to the studio's calendar. Launch windows, soft launches and live-ops seasons set the budget cycle. Ask the studio, do not guess.

Step 7: Sample, then scale

A full pull of the sales and marketing committee is 3,144 mailable people. That is above the 1,000 free records, so start with a sample. Pull 25 people per role, check the titles look right, and read email_status. Split the count by company size first, so you know how many rows sit at indie studios and how many at publishers.

curl -s -X POST "https://api.leadocean.io/v1/people/search?count=true" \
  -H "x-api-key: $LEADOCEAN_API_KEY" \
  -H "content-type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "industry": ["Computer Games", "Mobile Games", "Mobile Gaming Apps"],
    "jobLevel": ["C-Team", "VP", "Director"],
    "jobFunction": ["Sales & Business Development", "Advertising & Marketing"],
    "employeeRange": ["1-10", "11-50", "51-200"],
    "limit": 1
  }' | jq '.meta.total'

On 21 October 2026, 1,799 of the 3,144 mailable sales and marketing people worked at companies of 200 or fewer. The other 1,345 were at larger publishers. If the sample is clean, move to Solo at $97 a month for one person or Agency at $497 a month for a team. Paid plans have a fair-use pace, not credits, so there is no per-record bill.

Three habits keep the list useful:

1. Count every variant before you search. A count is free, and it shows when a filter is too narrow or too wide.
2. Split by region and size. A message for a 10-person indie studio should differ from one for a publisher with several hundred staff.
3. Re-pull monthly. The dataset refreshes monthly, and each record carries its own fetched_at date.

Common mistakes in gaming outreach

• Treating gaming as one market. Mobile, PC, console and esports buy different things. Use the three industry values for studios and publishers, then add keywords such as "live ops" or "free-to-play" to split by model. Keywords match the person's own profile text.
• Writing to HR or recruiting. Filter by jobFunction so you reach the function that owns your budget.
• Ignoring company size. Add employeeRange (for example 11-50 and 51-200) to separate indie studios from publishers.
• Sending without checking status. Filter on emailStatus or read it per record. Bounces are yours to absorb.

What you get

On 21 October 2026 the free leadocean_count_leads tool returned these counts. They cover mailable people only (default email status: verified, catch_all_valid or catch_all), not everyone matching the filters.

The second row is the sales and marketing committee. At 3,144 mailable people across 1,408 employers, you average about two contacts per studio. Most of the sales and marketing rows are directors (2,465), with 316 VPs and 269 C-suite. Nearly all sit in Computer Games (2,878), with 266 in Mobile Gaming Apps. Mobile Games added none on this filter, so check it on your own count before you rely on it.

The third row is the technical lead list. It spans 896 employers, fewer than the 1,408 for sales and marketing, so a tool that needs an engineering sign-off has a smaller pool. Count it on its own before you plan volume.

Response shape from the API reference for one search row (placeholder values):

{
  "success": true,
  "data": [
    {
      "profile_data": {
        "profile_full_name": "Jane Doe",
        "profile_headline": "Head of User Acquisition at Acme Games"
      },
      "contact_data": {
        "has_email": true,
        "has_phone": false,
        "email_status": "verified",
        "contact_current_experiences": [
          { "company_name": "Acme Games", "company_domain": "acme.com", "job_title": "Head of User Acquisition" }
        ]
      },
      "meta": { "source_ids": { "person_id": "PERSON_ID" } }
    }
  ],
  "meta": { "nextCursor": "CURSOR", "depthCapped": false }
}

Profile fields vary by record, so read the schema in the API reference before you map columns.

Troubleshooting

FAQ