So many of these have… designs. Take the buttons, they have texture, they fit into a larger design element. They’re not a rectangle with rounded corners and maybe a gradient.
Video Game Websites in the early 00s
61–70 of 95 posts
Re: Video Game Websites in the early 00s
#62Video game sites back then were cool, yes. Now do video game fan sites. These have in so many ways been replaced over the years by generic ad-ridden wikis but back in the day games often had crazy interesting fan sites for specific video games. So many unique designs and layouts were done for those niche communities and so many of those designers and developers went on to do really cool things in the future. What an…
Making a video game fan site was my gateway into tech. I’m sure I’m not alone in that
Re: Video Game Websites in the early 00s
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right, there have been some really good ones, for example http://myth.bungie.org/ or https://halo.bungie.org/ , two that I frequented a lot back in the day!
HBO was where I cut my teeth learning to write via fan fiction. Such a shame to see it languishing now.
Oh, on the other hand I'm actually totally surprised there was a new post on the homepage as recently as Dec 14th! Huge kudos to everyone still keeping the awesomeness alive.
Re: Video Game Websites in the early 00s
#64Video game sites back then were cool, yes. Now do video game fan sites. These have in so many ways been replaced over the years by generic ad-ridden wikis but back in the day games often had crazy interesting fan sites for specific video games. So many unique designs and layouts were done for those niche communities and so many of those designers and developers went on to do really cool things in the future. What an…
The generic, ad-ridden wikis are everywhere, unfortunately, because the terrible service they provide is free. However, there are also lots of passionate people who pay to host their own MediaWiki servers, and then communities that populate it with accurate information! I think they deserve special applause for providing a really cool service that we mostly take for granted.
Some examples: https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Main_Page (Pokemon) https://minecraft.wiki/ (Minecraft) https://oldschool.runescape.wiki/ (Old School Runescape)
..only after I started putting together the list, did I realize that a lot of them are hosted by the same individual or community (https://meta.runescape.wiki/w/Weird_Gloop). Interesting!
Re: Video Game Websites in the early 00s
#65Video game sites back then were cool, yes. Now do video game fan sites. These have in so many ways been replaced over the years by generic ad-ridden wikis but back in the day games often had crazy interesting fan sites for specific video games. So many unique designs and layouts were done for those niche communities and so many of those designers and developers went on to do really cool things in the future. What an…
The generic, ad-ridden wikis are everywhere, unfortunately, because the terrible service they provide is free. However, there are also lots of passionate people who pay to host their own MediaWiki servers, and then communities that populate it with accurate information! I think they deserve special applause for providing a really cool service that we mostly take for granted. Some examples: https://bulbapedia.bulbagar…
And for the Elder Scrolls games:
Re: Video Game Websites in the early 00s
#66I don’t know if it’s pure nostalgia talking here, but games sites back then were made to look fun like they were part of the game. Verses now when they’re a dull and corporate.
When I first started learning about web design, I came across this popular book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_Make_Me_Think And essentially you are taught to go against a lot of things you see in these examples and design things in the way modern websites are designed e.g. big call to action button, search bar on top and center, little clutter. Modern websites are meant to be more "simple" and "easy" as the…
Dude wasn't lying: he don't want to think.
I bet he's all-in on AI and no-code now. "Don't Make Me Code! 10 tips for building passive income without writing a single line of code"
Re: Video Game Websites in the early 00s
#67It's not quite as stylish as these, but my personal favorite video game site was the Super Smash Bros. Brawl blog site, which had its heyday around 2007 or so. https://web.archive.org/web/20071001132450/http://www.smashb... It was the first time I had ever seen pre-release information about a game, and I checked the site religiously. The game director himself wrote all the posts, and it felt like a revolutionary way…
That blog definitely established character reveal drip feeds as the way to build hype for a fighting game (or similar genres like hero shooters), even today when it involves stupid things like announcing Ronaldo for the new Saudi-funded Fatal Fury.
Re: Video Game Websites in the early 00s
#68Video game sites back then were cool, yes. Now do video game fan sites. These have in so many ways been replaced over the years by generic ad-ridden wikis but back in the day games often had crazy interesting fan sites for specific video games. So many unique designs and layouts were done for those niche communities and so many of those designers and developers went on to do really cool things in the future. What an…
Yep, I remember https://www.esreality.com/ from the Quake 3 era. It's really cool to see it's still up and looks about the same.
Other Quake related sites that I remember:
Still looks how I remember it: https://web.archive.org/web/20010125112300/http://www.quake3...,
Such memories haha: https://web.archive.org/web/20050131033734/http://www.shackn...
The archive page has broken and misplaced images from the site's old design mixed into the new one, the real site looked much better when it existed: https://web.archive.org/web/20030212044233/http://rocketaren...
Re: Video Game Websites in the early 00s
#69I don’t know if it’s pure nostalgia talking here, but games sites back then were made to look fun like they were part of the game. Verses now when they’re a dull and corporate.
When I first started learning about web design, I came across this popular book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_Make_Me_Think And essentially you are taught to go against a lot of things you see in these examples and design things in the way modern websites are designed e.g. big call to action button, search bar on top and center, little clutter. Modern websites are meant to be more "simple" and "easy" as the…
I get why most modern sites are designed the way they are. I wouldn’t want my bank nor government websites to be cartoony.
However game websites are going to be used heavily by people familiar with the game. Also, if the game UI is unfathomable then people aren’t going to like the game anyway. So you would expect any website that borrows from the game UI to also be discoverable.
Personally I think a large part of the change was due to the shift to responsive websites. Back when everyone was using a 5:4 monitor you could get more creative and use things like absolute positioning. These days everything needs to be distilled down to the lowest common denominator because you cannot make any expectations about resolution nor aspect ratios.
Add to that how the mouse cursor have been replaced with fat fingers, and you now require the site to be tolerant with input devices that cannot navigate fiddling controls.
You could see the contrast back when sites first started doing a mobile versions of their site (before Google threatened to give poorer ranking to such sites).
Re: Video Game Websites in the early 00s
#70I remember spending hours and hours on FreeArcade.com, playing a lot of Java Applet games. I seem to remember my favorites being "Wiz3" and "Tailgunner", but there tons on there.
Once I was fourteen or so, I discovered Newgrounds and (along with SomethingAwful) that ended up being where I spent most of my time online. Even though a lot of the games were kind of crap, I still thought it was cool that people made these games. Not big, heartless corporations, but just regular people who thought it would be cool to make a game.
Newgrounds is still around, and there's no reason I couldn't go on there, I guess I've grown old and curmudgeonly enough to not even think about it anymore.
Maybe I should change that.