The outstanding Wing Commander CIC [https://www.wcnews.com] was the first one I discovered. Guess it gets more updates than Star Citizen, lol.
Video Game Websites in the early 00s
71–80 of 95 posts
Re: Video Game Websites in the early 00s
#72I really thought this was going to those sites that's had a collection of mini games, like shockwave.com used to be.... Man I played so much donut boy
Re: Video Game Websites in the early 00s
#73A lot of this work was done by Walter |2| Costinak. He was an absolute legend and he's still doing a bit of design work today. I know because he did the branding for my last company and product. I worked with him a lot at Gathering of Developers back in the day. Together we rebuilt the website for Take 2 Games and they used our work for well over decade before doing a redesign. If you like this style, I recommend you reach out to him. Here's his website:
Re: Video Game Websites in the early 00s
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here's one from my old AOL days. We originally just used email, AOL message boards, and a scheduled weekly chatroom, but once the Web took over it merged into Starmen.net [2] Since we're on a "reminsence about legacy Internet" trend right now, here's the opening to [1]: "What most people forget to remember is that it’s not just about the game. It’s about the people, it’s about the newsletters, it’s about the discussi…
The problem is "fandoms" as a whole have now become such toxic hellscapes I'd rather just enjoy the game/movie/TV series myself and completely ignore what anyone else's opinion of it is. I don't need things that bring me joy to be ruined by the most obsessive weirdos in the world.
Honestly that's just another thing that's down to algorithmic social media. Echo chambers + rewarding ragebait is an explosive combination.
Re: Video Game Websites in the early 00s
#75I know it's mostly nostalgia, but this was the best time online for me. I was just a teen exploring GeoCities, tripod, and dot.tk directories. I found a lot of good friends in that time.
I miss the Glitch/GameShark crews that were around. =Bi0= was one of the best ones around.
Re: Video Game Websites in the early 00s
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here's one from my old AOL days. We originally just used email, AOL message boards, and a scheduled weekly chatroom, but once the Web took over it merged into Starmen.net [2] Since we're on a "reminsence about legacy Internet" trend right now, here's the opening to [1]: "What most people forget to remember is that it’s not just about the game. It’s about the people, it’s about the newsletters, it’s about the discussi…
The problem is "fandoms" as a whole have now become such toxic hellscapes I'd rather just enjoy the game/movie/TV series myself and completely ignore what anyone else's opinion of it is. I don't need things that bring me joy to be ruined by the most obsessive weirdos in the world.
That's easily solved by turning off comments or forcing every comment to be approved by an admin before it was displayed; much easier back then as there simply weren't that many people online. The "Web 2.0 read/write web" of XBL lobbies, Battle.net and Discord perverted gaming culture to a point of no return.
Re: Video Game Websites in the early 00s
#77Utopia [1] [2] by (back then) Mehul Patel's Swirve. Apparently it is still going on. Same with NationStates! [3] [4] Max Barry's book Jennifer Government is also decent.
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20000816192919/http://games.swir...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia_(1998_video_game)
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NationStates
[4] https://web.archive.org/web/20021208105428if_/http://www.nat...
Re: Video Game Websites in the early 00s
#78Looking at many of these now they definitely appear dated. At the time, of course, these would have been “cutting edge” I think one clear thing we can see is a trend toward more homogenized UI on web in the last 20years. I worked as a web dev in ad agencies in the early 2000s and built a lot of Flash sites, banners ads, and games that - like a lot of the sites showcased here - were quite unique in their design and ae…
I think at least we have gradients and less muted colors coming back.
We also have way better typography than 20 years ago, and I think that's what truly makes older designs "look old". They were restricted to web-safe fonts and had to put stylized text and wordmarks into low resolution images. We have better browser support for SVGs too.
Re: Video Game Websites in the early 00s
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem is "fandoms" as a whole have now become such toxic hellscapes I'd rather just enjoy the game/movie/TV series myself and completely ignore what anyone else's opinion of it is. I don't need things that bring me joy to be ruined by the most obsessive weirdos in the world.
That's easily solved by turning off comments or forcing every comment to be approved by an admin before it was displayed; much easier back then as there simply weren't that many people online. The "Web 2.0 read/write web" of XBL lobbies, Battle.net and Discord perverted gaming culture to a point of no return.
Admins are likely to also be the "obsessive weirdos".
Re: Video Game Websites in the early 00s
#80No GameStorm?
(http://gamestorm.net)
I know EA shut it down in 2001 but c’mon!