Gaming is an industry that grows fast, with new exciting games, more advanced graphics, and richer storylines produced every day. And as games improve, so does gaming website design. The internet is full of stunning game website examples and countless gaming website ideas that are worth exploring.
A gaming website is a great medium to promote a video game, create an online space that unites gamers, or share industry news. Gaming website UI design is one of the key factors determining the user’s experience. And the latter should be nothing but fantastic if you want to have a successful site.
So to help you create a top-notch gaming website, we’ve gathered the best gaming design ideas and tips, as well as game website examples in this article. If you’re ready to explore, let’s jump right in!
What Can You Do With a Gaming Website?
Regardless of the industry, a website is among the best promotional techniques to advertise a business or product. In this case, the product will most probably be your video game. Developing a high-quality video game is no easy feat, nor is it cheap. So to make sure your game gets the recognition and love it deserves, you need to present it right.
A gaming website is by far the most effective way to present your game to your target audience. You might be able to reach more people by blasting social media ads. But once your audience shows interest in your game, they’ll want to learn more about it through your website. This is where your gaming website UI design steps in to present your game in the best possible light.
Now, what if you don’t have a video game you want to promote? Gaming websites can do a lot more than just promotion. They are an excellent portal for connecting to other players and building an active community around your favorite game.
Here are some gaming website ideas you can turn into a side hustle or simply a hobby:
- Stand-alone website to promote a game;
- Fan website of a popular game to connect to players;
- Gaming forum to discuss all things game-related;
- Ecommerce website to sell gaming gadgets, merch, or art;
- News website to share upcoming games, events, and updates.
There are many other examples of how you can use a game website. Not to mention, you might come up with a completely original idea! So the sky is the limit for gaming website ideas. However, things are a bit less flexible when it comes to gaming website design best practices — taking us to our next point.
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Best Gaming Website Design Tips
Gaming is a unique industry governed by its own set of rules and guidelines. Thus, game website design also has specific best practices that might not apply to other fields. Let’s see what they are below.
1. Make It Attractive
Nowadays, video games are visually rich, engaging, and attractive to immerse the player entirely in the gaming experience. Therefore, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that users will expect the same from a gaming website. While your website doesn’t need to be nearly as detailed and complex as the game itself, you should still make your site visually engaging.
One way to amp up your website design is to include certain elements, characters, illustrations, and fonts from the original game. This is a foolproof technique for websites dedicated to a specific game. However, sites focused on text — such as game forums, review sites, and the like — will require less emphasis on the visuals and more emphasis on the text.
2. Add Multimedia
Multimedia will visually enhance your website’s design while also giving the visitor more info about the game. Actual screenshots from games, video playthroughs, short teasers, and such will give the viewer a sneak peek into the new world. This will make your website content more engaging and will generate much more excitement around the game.
The downside, however, is that heavy multimedia will slow down your site’s load speed. While a video or two and a few images won’t do much damage, you should be careful not to overdo it. Slow load time is annoying, and web visitors are not always patient. Make sure to optimize your site’s multimedia before publishing to achieve a faster load speed.
3. Focus on Positive User Experience
Once the attractive visuals have caught the visitor’s attention, the user interface is what’s going to keep them scrolling. Regardless of the amount of bold, bright visuals you might choose to have, your site still needs a user-friendly interface.
No one likes untangling their way through a poorly structured website. So to give your visitors a positive user experience, you need to make your site’s navigation as simple and intuitive as possible.
Ultimately, your website is there to serve a purpose. A good user interface ensures that nothing gets in the way of your website fulfilling its mission. The mission can be getting more downloads for your game, increasing website traffic, boosting engagement, spreading awareness, and so on.
4. Make Your Web Design Responsive
Let’s be honest: You never truly know which device your web visits will come from. You might assume gamers will be more likely to visit your site on their computers, as that’s the device they use for gaming. But keep in mind that searches on mobile are now more frequent than desktop searches. Not to mention, some visitors will be using tablets.
So what screen should you design for? The answer is, all of them! Your gaming website design must be as neat and comfortable on a mobile screen as on a large desktop monitor. Achieving this is not as complicated as it sounds, though. All you need is responsive web design.
A responsive website design automatically adapts to any device screen it appears on. Through using fluid grids, flexible images, and other adaptive components, your design stays responsive and smartly rearranges elements to fit varying screen sizes and resolutions.
5. Include Special Effects
You might have noticed that websites get more and more dynamic as time passes. People love entertainment — especially gamers — and will spend more time on a site with interactive elements.
Websites with virtual and augmented reality effects have picked up quite a lot of popularity in recent years. VR and AR websites create a unique atmosphere where guests feel like they’re on an exciting journey. This tends to work perfectly for game websites and the type of audience they aim to attract.
If you don’t want to go that far, you can instead have parallax scrolling effects on your site. Parallax scrolling will create a sense of depth on a 2D screen, thus making your website much more appealing and captivating.
10 Epic Gaming Website Design Examples
The piercing neon colors, coupled with the space-themed visuals, make up the cosmic atmosphere of the Rocket League website. Rocket League chose to make visuals the main focus of its website, limiting the amount of text to a minimum. Note how the website implements parallax effects to separate the text blocks from the background images.
The Legend of Zelda website stands out with its classy design featuring fonts, colors, and ornaments that give it a historical feel. The design elements nicely merge with clips and images from the game, creating a website that matches the story’s theme.
This gaming website is quite extensive, including information about the game’s backstory, features, news, and media. You’ll notice that the site is full of video clips from the game, showing trailers, highlights, and game playthroughs.
Modern, dynamic, and engaging, Apex Legends is one of the best game website examples. It perfectly balances text and visuals, not boring the visitor with either. The website contains anything one might want to learn about the game, from character info to FAQ and PC requirements.
You’ll also find separate pages for game updates, the latest news, and multimedia. The website has several forums covering a variety of game-related topics. It’s a great way to engage the community in active discussions and learn their feedback.
A news website well-known among gamers, GamesRadar+ is the go-to place for gaming news, previews, and reviews. This web design is significantly different from the previous examples on our list due to the site’s nature. GamesRadar+ has a much calmer web design with few visuals and colors as a website mainly focused on news articles.
This is an excellent example of a gaming website that doesn’t promote a specific video game but covers a wide range of industry topics.
GameSpot is another website loved by players that provides news, reviews, deals, forums, and more. Similar to the previous example, this web design centers around written content. As a result, it has fewer images, less color, and more white space. This design works pretty well for an audience that comes to the site to read about their favorite gaming topics.
As an example of a more straightforward website that still manages to captivate visitors, Firewatch is another stunning game site. The seemingly simple, text-free header comes alive with the first scroll, thanks to parallax effects.
As you move further down, the website offers more information about the game, as well as screenshots and trailers. This setup can work well if you wish to create an online space for your game without making it too elaborate or heavy.
Uniting Nintendo lovers from all over the world, Nintendo Life sheds light on Nintendo-related topics and gaming in general. The website offers a massive library with game news, guides, reviews, features, and much more. Users can also find forums on a variety of topics and select ones to follow.
As you can see, the Nintendo Life website is quite extensive and detailed. Although it features a lot of text, the web design still feels rather lively. And that’s due to the ample use of bold colors and eye-catching images throughout the pages.
Part of the PlayStation family, the God of War website lets players learn about the game and interact with community members. From background images to colors and fonts, all design components are consistent with the game. This gives the website a distinct personality, making it instantly known which game it is based on.
The website’s Community page is one that stands out. Not only does it offer an official fan kit with HD wallpapers, social profile pictures, and logos, but it also shares outstanding pieces of fan art. This is a prime example of how video games can use their online presence to create a solid sense of community with their audience.
The StarCraft II official game site immediately catches the eye with its powerful, dynamic header. The alternating short clips give a quick introduction to the game without revealing too much.
The website stands out with its stunning graphics that teleport visitors to the game world and explain its rules through videos, guides, and other resources. The website also contains external links to forums, Reddit, and news pages to keep learning about the game.
Planet Alpha doesn’t go as far into detail with its website as the previous examples on our list. However, it provides users with a compact, functional website that contains all the must-haves of gaming sites.
The website makes room for clips and images from the game, trailers, reviews from gaming platforms, and achievements. You’ll also see a small panel showing recent tweets that mention Planet Alpha. This game website example proves that you don’t need a lot of space if you use it wisely.
Summing Up
A game website has endless potential to create excitement around a game, promote it to the right audience, and create a loyal community of gaming enthusiasts. There are countless gaming website ideas that can become a huge success with the right gaming website design.
Whether you choose to build your site with a web design agency or a gaming website builder, keep the tips mentioned in this article in mind. Follow best practices and keep getting inspired by top game website examples.
General FAQ
How do you create a gaming website?
If you want to know how to start a gaming website:
- Begin by deciding what kind of site you want to have.
- Set well-defined goals and a strategy to achieve those with your gaming website.
- Choose how you want to build your site. You can partner with a professional design agency, hire a freelancer, or make the site yourself.
What is the most popular gaming website?
The top 3 gaming websites with the most traffic are Twitch, Roblox, and Steam. You can find the complete list here.
How do game websites make money?
The most common way for game websites to earn money is through online ads. Not all gaming sites display ads, though. Ad-free websites can make income from affiliate marketing, on-site or off-site sales, and so on.
