Website Analysis Essay -- Computers Internet Essays

Website Analysis Sometimes it seems like the computer game industry is dying, crushed to death by its own bulk. Every year more and more gaming companies get gobbled up into huge conglomerates like Electronic Arts, companies that mostly put out trash that is technically and visually impressive, but devoid of concept and content. However, there are some small gaming companies that buck the trend. While mostly just small groups of programmers and artists, some are huge unions of fans who, irritated with the dropping quality of computer games, have decided to use the power of the internet to get together and to produce games tailor-made to their personal preferences. For the sake of comparison, Electronic Arts' website (http://www.eagames.com/) was examined. Like many company websites, it is very pretty, with pictures of the games everywhere. The dark backgrounds and light text are easy on the eyes, and the site is well organized. Tabs on the left let the viewer select the desired gaming platform; pull-down menus and a search bar on the top allow for easy access to the game titles. Each gaming title has a sub-webpage which provides a vignette of the game: a short synopsis, pictures of game play, system requirements, a link to the official webpage of the game (which usually has a separate layout and more diverse information, along with reviews, etc), and of course a â€Å"Buy Now† link. The EA Games website does a very good job of providing information about its products to someone who knows nothing of its games, giving enough of a description to pique the viewer's interests; it is primarily in place for advertisement, and would not make a good nexus for a fan community of its games-- it provides no forums, lists of clan matches ... ...his broadband connection to play multiplayer games over the internet (and therefore has the bandwidth to spare to load a site with many large, connection-clogging features), the games produced by Moonpod and Hero6 are older in style, and therefore appeal more to gamers who prefer traditional, offline games, games best enjoyed in single-player mode. Traditional gamers don’t need a fast connection for the sort of games they play, and may be more likely to use the cheaper 56K dialup. They can't be bothered to go to a website that would take the better part of an hour to load, so Moonpod and Hero6 program their pages accordingly. Depending on what one was looking for, I could confidently recommend any one of these sites, or all of them. All are well done, and I know that I for one am the target audience of all three, as I play games displayed on each of the websites.