How a Video Game’s Failure Made Me a Better Web Designer

I’m sure you have heard of the video game Blacksite: Area 51. The game was released in 2007 with much anticipation. Everything a sci-fi, gamer geek would want. Except it left out one huge thing: anything good about it.

The game ended up being an utter failure and I was there to witness it. From the moment it was announced to the moment I put the controller down and threw it, I was there. The game had so many things wrong with it. Everything from terrible game play to terrible story, it was just horrible.

Reflecting back three years later, I figured out how this failure of a video game could connect back to web design. Thus, this article emerges and you are now going to proceed into reading how this god awful game made me a better web designer.

Graphics aren’t everything

Translation: The design of a website is not the most important element.

I have to admit, the only redeeming quality of Blacksite: Area 51 was that it had phenomenal graphics. Everything was crisp clean and in HD. You could see the textures of the cracked road after the space ship destroyed the town and you could see the details of the soldier. However, this didn’t hide the fact that the game sucked.

Essentially, it takes more than a design to be great. You have to consider content, usability, interactivity and so much more. A website can have an amazing design, but unless it has all the other elements that make a website, it will suck just like Blacksite.

The characters lacked life

Translation: A website needs to draw attention and keep it.

Another thing that made Blacksite worse was that the characters had no emotion or life. All the soldiers had the same expression as the game went on. Solemn and apathetic. They, literally, had no emotional looks even when their friends went missing. I mean jeez, they didn’t even have a scared emotion when mutant, mechanic aliens were trying to harvest their organs.

Back to websites — A website needs to draw attention and keep it. The lifeless characters made the game boring and unexciting. The same can go for websites. If a website is not appealing to your users, then they will become bored and shortly exit out.

Multiplayer matters

Translation: A website needs to be friendly to the user and interact with them.

This is what really killed it for me. Before Blacksite, I was a huge fan of Midway’s 2005 game, Area 51. Besides the storyline, I absolutely loved the online multiplayer. It was rare to have a good online game for the PS2, but it was amazing. Blacksite’s online was just flat out terrible. The weapons were hard to use, the control scheme was confusing and the maps kept getting people lost.

For a website to succeed, you need to be able to interact with the user and provide an easy-to-understand user interface. You need to make everything simple for the user so that they don’t get confused, lost or irritated. If you fail to do so, you could see users getting lost and never coming back.

The storyline was boring, very boring

Translation: A website needs to have interesting and appealing content.

The last thing that turned me off from Blacksite was the boring storyline. While everything I saw before the game was released look exciting, the story ended up making me yawn. Even with the great ending, it left me unsatisfied and thinking, “What the hell just happened and why was this game so boring up until now?”

Learn from their mistake and make your website exciting. You can do this with an exciting design, but use this to focus on your content. Create something interesting for your users to read and enjoy. Your content is the most important element of a website and if your content is unappealing, your users will walk away (and sell the game like I did).

What do you think?

In the comment section below, tell us what you think makes a great website. If you played the game, Blacksite: Area 51, tell us what you thought of it and why it was bad or good.