John Lynch

4/8/19

MCOM 333

Website Audit

Audience

Overall, the target audience for esports is a young male audience. Since Major League

Gaming caters to an esports and competitive gaming crowd, the primary audience for my client’s

website is young men. 71% of the audience is comprised of men as well as 73% of the audience

is between the ages of 16 to 34 (GlobalWebIndex, 2018).

Esports is also a global audience. When measuring males aged 16 to 24, the Philippines

and China came up on top with 40% and 39% respectively, of those who have watched an

esports tournament in the past month. However, my client’s website is only in English, unless

otherwise translated. All of the videos on the website are also in English. This does not appeal to

a worldwide audience. The MLG owned Overwatch League is home to teams from around the

world such as Paris, Seoul and Shanghai but the MLG website is in English. Luckily, MLG owns

other domains such as the Overwatch League website which comes in other languages when

searched in other countries. The Call of Duty World League website is only in English, but the

audience for Call of Duty is primarily an English-speaking audience.

Since all of the MLG owned leagues are shown on the primary website for the company,

the website should come in other languages. Esports is a global audience and it should be catered

to those of that audience.

User Experience

It is really easy to find information on this website. The main page has everything you

would need to see on it. There is a banner on top which has a button for the home page, buttons

for all of the games that MLG is involved in, buttons for a schedule, shows, events, and buttons

for the store as well as a search box. The main page highlights the latest articles or videos posted

on the MLG website for any game or league that they own. The only thing that I struggled to find

was an “About” page to see what my client describes themselves as. There is an about page but I

had to scroll down the page and look hard to find it hidden beneath social media features.

Information is organized logically such as the latest content being chronological on the

main page. Information is also organized by video game. There are tabs on the top of the page in

which the information is organized by game. There is also a schedule which is great for

organization.

The site loads pretty quickly. When I clicked on a tab to sort the content by video game,

the articles and videos that were organized chronologically on the page took a few extra seconds

to load after the rest of the page already loaded.

Design

I believe the aesthetic is appropriate for the intended audience. There are colorful

graphics and vibrate videos that are being displayed on the website. This is appropriate for an

audience who loves video games, entertainment and overall design. However, I do not like the

background color for the website. It is a light gray color, but should have an option for a “dark

mode” such as those utilized by Twitter and other social media applications. The audience of
young males is prone to using screens at night and want to protect their eyes from the bright

background light. A “dark mode” option would keep that audience on the website.

I like the utilization of pictures from games, thumbnails from videos and professional

logos that add color to an otherwise white page with text and a black banner. Since these take up

the white space and use them in an organized way, this website is perfect and describe the brand.

White space can be a little overwhelming on the website, but the advertisements are placed

elegantly.

Integration

Social features are not used effectively on this website. The target audience of my client

use social media proficiently. MLG has the major social media pages on Twitter, Facebook,

Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat; however, they are not utilized effectively on the website.

They are hidden by small logos if you scroll down very far on the main page. I would love to at

least see these logos on top of the page, viewable when first clicked on the page. Another option

would be to put a Twitter preview scroller on the left side of the page with a similar Facebook

one under it. This could show people the type of content they post so that they can decide to

follow them.

Other than this, videos are used very effectively on the site, besides the fact that they

auto-play on full volume, which blasted my ears. Using headsets is something that the gaming

audience participates in frequently and videos on full volume can hurt your ears.

Call to Action

The website is made so that the audience can find updates and trending information in the

MLG realm and can find information easily. Giving people information is what the website is
intended to do. The website accomplishes this service by updating a continuous schedule,

providing videos for updates on the leagues and holding an events page to show dates for events

and where to watch them. This is perfect for this type of website and easy to use for the

audience.

Recommendations

- Provide translated sites for most major languages. Make sure to check for formatting

changes on these sites. Esports is a global audience and should be treated like one.

- Display your “about” page proudly. Some people might not know who you are and

what you stand for. Tell them.

- Include some more written articles and a variety of content. The use of videos is great

but add some variety. Also, turn the auto-play on the video way down.

- Add a “dark mode” option for the nighttime users that many gamers and young males

are.

- Highlight social media more on the website. Social media content and website

content work together very well and could bring more viewers across each.
 Sources Cited

Buckle, C., & Mander, J. (2018). Esports Trends Report 2018, GlobalWebIndex. Retrieved April

8, 2019, from https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/304927/Downloads/Esports-

report.pdf?t=1528372092399