For video game week, I listed some themes suitable for gaming sites and places to find free and cheap games.
If you want to use WordPress to build a videogame site, there are a number of plugins that can assist you. The site can feature demos, screenshots, walkthoughs and hints, reviews and ratings, and a forum to discuss games.
As I work on this article I keep thinking about more things that can be added to make an awesome video game portal in WordPress so I’m sure I’m leaving out something. Please share your ideas in the comments.
- WP Games Embed – This plugin facilitates turning your blog into a games arcade. The plugin provides codes to embed free games offered by a variety of websites using their codes or downloads.
- NextGen Gallery – I mentioned this plugin in my article about plugins for photoblogs. This plugin would make displaying game screenshots in WordPress quite easy.
- Kimli Flash Embed – This plugin assists you in adding flash movies to your WordPress blog.
- Role Manager – The Role Manager plugin allows you to create, delete and rename roles as well as assign capabilities for each role. This could be useful on a gaming site if you want users to be able to submit new game screenshots for a game review but not necessarily have a higher level of access.
- WP Post Ratings – This plugin allows users to rate posts and pages. This could be useful if you want users to contribute ratings of the games listed and being reviewed on the site.
- Tiny Spoiler – Tiny Spoiler is used to show and hide pieces of text. I discussed this plugin in an earlier article and thought it could be used for spoilers when people are stuck in a game.
- SimplePress – What a gaming site be without a forum for people to argue about their favorite games and for assistance when stuck battling a t-rex? SimplePress isn’t the only WordPress forum solution out there but is supposed to be the easiest one to install. I have also used bbPress, but it was not easy to install and it does not have very good documentation.
- WordPress Video Plugin – This plugin allows you to easily embed code from almost every video site out there. The list of supported sites is very comprehensive. I’ve been finding more and more video walkthroughs for tricky parts of games that work a lot better than written ones so embedding game walkthroughs as well as demos could me a really useful feature of a WordPress video game site.
photo credit: BrotherMagento
I’m a sucker for videogame sites and articles. Even if I don’t own the system and can’t play the game(s) I still love to read about them. Hopefully the next cool videogame site can start here and get some awesome advice from you. :-)
Thanks!
Hi Jim – I’ve always wanted to have a videogame site – I even designed and planned one out when I was still using Movable Type. I just don’t know if I have the time to devote to it.
I was always looking for something like NextGen Gallery. Thanks a lot
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NextGen Gallery has been great for me. I don’t use it for a gaming site, but for photos it’s solid and flexible.
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Hi Gennaro and Madhur – I haven’t used NextGen but recently installed it and got it setup for a client and I really liked it. There are just SO many features.
I’ve never thought of having a WordPress oriented video game site, probably because I’ve always had my own games site, BlogSire’s Games Palace, which has over a hundred games. I managed to get just over 70 members but it never really took off. I’ve got some of the old classics too, like Space Invaders, Pacman, and stuff. The beauty about the whole thing was that the games recorded all the high scores for the members. Perhaps I should start promoting it again ;)
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Hi Sire – You might want to – casual games are really popular right now.
Do you know if the games offered record the high scores, as I feel that’s important. You know, if they are popular again, perhaps I should start promoting my games site again.
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I’m not sure – I don’t play those types of games so I’ve never searched for sites like that. Maybe someone else will know.
First ever heard about wordpress also provides plugins to build videogames, most important post for me Stumbled.
Hi – Do you have a site about video games?
Great article you have. I was looking at a site, forum and article that can help me how to install plugins on my wordpress blog. I want to add plugins on my video games site, and I found your article. Excellent article you have. Thank you for sharing this infomation.
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This article is a little old – I’m sure there are others out there by now.
I had no idea about these plugins. I have just focused on seo plugins. THis helps. THanks!
I am trying to create a website where people will be able to upload cheat information by themselves for the new Modern Warfare 3 game, does anyone know how I would be able to whip something up or could someone please lend me a hand?
Is the site going to be built using WordPress?
I am starting a retro gaming website that will have information on retro games consoles and hardware and retro game reviews on it. It’s still in the early stages but check it out and let me know what you think. Also does anyone know of a good review score plugin for WordPress? Thanks.
I haven’t used this but maybe Star Ratings for Reviews would work.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/star-rating-for-reviews/
Thanks for this, very helpful. Have had trouble finding a list of useful plugins for games sites.
I use the tiny spoiler on my site. It rocks. I hate having games spoiled!
I really like some of the WordPress plugins on the list above, like WP Post Ratings, which can be really handy for readers to rate article that they find interesting, and also SimplePress, which is gonna help many blogs to build the forum section of their sites at ease. Thanks Kim for your recommendations.