Achievement unlocked: Redesigning sega.com
When a gaming legend reached out with an opportunity to reimagine their website, we said "yes" with Sonic-like speed. Discover how we used our design and customer experience expertise to unify SEGA’s games, movies, TV shows, and e-commerce experiences within a single universe.
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Through the 80s and 90s, SEGA established itself as a major player in the gaming world. To this day, those of a certain age still can’t say or read the company’s name without also hearing that iconic loading screen sound.
But by the 2000s, their website — a calling card for the IP they’d become reliant on — was dated, fragmented, and no longer fit for the company or its place in the market.
To get them back on track, we needed to reimagine the experience so that it met the needs of today’s customers, created clearer space for its franchises, and honored the legacy of a true gaming giant.
More than a game
Our goal was to carefully consolidate franchises within a single destination, while also connecting dots between them and the ever-expanding SEGA entertainment universe to enhance discoverability.
The latter was particularly important, given the company’s increasing presence in movies and TV. Sonic, for example, was no longer just a game, but a box office and small screen smash — and we wanted to make it easier for lovers of one to find and engage with the other.
Through this approach, we believed that we could create a more connective and kinetic experience for all dimensions of the fandom. But to bring that to life, we needed to do some world (and universe) building of our own…
One SEGAverse. Many worlds.
Reestablishing SEGA’s place in the gaming industry rested on our ability to flip the relationship between the company and its franchises. By changing the website’s entry point so that customers start at the SEGA level, we were able to establish a clearer hierarchy and contextualize the franchises within a wider, SEGA-led universe.
Equally important was that each franchise retained a dedicated space within the universe. Designed with discoverability in mind, these ownable gaming worlds unify all facets of a franchise and encourage even more granular exploration — whether your interest lies in games, entertainment, or merchandise.
DLC (Designing for Longevity with Creativity)
Bringing the full scale of the SEGAverse to life required us to address short-term challenges with longer-term solutions.
Our ethos of sustainable design (building flexible components to easily account for future content needs) allowed us to create a scalable visual system that delivered consistency without sacrificing creativity. This extended to the templatization of key layouts, so franchise teams were empowered to quickly and independently create new pages.
Woven throughout was a new articulation of the SEGA brand, with accompanying rules and guidelines governing its use and delineating at which moments in the site it gave way to respective franchise brands.
Level complete
The new sega.com is an experience fit for the entertainment company it is today. And with greater hierarchy, compelling visuals, and a clearer brand presence, customers can now discover, engage with, and purchase from beloved franchises easier than ever before.
