HOW MUCH CAN DOES A NAME AFFECT A GAME?

Oh yeah, coming up with titles is one of those talents that some people have, and some people (named Sooz) do not.

ETA: Like I can see what are good and bad titles IMO, but I'll be hanged if I can come up with anything actually good half the time.

In terms of title, it doesn't matter what the reason is; an uninteresting title is an uninteresting title, and your potential audience is not likely to stop and check every title to see whether it has a good reason behind it.

The title is your first impression for your audience, so it needs to work with no other context.

Well, "needs." In the grand scheme, it isn't hugely important.

I feel like if you wanted to, you could probably come up with a line from 1984 that wasn't already the name of a best-selling strategy game series. Black & White was widely considered the best game of the year in 2001 and won dozens of awards; it's not an obscure title. That's like naming your game "Madden NFL: Renegade" but then saying the title is a reference to how maddening the main character Nancy Florina Leshad's personality is, and that the game is an RPG that has nothing to do with football.

Well that's a decent list for RPGs at least. If you're making a first person shooter then the list is completely different.

One thing I'll say for an extremely done-to-death name like Anime Sword Quest or Dragon Fate or Pixel Fantasy VII is that at least I can instantly tell what type of game it is. Those types of names don't even turn me off really. I downloaded and played an indie platformer called Treasure Adventure Game. One of my favorite PC games is called Dragon Age. Both games I initially checked out because I heard other people talking about them and saying good things, but the names helped - they gave me immediate context about what they were saying about the games without me having to ask for more details (which is something I might not have done, because laziness). But, obviously, those names do turn off some people.

I feel like now that lists are more focused on "relevance," price, and other things, that's less of a thing. At least online.

Black/White : Renegade is pretty bad to be honest.

Even "Renegade" alone is better even if you have competition. add a "z" to that and maybe you have something

author=InfectionFiles
Even "Renegade" alone is better even if you have competition. add a "z" to that and maybe you have something

I'd totally take a second look at something called Zenegade. I'd expect it to be about rebelling against a culture of ambition and individuality.

I've seen Zenegade used in sentences before as a mix of Renegade and Zen. So I guess being rebellious and totally chill about it. Passively rebellious, like most people I know:)

The biggest travesty a person can do with their game (or any creative work) is to name it something that can't easily be searched, either because it's too short/vague or there's a bazillion other things already called that.

For me, the banner, character art or sample screenshot sells me on a game a lot more than a name does. A name has to be pretty terrible to turn me off to the game, especially when the banner looks ok. Though a lot of the games I play originate in Japan so cultural differences need to be considered. You mentioning the Touhou series is a great example. My first one was the demo for Imperishable Night. In those cases, though, while they seem like clusters of jumbled words to us the Japanese titles are basically short poetry, complex weavings of multiple meanings to catch the eye of people in the target market.

I wouldn't even look at a game called The Bamford Tenement unless it had a really good banner. It sounds like those artsy "you make the story yourself because the dev can't be assed to" walking simulators. Or a Splinter Cell game. But anything could be a Splinter Cell game. Splinter Cell: Pizza on Jericho.

I likely wouldn't play Black/White: Renegade even if it had a good banner just because "I didn't play the original Black/White". Yeah, you see the problem there. Similarly, I almost passed on Goatchild: Nightmare for the same reason (but was pulled in by some awesome text). I also have a general aversion to titles that are "<Vague Thing>: <Single Dramatic Word>" which needs to hook me with something really major to get me to give it more than a passing glance. For example, Spec Ops: The Line. I passed on it until a very trusted friend with similar tastes liked it so much he offered to pay half of the price for me.

Thanks for this topic. It did get me to look over my own project name (and past/cancelled/shelved projects) in a new light.

Resolem
Flying Doom Fortress
Child Dreamer
Cosmocorsair
Cry Alone
Forget Me Not
The World After
The Mirror is Reflecting Somebody Else
My Heart, The Stars, and a Million Memories of You

I looked at my own Subscriptions and I can confirm that none of them sold me or turned me away based on the name alone.

author=RyaReisender
So making the title more unique can help, because you totally won't find a game called "Love".

At one point, if you included the remake, I had 6 games called Downfall on my drive. So 5 unique games, all with the same name.