WHERE HAVE ALL THE GOOD NAMES GONE?

by c.J
published by Rinie 14 August 2009


With all due respect to the expecting fathers of the world, but naming your child isn’t that hard, at least as far as life-altering decisions go. You simply have to not think like a Hollywood celebrity and name the baby something he or she will be embarrassed about for the rest of his or her life. I’m lucky to have a decent name, well not the coolest name around but at least I’m okay with people calling me that. No, the worst that can happen is a bit of resentment from your offspring, whereas the marketing team of a major video game company risks millions of dollars, their financial future.



Naming a game is tough work. Especially if the new game is not part of an established franchise (which probably became an established franchise in the first place from having a catchy name). While the people who power-read previews and reviews on websites like this one will feel confused as to why I’m investing so much text and effort into a rant on game names… I’m not one of those people who power-reads preview and reviews. This is startling when you consider I’ve written more reviews than I’ve written high school homework. Imagine the average male walking into their local game shop and skimming through the wave of text and Photoshopped flashy titles that is the display of PC new releases. Ozymandias would have a hard time distinguishing one dystopian shooter from another, before going up to the sales clerk and claiming that he had already chosen to buy the new Call of Duty game 35 minutes ago.

So allow me to undergo a list of naming conventions that will immediately shut my brain down and have me spending money on protein shakes and an extended gym membership instead of another dangled video game.

wHERE have ALL the Good naMES g0ne?

Capitalization where there should not Capitalization: I don’t have a particularly tight relationship with the Shift key, so I hate having to type out the name of a game that toys with capitalization. Part of me feels as if the game developers were being arrogant, claiming that their product is above the laws of punctuation. I also feel as if a defiantly capitalized name is meant to be enunciated differently. Take “Infamous.” A bare, non-descript name on its own, which may explain why the actual title of the game is “inFamous.” One assumes that the game is meant to be pronounced as “in_Famous” in the same way someone says “In Living Color.”


Strange Punctuation: There is no game on the Wii titled “Punch-out.” There is, however, a game on the Wii titled “Punch-out!!!” You see, you have to yell out the game’s title with three times the intended exclamation as you would a sentence ending with one exclamation mark. You’d have to go up to the sales clerk and say “Kind sir, I’d like to buy PUNCH-OUT!!! for the Wii please.” If someone did, I would be thrilled being that the local games is next to a hair salon and the resulting mistakes next door would humor me. The upcoming ‘Splosion Man gets a free pass because “Explosion Man” is a bit too top-heavy for a game title, and because “Explosion Man” sounds more apropos for a Mega Man boss or two or ten.

Numbers instead of letters: It took me about six months before someone successfully convinced me to buy Left 4 Dead, and even then it was because she was hot. Blame it on a pet peeve developed from talking to a generation of kids who learned grammar skills by phone texting (and don’t you just freaking HATE that?), but I hate seeing “4” in place of “for,” “H8” instead of “hate” and any other instance of seeing a numerical value in place of a number. Oh, and remember Driv3r? I don’t.

Good names/Naughty names and some such

A good video game name is one that ends in you buying the game off the shelves. That is the real fact. We’re not talking about album covers where the artist can slap on whatever random artwork and inexplicable title that he or she best conveys whatever message or because they believe in at that very moment. Only a select few game developers could selfservingly release a “self-titled” game the way musicians release albums named after themselves. Which is a crying shame because I’d be all over a video game simply titled “Naughty Dog.”

But alas, the name of a game has to somehow be eye-catching enough to compel one’s left hand to reach over towards the shelf and grab the box of the game in question. Then the title must interest the consumer enough to incur the burning of the two calories necessary to turn the box over with their hand and read the more detailed taglines on the back. At the least, the title of the game needs to be distinctive enough that your average web surfer will scroll through the pages of his or her favourite web site preferably spotgamers =) and feel the urge to click the associated link. Easier said than done when you consider the average attention span of today’s digital child is about one second. That you’ve read this far into this article means that you’ve defied all expectations, congrats.


Sonic Trigger Dragon: Bloodrayne Aero Ratchet Spyro

So what do I like to see in my game names? Well, here are some title concepts that will keep me from dismissing a potential game like it was a sequel.

Games with someone’s name in them: I don’t know when naming your lead character became out of style. Maybe it was something that died off with the mascot platformer. Sonic the Hedgehog, Spyro the Dragon, Aero the Acrobat, Crash Bandicoot, Bugsy the Enlarged Dust Mite. Sometimes all it takes to pique one’s interest is to present a charismatic lead character with his or her name printed on the front in an exuberantly excessive font. Besides showing me that you’re not ashamed of your characterizing skills, you’ve created an entity, one that I’d possibly like to know. Granted, you can’t quite do that if your character is designed to have an ordinary name but gaming’s already gotten too many everyman protagonists anyways.

Games with somebody’s name in them, even if they’re not important:Who said you had to name your hero? I have no clue who “Drake” is, but looking at the box of the popular PS3 game, I can see that he has a fortune, one that is presently not charted on any map. I’d like to buy the game and find out more (if only the price of the damn game would drop!!!) What has Princess Zelda done to warrant anything named after her, let alone the most critically acclaimed franchise in all of gaming? Get kidnapped a lot? That’s not a Legend, that’s a footnote on a CNN headline.




Games with wacky names:I don’t know what in the world is a Calamity Trigger is, but it sure as shit sounds like it has the potential for a wild time. So I bought the game (the limited edition too!) and after spending many hours playing it, studying it and writing the three page review for it, I’m still not sure what the hell a Calamity Trigger is. Or a Blaz Blue for that matter. And based on their work on the game’s Limited Edition Bonus Disc, IGN doesn’t seem to know either. This doesn’t have to be a Japanese-exclusive technique; the rest of the world can aim to weird people out too.

Finally, I don’t think we have enough games named after the antagonist lying around. It’s such a seemingly effective marketing concept; present the player with a despicable jerk or someone in high authority, like say, a god of war, and place their soul in a carrot to dangle above the player’s head. “If you buy this game, you can kill him.” Simple, yet effective, caters to the murderer in all of us.