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What's in a name? Can we discuss game names and how they affect our purchases? If at all?

Video game names...

  • I don't care about them...

    Votes: 85 54.8%

  • Touch DIC is a real name?

    Votes: 35 22.6%

  • I happen to like touch dic

    Votes: 31 20.0%

  • Apex legends really is a generic name.

    Votes: 48 31.0%

  • Vex.

    Votes: 15 9.7%
  • Total voters
    155
Vex

Vex

Member
Oct 25, 2017
22,213
Trepang2
Yoku's Island Express
Xbox Series X
My friend Pedro
Apex legends
Demon's Souls
Brothers in arms: furious 4
Shadow realms
Legend of ancient sword online
War of rage online
Raid: shadow legends
Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together
TOUCH DIC
Ehrgeiz: God Bless The Ring
...And tons of Chinese mmo names like [blank] of [blank] online....

All of those names? Stupid af. Lame. And it makes me not even want to try them because they are so generic or uninspired name wise. If they didn't put any effort into the name of the game/hardware, then what does that speak to the quality of the product? I would have never tried demon's souls if I didn't happen to read up on it by mistake. No one knew it would be a fucking legend. I just found out about trepang2 because of another thread. But you know, and I know, that name is dumb af.

Devil may cry is a stupid af name too. It doesn't even make any sense.

An example of a really cool name is Metroid. Goddamn what a name. It just rolls off the tongue so easy and sounds badass alien. Or starfox. Or even killzone sounds cool. Need for Speed sounds tight af. How about The Last of Us?? That shit sounds deep af and you know it. Check this: Metal Gear Solid. Sick af.

Tldr; I lost my train of thought but if we didn't have reviews and online impressions for games, would you have bought some of your all time favorites. Did this happen to you recently? Did you overlook some games because the name sounded stupid? Is Vex shallow?
 
sredgrin

sredgrin

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
12,276
Outside of a game being called like "Loli molester simulator" I can't say I'd be bothered.

Tactics Ogre is a great title, also. I'd bet non nerds think things like Metal Gear Solid sound just as stupid as half your list.

And Killzone? Bruh. You got a clear case of nostalgia boner going on.
 
TheMoon

TheMoon

|OT|
Member
Oct 25, 2017
18,778
Video Games
Vex said:
Trepang2
Yoku's Island Express
Xbox Series X
My friend Pedro
Apex legends
Demon's Souls
Brothers in arms: furious 4
Shadow realms
Legend of ancient sword online
War of rage online
Raid: shadow legends
Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together
TOUCH DIC
Ehrgeiz: God Bless The Ring
...And tons of Chinese mmo names like [blank] of [blank] online....

All of those names? Stupid af. Lame. And it makes me not even want to try them because they are so generic or uninspired name wise. If they didn't put any effort into the name of the game/hardware, then what does that speak to the quality of the product? I would have never tried demon's souls if I didn't happen to read up on it by mistake. No one knew it would be a fucking legend. I just found out about trepang2 because of another thread. But you know, and I know, that name is dumb af.

Devil may cry is a stupid af name too. It doesn't even make any sense.

An example of a really cool name is Metroid. Goddamn what a name. It just rolls off the tongue so easy and sounds badass alien. Or starfox. Or even killzone sounds cool. Need for Speed sounds tight af. How about The Last of Us?? That shit sounds deep af and you know it. Check this: Metal Gear Solid. Sick af.

Tldr; I lost my train of thought but if we didn't have reviews and online impressions for games, would you have bought some of your all time favorites. Did this happen to you recently? Did you overlook some games because the name sounded stupid? Is Vex shallow?
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yo don't talk shit about my friend pedro

(also, Ehrgeiz is just German for ambition, the subtitle is the bad part)

sredgrin said:
Outside of a game being called like "Loli molester simulator" I can't say I'd be bothered.

Tactics Ogre is a great title, also. I'd bet non nerds think things like Metal Gear Solid sound just as stupid as half your list.
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Metal Gear Solid is a stupid af name and I would count myself among the nerds.

Also, have y'all heard about Donkey Kong. Or its spin-off, Super Mario Bros.

video games are stupid
video game titles are even more stupid
 
BozPaggs

BozPaggs

One Winged Slayer
Member
Jan 11, 2019
7,720
London, United Kingdom
This just tells you how petty I am but I didn't buy RDR2 for a long time because I was annoyed that Rockstar didn't name it "Red Dead (insert other word beginning with R)". I was also a little annoyed that they called the prequel "2" but the same thing didn't bother me with MGS3 or DMC3
 
Papercuts

Papercuts

Prophet of Truth
Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,034
I usually don't care

but I never played Full Metal Furies partly because I can't read that without seeing furries.
 
Windu

Windu

Member
Oct 25, 2017
13,630
Well, we have gameplay videos for a reason. If all I knew was a name, then sure I might care. Even back before the internet you could still look at the back of the box. Not to mention magazines and other ways to get info.
 

Deleted member 426

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
7,273
Yep game names bother me. One of my pet peeves is when a game's title talks about it like it's a product, rather than a piece of art or story. So if a game in my library has Game of the Year Edition plastered all over it, it bugs me. It'd be fine if it was just on PSN or the eShop, but when it's downloaded I just want to see the name of the game.
 
TigerBrownie

TigerBrownie

One Winged Slayer
Member
May 9, 2018
485
I've never heard of Touch Dic before, but I happen to find it hilarious.

images
 
OP
OP
Vex

Vex

Member
Oct 25, 2017
22,213
sredgrin said:
And Killzone? Bruh. You got a clear case of nostalgia boner going on.
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I was ready to agree with you as I was starting to think you were right but... Well I like the name Hotline miami. Cool af.

jacktuar said:
Yep game names bother me. One of my pet peeves is when a game's title talks about it like it's a product, rather than a piece of art or story.
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Yea this is how I feel too. It's like, can you put some thought into it???
 
Glio

Glio

Member
Oct 27, 2017
24,528
Spain
Most of the cases are from Japanese games and it is normal that for what they are cool people with native English sound lick.

Personally, things like Bravely Default sound like Call of Duty for me. I don't care, it's not my language.
 

Deleted member 679

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
14,741
A bad name can bother me, but a great game can turn a bad name into an inconic one.

Demon's Souls, by a company named From Software. Ridiculous, but legendary.

A software from From Software.
 
Jane

Jane

Member
Oct 17, 2018
1,263
I think the point of "Devil May Cry" is that Dante is so cool and powerful that even demons are afraid of him, which conveys the tone of the game pretty well. And it sounds cool. I don't see the issue honestly.
 
Dreamboum

Dreamboum

Member
Oct 28, 2017
22,865
Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together is not only a beautiful name, it speaks about the game to have a story about war, genocide and betrayal and the title still being about being together to face adversity.

tl;dr: you're wilding out
 
Rendering...

Rendering...

Member
Oct 30, 2017
19,089
Imagine being shallow enough to care enough about names enough that they actually influences your purchases. Does a name have any effect at all on functionality or content? Uh, that's a no.

Also, Devil May Cry sounds cool as fuck, and fits the themes of the games. The OP is ridiculous.
 
XR.

XR.

Member
Nov 22, 2018
6,584
At the end of the day it seems impossible to not have a silly game title. I try to just see past it.

But there are some really egregious examples out there, too many to list.
 
Stefarno

Stefarno

I ... survived Sedona
Member
Oct 27, 2017
893
I always thought that Syphon Filter was an awful name for a game. It sounds like a plumbing part - "Yeah, the leak was caused by your Syphon Filter getting clogged".
 
OP
OP
Vex

Vex

Member
Oct 25, 2017
22,213
Snormy said:
Do you dislike the "Tactics Ogre" part or the part where they name the subtitles after Queen songs?
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It's both. It is the combination of both. It reads like a weird Japanese title like those games that have "Re: XXXX" in them.

Like "Re: Zero" wtf is that?
 
Grunty

Grunty

Member
Oct 28, 2017
7,362
Gruntilda’s Lair
I actually just had a recent experience where the very name of the game caught my attention and drove me to a purchase. I was browsing the Xbox section in GameStop and saw a game called 'Remothered'. Because of its name, I curiously picked it up, read the back, and my curiosity was peaked as I learned it was a Survival-Horror game that looked interesting from its screenshots and description.

When I got home, I checked out the launch trailer on YouTube and was instantly sold. Bought it immediately after on Amazon. Haven't played it as I need to finish Tales of Vesperia first, but very excited about playing it next.
 
Rotobit

Rotobit

Editor at Nintendo Wire
Verified
Oct 27, 2017
10,196
Dragon Quest Heroes: The World Tree's Woe and the Blight Below is a really silly title and I love it. In general I love how Dragon Quest's subtitling really leans hard into the fairytale aspect.

One of the few games I bought almost entirely on the name alone is Root Letter...

maxresdefault.jpg



Because I like my anime visual novels that use random punctuation/symbols

Sadly it didn't turn out that great. Come to think of it, a lot of the games pQube publishes tend to do this to me when I see them on store shelves in their fancier big boxes. Dusk Diver, World End Syndrome, Raging Loop, Aggelos... All fun names that stand out, IMO, even if the games themselves vary in quality.
 
Snormy

Snormy

I'll think about it
Moderator
Oct 25, 2017
5,124
Morizora's Forest
Vex said:
It's both. It is the combination of both. It reads like a weird Japanese title like those games that have "Re: XXXX" in them.

Like "Re: Zero" wtf is that?
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That seems a little odd to pick out and maybe more of a personal preference. I don't really know what you mean by your example. Do you just not like titles with subtitles? How do you feel about WarCraft 3: Reigns of Chaos, Halo: Combat Evolved, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim or Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas? What do you expect in game titles?

Generally if I dislike a name I can pin it to a reason such as difficulty in pronunciation, overly long and complicated, seemingly random and having no connection to the game that I can perceive even at the end of the game.

With stuff like Legend of Ancient Sword from China, it is pretty much going to be a wuxia/wushu theme. Those immediately tell me about some of the inspirations for the game which isn't bad.
 
Hong

Hong

Member
Oct 30, 2017
775
I can't deny that I sometimes dismiss a game with an ugly name out of spite. Tactics Ogre is super ugly to me. Also: Kingdom Hearts XD 420.69 or whatever, I hate it.

Of course that doesn't mean I haven't played games with ugly titles. I guess games with bad names will have to try extra hard to win me over.
 
Firmament1

Firmament1

Member
Aug 15, 2019
1,288
Vex said:
Devil may cry is a stupid af name too. It doesn't even make any sense.
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Uh, dude, the whole point of it is that since Dante is part Human/Demon, he has the humanity and heart that a demon doesn't. So in that regard, he, a devil, can cry, and have emotion.

Like, that's the overarching theme of the stories (However bad most of them are) of the whole series. Even the reboot.
 
napk1ns

napk1ns

Member
Nov 29, 2017
1,239
Firmament1 said:
Uh, dude, the whole point of it is that since Dante is part Human/Demon, he has the humanity and heart that a demon doesn't. So in that regard, he, a devil, can cry, and have emotion.

Like, that's the overarching theme of the stories (However bad most of them are) of the whole series. Even the reboot.
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That is... probably not it. The above explanation is more likely. Pun of cliche saying.
 

Deleted member 4552

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
2,570
Firmament1 said:
Uh, dude, the whole point of it is that since Dante is part Human/Demon, he has the humanity and heart that a demon doesn't. So in that regard, he, a devil, can cry, and have emotion.

Like, that's the overarching theme of the stories (However bad most of them are) of the whole series. Even the reboot.
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Every game has someone going on about crying near the end.

Even V lol
 
kubev

kubev

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,533
California
My only issues with game titles relate to how games are discussed on podcasts and whatnot. Sometimes, I'll think I just missed the title of a game, so I'll go back to an earlier point in the podcast to figure it out, but it's like the title blends into the conversation in such a way that I can't separate it from the rest of the conversation, or the title lends itself to really lax pronunciation in a way that makes it difficult to understand the title. Also, I hate it when the spelling of a game's title is abnormal or could have multiple spellings, so you can't find it as a result of not knowing how to spell it (especially if the game has a title that isn't SEO-friendly). If I can't find the game by searching for it, then I can't buy the game in many cases.
 
Xiaomi

Xiaomi

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,237
"Control" was a bad name. It nearly put me off playing it, when the game is certainly worth checking out (although it turns out it's not my thing, tons of people seem to enjoy it a lot, but I digress). It was just a fairly uninspiring verb/noun. Like calling a game "Push" or something.
 
Hakunon

Hakunon

Member
Oct 11, 2018
311
Trepang2 does look unappealing as a name and won't do the game justice. Touch Dic has always been hilarious so there's at least some merit in that. I haven't played My Friend Pedro but it was the name that made me check out more info about it in the first place because I have a friend called Pedro.

So personally, I can overlook a stupid name and sometimes it can even be intriguing. Like when going through a Steam queue, I pay more attention to the tags.
 
OP
OP
Vex

Vex

Member
Oct 25, 2017
22,213
Snormy said:
That seems a little odd to pick out and maybe more of a personal preference. I don't really know what you mean by your example. Do you just not like titles with subtitles? How do you feel about WarCraft 3: Reigns of Chaos, Halo: Combat Evolved, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim or Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas? What do you expect in game titles?

Generally if I dislike a name I can pin it to a reason such as difficulty in pronunciation, overly long and complicated, seemingly random and having no connection to the game that I can perceive even at the end of the game.

With stuff like Legend of Ancient Sword from China, it is pretty much going to be a wuxia/wushu theme. Those immediately tell me about some of the inspirations for the game which isn't bad.
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it is not just subtitles.. it is that they just seem to have added that just because.

Like what DOES RE:ZERO even mean? Like.... Im being genuine here? Do you know? "reply zero"? The ones you've listed seem fine. They all talk about the region the game takes place in (san andreas and Skyrim). Sands of time makes sense given the game's mechanics. Combat evolved speaks for itself. You are literally in a super suit of armor shooting high tech weaponry. Only one I probably think is cheesy is Reigns of chaos.. Just warcraft 3 is fine unless there already was a W3, and this was the spin off?

EDIT: another one is "Tokyo Ghoul: Re".. again... what is the Japanese fascination with "Re"?
 
kiaaa

kiaaa

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,849
Vex said:
it is not just subtitles.. it is that they just seem to have added that just because.

Like what DOES RE:ZERO even mean? Like.... Im being genuine here? Do you know? "reply zero"? The ones you've listed seem fine. They all talk about the region the game takes place in (san andreas and Skyrim). Sands of time makes sense given the game's mechanics. Combat evolved speaks for itself. You are literally in a super suit of armor shooting high tech weaponry. Only one I probably think is cheesy is Reigns of chaos.. Just warcraft 3 is fine unless there already was a W3, and this was the spin off?

EDIT: another one is "Tokyo Ghoul: Re".. again... what is the Japanese fascination with "Re"?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I don't know why they constantly use Re, but it's usually short for something that starts with Re. Re:Zero is basically Returning to Zero because of a plot device.
 
StarPhlox

StarPhlox

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,392
Wisconsin
I have stupid and completely unjustified hang-ups about certain game names that has prevented me from looking more closely at them. Thinking specifically of "Elliott Quest."
 
Zyrox

Zyrox

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,630
A recent favorite of mine is Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age - Definitive Edition. Rolls right off the tongue.
 
Lkr

Lkr

Member
Oct 28, 2017
9,525
The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle Earth 2: The Rise of the Witch King
Great expansion, but the title lol
 
Finale Fireworker

Finale Fireworker

Love each other or die trying.
Member
Oct 25, 2017
14,713
United States
The name of a game has never influenced my purchasing, but it has definitely given me the wrong impression of what kind of game it might be. I don't always hear about games from trailers or reveals and sometimes only have a name to go off of.

I thought Horizon: Zero Dawn was a modern military shooter.

This one is dated but when I was a kid I thought Chrono Trigger was a side scrolling shoot em up like Gunstar Heroes.

For some reason the name Control struck me as a spacey futuristic action title. For reasons I cannot explain, the name Control gives me images of Astral Chain. Literally just Astral Chain. If you say "Control," the Astral Chain trailer plays in my head. It's a big reason why I didn't have any interest in it until recently.

Also, and I have no idea why, but the first thing I used to think of whenever people would say the names of sci-fi arcade shooters like Gradius and Sinistar were RTS games on PC.

My word association has sabotaged me my whole life, it seems.
 
L Thammy

L Thammy

Spacenoid
Member
Oct 25, 2017
50,046
I feel that games like Princess Maker 2 - wherein you play a father and are free to raise your daughter to be a warrior who climbs the stairway to heaven and beats up a god for kicks - screwed with a bunch of people.

Long Live the Queen was kind of a spiritual successor to this confusion by proudly putting a pink-haired anime girl with huge eyes and a frilly dress in a game centered around having to be machiavellian because basically everyone is trying to kill you.
 
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