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Why so many Steam games have weirdly similar (and forgettable) names (www.pcgamer.com)
submitted 3 weeks ago by to c/games@lemmy.world
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Top of mind for me after reading this article is that Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet should just be called The Heretic Prophet, and Horizon: Zero Dawn should have just been called Zero Dawn.

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[–] [S] 5 points 3 weeks ago (13 children)

When Super Metroid came out, you could basically count every release that came out in a year across all platforms. That's not possible anymore. There are probably plenty of great games we haven't played because the marketing was done no favors by their titles. To name one off the top of my head, Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun. Blades of the Shogun is an excellent title, but they wanted a larger Shadow Tactics series that never came to be. That studio didn't see enough success to survive even 10 years after that game's release, but they saw good reviews.

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  • [–] 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 child)

    1994 had at least 360 games for the SNES alone. Include PC games and it becomes basically impossible to find actual numbers because of poor archival and sheer volume. Yes, there are more games today, by at least a few orders of magnitude, but there has always been a large volume of frankly slop.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 weeks ago (10 children)

    Look at Mixtape... The name is hardly special, but the game is widely known and recognized (as good or bad), not hidden gem. My point is, game names aren't memorable because of their name; game names are memorable because of their popularity. Especially RPGs have often unspectacular names.

    More (relatively... little a lot relative) recent games that became hits or known, despite their forgettable names: Blue Prince, Big Walk, Cyberpunk 2077, Starfield.

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 3 weeks ago (9 children)

    I don't mean to throw any shade, but you chose a list of some of the best titles this medium has put forward in recent years as examples of forgettable names. That, in part, explains their success.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 weeks ago (8 children)

    The point of my list is to list popular games with forgettable names. I don't understand what you mean. You mean the games are partially successful because the names are forgettable?? The list shows, that the names doesn't matter at all.

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  • [–] [S] 3 points 3 weeks ago* (7 children)

    No, those games are partly successful because they're all quite excellent titles. Cyberpunk 2077 is a little hokey, but it's because of the license it's attached to, and it at least immediately conveys what the game is. I think you chose some of the most memorable titles in recent years and called them forgettable. Big Walk was even listed in the article as a positive!

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  • [–] 1 point 3 weeks ago (6 children)

    Exactly that's what I'm saying. The other games listed as not memorable is not because of their names. So it doesn't matter what ht names are, as my list proofs.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 3 weeks ago (5 children)

    Respectfully, that makes no sense.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 weeks ago (4 children)

    The name of a game doesn't matter to become unforgettable. Without being disrespectful: What exactly doesn't you understand about this?

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 3 weeks ago (3 children)

    In the course of this thread, you just claimed to make two contradictory points, that these titles were both very memorable and very forgettable, like you were arguing both with and against yourself.

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  • [–] 0 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

    No, read again. The games are very memorable, despite their extremely forgettable name. Its really that simple, not sure how you could misunderstand that. Nobody cares about a name nowadays, especially on Steam. Games can be very successful despite their absolutely forgettable name, because names doesn't matter like in old days.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 3 weeks ago (1 child)

    The games are very memorable, despite their extremely forgettable name. Its really that simple, not sure how you could misunderstand that.

    That is what I understood your argument to be, to which I said, paraphrased, "These titles you listed are extremely good and memorable, and I think it's crazy to call them bad or forgettable names", to which you said, "Exactly that’s what I’m saying."

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