Comment on Why so many Steam games have weirdly similar (and forgettable) names
thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 6 hours ago
Most game name are uninspired and forgettable on its own. The success and being popular makes them so memorable. Classics like Super Mario World wasn’t particular inspired name at the time it came out. Super Metroid or many other Super games had this issue. The games itself made the names unforgettable, not the name.
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
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.
Armok_the_bunny@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
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.
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
That orders of magnitude difference is why it can be so hard to remember a game with a bad title that might otherwise be up your alley though.
thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 5 hours ago
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.
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
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.
thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 5 hours ago
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.