Please Let Us Fix Your Video Game Name
en
January 30, 2025
TLDR: Discussion on video game titles by Triple Click Consulting, evaluating their memorability, punchiness, understandability, enticing nature, surprise element and confusion levels, compared examples ranging from Balatro to EA Sports FC.

In the latest episode of Triple Click, hosts Kirk Hamilton, Maddy Myers, and Jason Shrier delve into the fascinating world of video game titles. The discussion explores what qualities make some game names memorable and effective while others flop. This episode serves as a consultancy of sorts, aiming to break down the elements that contribute to a good or bad video game name.
The Importance of a Good Name
The hosts emphasize that a good video game title should ideally embody at least two out of the following five qualities:
- Memorable vs. Forgettable: Names should stick in a player’s mind, becoming iconic and easily recalled.
- Punchy vs. Floppy: Titles should have a strong rhythm, be fun to say, and avoid being overly complex.
- Understandable vs. Confusing: A title should hint at the game's content, making it representative of the gameplay.
- Enticing vs. Off-Putting: It should pique curiosity and draw players in, rather than feeling generic or uninviting.
- Surprising vs. Predictable: A good game name can offer a twist that intrigues players.
Kirk notes that even names that break these rules can succeed if the game itself is strong, illustrating this with examples throughout the episode.
Analyzing Game Names
Successful Titles
Balatro: The hosts agree that Balatro is a strong name due to its memorability and punchiness. Despite being a bit confusing, it establishes a strong brand presence that stands out in discussions.
Tactical Breach Wizards: This title encapsulates the game's quirky premise with a blend of tactical and whimsical elements. It is memorable and fully represents what players can expect, achieving all five desirable qualities.
Animal Well: The simplicity of the name is noted as effective; it prompts curiosity while being straightforward. The comical juxtaposition of the two words generates intrigue, making it a good example of punchiness and enticement.
Flop Titles
On the other hand, the episode highlights several titles that fall flat:
- A Thousand X Resist: The name is criticized for being confusing and hard to pronounce, dampening its memorability.
- EA Sports FC: Declared one of the worst titles in gaming due to its generic nature and lack of distinct branding. The hosts lament how it feels like a placeholder rather than a creative title.
- Dragon Age: The Veilguard: Shifted from a stronger title, Dragon Age: Dread Wolf, this rename is considered a downgrade. The new name lacks the punchiness of its predecessor and confuses players unfamiliar with the lore.
Lessons Learned
The Power of Titles
The episode reinforces that many titles rely heavily on the qualities discussed, but can still succeed if the game itself is exceptional. For instance, the name Fortnite is oddly named yet has gained massive popularity, demonstrating how gameplay trumps naming conventions.
Trends in Naming Conventions
The hosts discuss emerging trends in the industry, such as the proliferation of numbers and project-themed titles, like Project Eve or Dragon Age: The Veilguard. They caution against generic descriptors that fail to capture the essence of the game.
Recommendations for Game Developers
- Keep It Simple: A memorable title doesn’t have to be complicated. Simplicity can be more effective than an intricate title.
- Consider Audience Connection: Titles should resonate with the intended player base, capturing the theme and emotional tone of the game.
- Embrace Creativity: Unique combinations of words or surprising phrases can create strong brand identities that invite curiosity.
Conclusion
The episode wraps up with a discussion on future game titles and the potential pitfalls developers may face. The recognizing idea is that names are crucial and can make or break player engagement and interest. Ultimately, a winning name must resonate with players while still encapsulating the game’s essence.
This insightful analysis showcases how video game names are a vital component of the gaming experience, influencing perceptions and providing a memorable hook for potential players.
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What's in a name? That which we call a third person extraction shooter by any other name would have headshots and loot as sweet. Welcome to TripleClick where we bring the names to you. This week we're finally doing it. We're doing an entire episode all about video game names and what qualities make for a good or a less good video game title. Let's get into it.
I'm Kirk Hamilton. I'm Maddie Myers. And I'm Jason Shire. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello, my friends. Hello. Welcome back to another episode. We're doing it again. Yes. We decided to keep doing it. We have. Every week we get together and we're like, time to vote. I'm going to keep the podcast going. That's why it's three of us. And Maddie says no every week, but we're going to have a voter. And I keep getting a vote. That's why three is a good number because you can have votes and have a clear winner. Exactly.
No, I would be voting yes. We're voting unanimously. One of the reasons that Jason and I keep voting yes is that we love making the show for you all. And we love that we make it entirely with your support. Triple click is a listener supported show. We are a member of the wonderful maximum fun podcast network. And yeah, we just make this show with salaries paid by all of you. You guys get salaries?
In a way, it's a salary, I guess. Some of you haven't been paying it. That's really what Kirk's getting at. Some of you have been getting our work for free. But those of you who haven't, we really appreciate you. Maximumfun.org slash join. That's the website to go to.
to join the network and become a member, start supporting TurboClick and also get access to a ton of bonus episodes that we have recorded. We put out one every month and have been doing so since we started making this show in 2020 almost five years ago.
Kind of crazy to think about. That's a lot of bonus episodes. And you'll get a reason when we just put up on metaphor Refantazio that just went up a couple of days ago and it was a really fun conversation about a game that provokes really fun conversations. So yeah, maximumfun.org slash join become a member support triple click. And thank you so much to everyone who does support us. All right. So today.
It is time after many, many teases after us saying, you know, we should really do an episode about that over and over and over again. We have finally decided to put our expertise where our mouths are. I guess we do that every week and talk about video game names, video game titles. We are going to do a breakdown and a discussion of good and bad video game names and hopefully get to the bottom of what makes a good video game name.
And, uh, and also maybe what makes a video game name not work so well. Are you both excited? I'm very excited. It's a little overhyped, if anything. I mean, are we up for it? You know, can we, can we handle it? Can we handle the mission briefing? I don't know. I feel like we shouldn't be giving away our secrets for free. I feel like we should be starting a consultancy group and charging a lot of money. Well, this is kind of like,
This is kind of like a, what do you call it, a backdoor pilot, if you will? This is going to be maybe a separate project on top of TripleClick that we're launching. I think we will know by the end of this whether that business endeavor would succeed or fail. We don't know.
People will tell us what that means. I guess we'll find out. I guess we'll find out. So we're going to be talking about, I don't know, just a bunch of video game names, mostly recent ones from the last year, and also some upcoming games, which are fun to talk about since the games aren't out yet, and we just kind of have a name to go on with some of them.
So there's a lot to get into there. I've kind of got some rules and some qualities that I think are interesting. The one most important rule to establish up top is that for everything that we're going to say about what makes a game name good or a game named bad, the most important rule is that if the game is really good,
or catches on for whatever reason, usually because it's really good. It can break every single rule that we're about to lay out. It can have the worst, weirdest name ever and still be successful. As some of these examples prove. That's just how it works. Sometimes you call a game Fortnite. It becomes the most popular game in the world.
I'd say, you know, I guess, like, another couple of things to keep in mind are that sequels kind of don't follow the same rules as original, like, like, first games in a series. So those, you can't really, like, say, oh, well, the same doesn't make sense because if it's a sequel to a successful game, people already know that it's a successful game. And similarly, a lot of localized games, like games, especially for me, Stasia, tend to have names that are pretty weird and, like, don't follow
They don't do what I would call good naming hygiene. But at the same time, you'll have a game called Triangle Strategy that is pretty beloved or a various day life and a lot of people will play it. So I think this is a sketch. So this is just what we're starting with and it might change by the end of this episode or it might change after people talk about this episode or whatever.
But for now, I kind of feel like a good name should be at least two of the following things. Memorable, punchy, understandable, or enticing. So at least two of those things. So first it's memorable, like it should be memorable. It should be able to become iconic. It should be something that you remember versus being, you know, forgettable, something that just kind of slips out of your mind.
punchy versus floppy was the word I went with. Like it should have like a good rhythm to it. It should be fun to say. It should be punchy and not kind of like long or overly, you know, complex or kind of trip up your tongue or sort of too many of the wrong syllables next to one another. And that's floppy.
It should be understandable or representative. You should see it and you should know what kind of game this is going to be. Or maybe it's even representative of the game itself, of what you do in the game. It's easy to understand when you see it, versus it's this abstract term. It's confusing. You don't actually know what that means. And then the last one is enticing versus off-putting, which is the most subjective of these possible way to put it. It can be mysterious rather than bad.
Well, no, I think it can be mysterious and it should kind of entice you to learn more. Like you should hear it and be like, oh, huh, what's that about? Rather than hearing it and thinking like, oh, that's like this weird complex nonsense or like that's some made up crap that I don't care about or like, or that's like kind of like ugly words or words that aren't fun to say or just make me think that it's not for me and it's kind of off-putting. Obviously the most objective of the fourth of this whole thing is subjective.
All right, so let's just talk through some games. Let's start with a really interesting name, Balotro slash Balotro. What do you all think? I had some friends over the other day and one of them, a normie friend, was playing Balotro on his phone and I was like, wow, it has penetrated the normie sphere.
I think Bellacho is a fantastic name. And it's like, I think that the fact that the creator local think resisted the urge to name it something like Crazy Poker. Why did you joke her time? I think Bellacho, it's like totally confusing and abstract. So it violates one of your kind of your paradigms for this. So remember now, I want to say the rule is that you have to do two of these. Not that you can't violate any of these.
And the other rule is we don't know anything, and we might be wrong. It's extremely memorable. It's extremely punchy. And I think it's got those two things going for it in a way that makes it stand out. When you hear it, you don't forget it. If you look up the name, it's like it's got enough of a connection. Like Blaptro means what Jester in Italian, right? So it's got enough of a connection.
Right. It's representative in a cool way and it is enticing where it's this mysterious word that does have a meaning and then you wind up kind of seeing a headline on polygon or whatever being like, here's what Balotro means, you know, like where that word comes from. And you're like, ooh, it's all a little bit enticing as well. And fun to say. So I agree despite the fact that it's a little confusing when you first see it, it is definitely a really strong name.
Yeah, it's great. I think a little bit of confusion at first isn't necessarily a bad thing, especially if it's punchy and fun to say. Because then it'll get stuck in your head a little bit more than something that is kind of more esoteric and also not as fun to say. Then it kind of squirms out of your brain a little bit more likely. I think we'll see if we come up with some examples.
Well, let me give you like just from last year, just to kind of jump ahead a little bit, a thousand X resist. That's one where it's like off-putting and also not very fun to say and so not punchy at all. And therefore, when you kind of see that or hear that, it doesn't really kind of get stuck in your brain the way a bolotro might and you're just kind of
You have to see it a few times before you start remembering it as a name. A thousand X resists. Like it doesn't make any sense. Well, yeah. And also, is it a thousand times resist? Is it a thousand cross resist? We've even talked about that quandary on this very show. And Kirk usually pronounces it a thousand times resist, which based on what the themes of the game are, as I know them, actually sounds a lot closer to what it should be and is a cooler name to say. But
I don't know a great way to indicate that to the person reading it because that X can be the multiplication symbol, but it's not always. So you got to think of another way to do that, I think. Yeah, I think pronunciation is kind of an issue. It's interesting that Balattro, Balattro doesn't have that issue.
in fact, like people arguing over how to pronounce it is like a win win for the, you know, for local fun because it gets just something more that people talk about. But yeah, with a thousand times resist, I agree that it is, it's pretty abstract. It's a little floppy because it's kind of hard to say. And I do think it's memorable. Like, I think a thousand times resist as an idea is like pretty grabby. So it's kind of got that going for it. And of course, it is a fantastic game and
that carried it a long way. Like I do think a lot of people played it and checked it out. But yeah, it does kind of seem like there could have been a stronger name. I think the fact that it's written out one zero zero X resist. If it was even called a thousand times, resistance times was spelled out might be a little bit clearer. As long as that is, I actually think it would have helped.
I could see that. Yeah. And also the lack of a comma in 1000 is also a little off-putting. It's a really funny thing to hide. The way that numbers. I don't know about picturing that name 1000 times resist. That's a kind of a sick name. Yeah, actually kind of rules.
So here's another one. Let's keep going. Let's look at animal well, because I'm curious what the two of you think animal well. I like animal well. I think that's a really interesting name. Yeah. I like it. I think it's enticing, according to you, Kirk, because it's mysterious. What's in the well? Animals? Why? What? Well, how did they get animal? Yeah.
I think that's a really interesting thing about this name is that animal and well are actually both very common or prosaic words. It's not like quest of the dark here. It doesn't have that typical drama. It's animal well.
First off, it is totally representative. The minute you see an image of the game, it's usually some underground kangaroo or something. You're like, oh, an animal in a well. And also, yeah, the two words that are very enticing and mysterious and really capture the vibe of the game, it is also punchy. It's easy enough to say. It's not as snicky, snicky boom boom as some names. Animal well is a little round, I guess. But it's fine. And it's very memorable. It's an unusual name. It really matches with the game itself, I think.
Yeah, agree. Yeah, I think it's you can't get much better than animal while taking two words. I think one of the reasons that so many names fail is that they take words that are just like so common in game titles, like secrets and quests and you have a bunch of them written down here. Eternal and rising eternal darkness cosmic protocol setting.
Here you have two common words that would never be placed together and you would never see them in this context. Despite the fact that they're very common, you would never see either of them in a video game title and you'd never see them mashed together. So that itself is like such a home run for a title. When you have two words that just kind of like have never been placed together, have this great feel, this great mouth feel when they're put together or intriguing when they're put together, it just works perfectly.
the peanut butter and jelly of titles. Right, it's cool. The animal and well would be so much more exciting, too, than like secret protocol. Exactly, exactly. Completely forgettable. Even though those are two exciting words in theory, that's kind of like the context of video games, I guess, that those words have been so overused.
One other thing is that when you take a place and then add something a little unexpected, like when you take a place word and then something unexpected to it, like, I don't know, chainsaw mansion, like it automatically makes it like elevates things. Like if you were to take
And like a well that's full of animals and a mansion that's full of chainsaws a I don't know a palace that is full of Spiders spider palace like it and anything that's like a place and something unexpected I think it's like a really winning combination for names
That's true, surprising. There might be a way to fit that into these different qualities of a game. Something surprising that surprises you versus predictable. It's a little similar to like memorable versus forgettable. But anyways, yes, surprising is good. Let's look at another one that's a little less successful, I think, and that's actually one of the
One of the name changes, I've got a big list of name changes, like series that change names, and I think those are always interesting to look at. A lot of times when games change names, they change for the better. They become something punchier and more memorable, where they're kind of working title or whatever was less.
was less strong. But in this case, we're going to talk about Dragon Age the Veilguard a little bit. I think that this name was a step down. This is something we have said many times on the show. I feel like this is one of the very first games, like game names that we started critiquing on the show. I think at our live episode in LA.
But anyways, yeah, this went from Dragon Age Dread Wolf to Dragon Age the Veilguard. And it's not like a really obvious downgrade. Like, you know, they're both kind of abstract concepts, Dread Wolf, the Veilguard. But I do think Dread Wolf had a couple things going for it. One being that we knew what the Dread Wolf was, if you were a Dragon Age fan, like the Dread Wolf was Solus. And we learned that about him. And so it was this exciting thing for anyone who'd finished Inquisition.
that you're going to now get a game that centers on this character that we know, where the Vale Guard was something entirely new, we didn't know that. Feels a little like that was a change made to draw in new players. And then also, the Vale Guard is just not as punchy as Dread Wolf. Like, Dread Wolf is freaking cool. It's just like a cooler pair of words than the Vale Guard, which is like a little off-putting, a little abstract. Yeah, and all one word, Vale Guard.
Yeah, veil guard. I mean, that, like, we've harped on that enough. Like, putting a gun there is such a horrible mistake that I don't know why they would possibly do that. But even if it's just called Dragon Age Veil Guard, Veil Guard is such a kind of weak word. Like, if you play Dragon Age, you know what the veil is. And so you understand the concept of like, oh, okay, they have to protect the veil.
That makes sense, but like Veil Guard is not something that you really want to say. It doesn't feel good coming off the tongue in the same way that Dread Wolf does. Dread Wolf is like such a stronger word. And also just implies like the Dread Wolf part of it evokes horror. It evokes kind of an enemy. It evokes something you want to destroy. Whereas Veil Guard, you're like, okay, what do I care about the Veil? Why do we need to guard it? Like, does that matter? Like, is that really that cool?
I don't know. It's very weak. It's a big downgrade, I would say. The change toward punchiness is big. There are two game changes, I guess, that I want to mention related to that. One is demon souls to dark souls, granted like not actually in the same universe. But I would say that the change from demons souls to dark souls is one of the great
uh, name changes, like name evolutions and video games. Is that a name change? Isn't that a sequel to like a, yeah, but it's like they basically went from demon souls, which was a one off to dark souls, which became, you know, the heart of what from soft was doing. And while granted, yes, they're, it's like not exactly like they changed the name. The series.
sort of switched, and then they just made another one and called it something else, and then stuck with that name from then on. And Dark Souls is just much punchier than Demon Souls. They're so similar. It's just one word, Dark, is a lot easier to say than Demons. And so it's just an improvement. And the other one is the game Stellar Blade from last year, which was originally called Project Eve. And I always thought that was such a bad name, where Stellar Blade is like a pretty cool name for a game. So those are two changes recently that I think
They kind of moved in the right direction, like away from more generic kind of floppy words and towards something punchier and more memorable. Yeah, putting blade in a title, I think it's always a bad idea, but. Yeah, blade should go in this. Still, or at least a surprising, but blade.
Stellar is stellar blade is it's a good it works because stellar is like you think of I don't know you think of something that's spectacular you think of grades that are stellar and the fact that it's a blade I think adds a little bit of imagery to it that and it also it sounds good seller blade sounds good it's fun to say that all works but it definitely docks and points for having blade in there because that's so generic and meaningless and overused and it's kind of.
It's also representative because that's like a sword fighting slash them up game. I'm actually not sure if the word stellar blade or I played some of that game, but not enough to know if the stellar blade is like a thing that you unlock in that game. I kind of don't think it is. Yeah, I think it's more just a vibes based title, which I'm fine with. Like many of many great titles are purely vibes based, but if that's the case, then it should be fun to say and memorable and all the other or at least a couple of the categories that we've already been laying out that so far I'm enjoying and thinking are pretty accurate.
So another name that I think is a real sensational name from last year is Tactical Breach Wizards. I think this one actually runs the table. I think that it's memorable and iconic. Like Tactical Breach Wizards is incredibly memorable. It's punchy. Tactical Breach Wizards is a kick-ass thing to say. It's understandable and representative. That's what the game is about. It perfectly captures the game and it is enticing because the minute you hear it, you start laughing. It's surprising. You think, wait, what in the world is that going to be?
So I think that that's I think that's a slam dunk name. Yeah, I like this one too. I feel like of all the indie games that I remember people telling me to play, this was the one that with the name that I've remembered and that may or may not have contributed to me playing it instead of say a thousand times resist, which I still haven't actually started like this name stuck in my head in just an anecdotal way. I've remembered the title and was like, Oh yeah, that one. I should check that out.
I think the contrast of tactical breach and wizards, it's interesting because tactical and breach are both common words in titles that conjure military and Tom Clancy. Of course, perfect, yes.
And alone, you look at the first two words and you're like, I don't want to play that. But then you see wizards. Tactical breach squadron would be like any other game on Steve. The worst name ever. But then you see wizards and you're like, oh, well, this is surprising. This is unexpected. It's a good kind of contrast, which obviously is the whole theme of the game too. So it works. The only critique I would have is that it's a little bit long and ideally you want your game to be a little bit quicker to say, but I think it's fine. It's not. That's not a huge.
Ren comedy is kind of pacing like it needs to be long enough that the win the wizards arrives. You had time to like yeah ready to be surprised sure but in in the sense that if you want a game to like go viral if you want your game to really some millions of copies.
Generally shorter is better, not the end of the world if it's a little bit long, but I think generally if you want to be able to, I always imagine, or I think of like, is this game good? Is this game title good or not? I always imagine kids trying to explain it to one another on the playground or like saying, hey, have you played Bellatro? Hey, have you played Fortnite? It's hard to imagine quite as much. Kids being like, oh, you got to check out tactical breach wizards just because it's such a mouthful.
Again, not the, not the biggest deal in the world, but I would say that's the one thing that is a little bit long. So for a shorter name that I'm actually curious what the two of you think, how about nine souls? What do you think of that name? Jason, this was on your list, your top 10 list. So maybe you go first. Yeah. Well, important to note here that it's S-O-L-S, not S-O-U-L-S, which I think is more striking and better.
than it would be if it was nine souls, S-O-U-L-S, because a certain other series has the market on souls, S-O-U-L-S, in general. I guess in your playground example, if a kid is telling another kid about it on the playground, they're just going to say, have you played nine souls? Yes. I'm assuming that any kid hearing that would assume that it was spelled S-O-U-L-S, not necessarily a bad thing. Yes. Well, I mean, kids aren't the best at spelling, so you never know.
You should see, you should see the way my five-year-old spells certain words. But still, yes, I think it's a good name. I think it's intriguing enough. It's also, it's one of those games that I believe was made in China. So it's one of those games that is like a look like an East Asian title that you mentioned earlier.
Yeah, I like it. It's punchy. It's intriguing. It's a little bit generic, but I don't know. I like numbers in titles that are in intriguing ways. I think certain numbers like seven and nine just have a lot of punch to them and have a lot of appeal to them, and I think it works in this case.
Yeah, I like it. Plus, the Souls part does imply that it might be inspired by a Souls game, which is good or bad, but like the game's got some of those elements in it, and having that word in there, for better or worse, kind of tells you something. You've got Souls in your mind if you're familiar with Souls games, and that can be a good
I'm not sure how I feel about it. Like thinking about a title like Hollow Knight, which is a similar type of game and a similar type of title, Hollow Knight is more evocative to me, like I kind of understand at least what that means, like what a knight is, what it might mean for the knight to be hollow, that this is a game that involves adventuring in combat. Nine Souls is maybe just a little too abstract for me, even though it's not, it's punchy, like it's easy enough to say, it's not.
Well, so since it's S-O-L-S, if you know that soul means sun, then it has a little bit more like an interesting power there. Yeah. You know, to throw one in there from a few years back, what do the two of you think of Sekiro Shadows die twice?
I've been chewing on this one for a while. It's like both a good name and a bad name at the same time. So sometimes the subtitles are interesting because when you have a game, if a game has a strong beginning part, then you can kind of ignore the rest. And in Sekiro's case, everyone just ignores the rest and just calls it Sekiro.
And that, I think, is a strong name. I mean, obviously, it's a Japanese word. And people, in English, you wouldn't understand what it means. But it's easy to say, unlike some other, a certain sweet coat in series that is a little bit harder to parse. Sekiro is easy to say. It's memorable. It's punchy. The shadow side twice. I mean, I just ignore that part. But if you're counting that, obviously, that's terrible and clunky.
It's like when they were announcing it, I kind of get it since there is a mechanic in that game where you die and then you come back and it implies it tells you something, right? Shadows die twice like that. This is a game where you will be dying, like that this is a fighting action game. And I get that even though the game so quickly launched to icon status because it's such an amazing game and because it's a Fromsoft game that like no one needed that anymore.
It strikes me as a publisher marketing decision that I understand in principle even if the game basically just dropped the subtitle completely.
Yeah, it's a cool subtitle, though. I remember thinking about even with the time and being intrigued by it. So I guess I'm the audience who was more than enticing is that in that first moment, I was like, shadows die twice as cool. It sounds like a metal band. It's got the right vibe. It just has a cool factor. It's enticing. It's a little mysterious. It's not like shadow, you know, shadows rising or something. Yeah, exactly. Eternal shadows, dark shadows.
Shadows die twice is all cool. It feels more like a movie slogan like you can imagine a poster that is like Sekiro shadows die twice Like the like the prepare to die slogan for example, right? It should have been maybe more of a that
type of slogan earring situation. A tagline rather than a subtitle. But again, I mean, I think that like you can get away with having a crummy subtitle. If your first part is strong enough that like everyone can talk. We just talked. My one more thing last week was this really cool game called the puzzle maker Colin Sebba's Odyssey, which is a nutritious name mostly because of that first part, like the puzzle maker Colin Sebba's Odyssey.
It was just called sebbas odyssey, still not the greatest name, but that's a lot stronger. And so you can kind of, you can almost ignore the first part and just call it sebbas odyssey, which helps a little bit. And I think in general, when you have these kind of weird clunky subtitles, if the first part is strong enough that you can just use that, then you can kind of ignore what's after the column. Right.
I'm looking at some other 2024 names on this list. For example, a game that really earns its subtitle is Duck Detective, The Secret Salami. Yeah, that's a perfect title, actually. Pretty great name. The fantastic name, first of all. Second of all, I think that subtitles, if you are planning, if you have like a trilogy planned, and so you want the subtitles to be like reflecting the next thing, like Middle Earth, Shadow of Mortar, Middle Earth, Shadow of War, like that sort of thing. Those are terrible names too.
Even if you're thinking in terms of like, this is gonna have a subtitle because we are planning multiple games in the series. And in the Duck Detective case, I think in addition to it being a really funny and great name, they also were planning like it's gonna be Duck Detective Cole in something else next after that. And that is when it's more excused. You're establishing a franchise.
Right. And it kind of plays like a riff on like a Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew style like old, tiny mystery where it's like the the and the the thing, right? Right. Takes me to also Indiana Jones in the Great Circle. Extremely long title, but it works because it's it's an Indiana Jones framework. You understand exactly what you're getting into. It's essentially like another Indiana Jones story. It's it's great.
It works. And I think that an established brand like Indiana Jones or Star Wars, you basically automatically get at least one point of these four things because you have like it is memorable. It is already iconic. Like Indiana Jones and Star Wars are iconic titles. We just know what those things are. So the minute you have that in there, you've already got one. You just need to not screw it up. You need to have just something punchy or something understandable. Yeah. And Great Circle isn't mind-blowing.
Not the strongest. Agree. It's fine. They could have done better. It's definitely no temple of doom. True. Yeah. Which for all that movies, problems is a fantastic. Great title, though. Yeah. Last crusade. Yeah. Yeah, Raiders of the Lost Art. All stronger titles than Great Circle, unfortunately. Great Circle. Well, Raiders is an interesting one. I know we're not talking about movies, but it is interesting that Raiders is just called Raiders of the Lost Art. But in my beginning, they changed it. Yeah.
Yes, and then I believe later was marketed as Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. That's right. Which is actually maybe a little flopier. Raiders of the Lost Ark. Yeah, it's a good name for a movie. Yeah, it's got some punch to it. We're not doing movies. Let's keep going. I think there are some indie games that came out last year like Indica and Celico and Arco. I have these all next to one another. They all kind of suffer from- That really doesn't do them getting any favors putting them all next to each other.
Yeah, saying them all. They're all like a little challenging for different reasons. The Arco is a really cool game. It's this like real time or like semi hybrid turn based strategy game set in like Latin America. It's really rad. I played a little bit of it, but I think the name just doesn't do it any favors because Arco, it just sounds like a gas station. Like it really is. It's like an abstract thing. It's short enough, but all three of these.
Gas station. Cellico for Indica. Oh, yeah. I'm going to go to the Indica and fill up. I think Indica is just sounds like Indica versus Sativa. Indica just sounds like something that you would hear from a weed dealer. But the other two end in co, which sounds like company, which is what's making you think of the gas station I would expect. And then the case of Cellico, that at least makes sense in world, but for Arco, it does. Well, Arco literally is a gas station.
Oh no. Like that is a company at the name of a line of gas station. I thought we were just making jokes about like Sitgo and Texaco here, but sure. No, it's interesting that Bellatro works so well, but none of these do. I wonder why that is. I think it's like there's something about Bellatro and the kind of Italian of it that makes it just sound so much better than any of these Indica Celico Arco. Those all sound like they just like took 10% hits on the stock market when
It's a really good comparison and it's, that's like, I feel like there's something very important there in the difference between Balattro and Celico. Cause like Celico is a fantastic game. Like the name is a little, not memorable, but the game is really cool. And it's actually very successful. People love it and talk about it all the time. But like why it is, I guess, I guess that it must be something to what you're saying that like Bala is just a more interesting collection of words than Stella. Jesus.
It's like very thin. Well, I think there is something to it. No, I think it's just, it's the syllables. It's the way it comes off your tongue. It's so much more fun to say than Celico. Celico, so it's a punchiness question. Like Celico, it feels like your mouth is kind of like, like heading in the wrong direction. It feels like a downer. It's like that cuz. It's just so ugly. Celico. Oh yeah, like Celico is poisoning the water around our house.
We got to see the New York v. Celico in the case of the century. V. Celico does sell like some mass tort litters. Fucking guys, Celico is trying to take away our community center. Yeah, it just like it sounds so gross. Like, Indica, you're right, does have that kind of like weed vibe and Arco.
I don't know, Arco reminds it, it feels like a Roman building or something, like it just feels like, or, I don't know, none of these are just like really stand out in a way, blockchain. Well, I'm picturing like, I don't know, if Indica had had a subtitle like The None and the Devil or something, you know, like it's a really cool game with a very evocative story and setting, and maybe that's dumbing it down, or maybe that doesn't work, but just something that's a little less
Already could have won. I mean they should have called it the nun in the death log. Yeah. I had kill night down, which is a game I never even played, but there's a there's a good game name for you. Kill night. That is that game. It's a game on a night that kills people. You know what? Sometimes it's just that simple.
Or a little kitty big city is another one. That's another great one. Having the title rhyme, if you're trying to be cute with it, I think is also effective, which that game is inherently trying to be cute with it. It's an adorable game. One name here that makes me think of another sort of subrural is the game Neva, which looked like a lovely game, but I think you should always try to avoid naming your game something that can be used in negative reviews against you.
So calling your game Neva, if someone's like, you should Neva play this. I just think you should never call it that, or you should also like conversely, you should never call your game like the masterpiece. Because then every review will be like, well, it's far from a masterpiece. It's just bait. It's just bait for reviewer. I mean, Neva is also a terrible name. It's just so soft and dull and boring and doesn't say anything about the game. I think if you're gonna like, okay, Blotchow,
It doesn't signal anything about the game. I could tell someone to go play Blotro and they would be like, what the fuck is that? That doesn't mean anything to me. It's supposed to, I don't know, duck detect it, which hits all the boxes, which is perfect. But if you're going to go that way, it just needs to not be a downer. It needs to sound good. It needs to feel good to say. It needs to feel good on your tongue and never. I don't know. It feels like some... It's like a soap.
Yeah. That's kind of a body wash energy. It has a very soft, gentle energy to me. That's soap-like and that can be great for a soap. Oh, soap. I think it's soap opera. Oh, sure. It sounds like that too. No, it really sounds like a skincare product. It does sound like a soap. It sounds like, yes, like I just got never for men and my hair is never looked so good. It does. It just doesn't, whenever a game title sounds like a product that you could just like
I'd be buying from Procter and Gamble, then it's probably the same. Last 2024 name that I want to shout out is Lorelai and the Laser Eyes. Speaking of long names that are pretty sweet, I think that's a pretty sweet name. Good, actually. Worth it. Worth it, it is. Yeah, that's strong. Lorelai and the Laser Eyes, it's a lot to say, but it's unique. It's rhymes, it's another rhyme. I think it scores so many points in the memorable iconic area.
Based on your categories, which are good categories, I think memorable might be the most important. And Lorelai in the laser eyes gets stuck in your head pretty easily and you remember it. And memorable is the most important because you want someone to remember it as soon as they hear it and think, okay, I want to buy that, I want to play that. And Indica, Celico, Arco, Neva, none of those are memorable at all. Even something that is clunky as hell, like Unicorn Overlord is so memorable.
And I think that is the most important thing. If you're gonna give a title to a game, like put all other rules aside if it is memorable. If you can tell someone it and 30 minutes later, with no prompting, they will remember that title, then that is probably gonna be a win for you, even if it's bad in other ways.
So I was looking through some of the notable flops of 2024, and I think there's some name lessons in there to Concord, for example, is not a particularly memorable name that I still don't really know what it's referring to. Another pronunciation riddle too. I called it Concord for a long while and thought it was supposed to be like a synonym. Well, actually, I thought it was maybe like a synonym with like C-O-N-Q-U.
Concord. That version. You know what I mean? Or a homonym? Whatever that word is. Clearly you guys did not grow up in New York going to the Catskills Jewish Hotel of the Concord, which was a fixture. Which is the obvious inspiration for. A fixture of the bush belt for many years. I spent many a holiday at the Concord in New York. It's funny, you know, because Concord is a pretty
good word we have reached a concord or even like the concord private jet I feel like wasn't that like that one of the first well that was the fastest jet in the world yeah like but it was a disaster it was like an infamous disaster was it
It's a cool word, but it doesn't quite work. Another one is foam stars, which is very representative of what the game is. There's no reason exactly that foam, well, why is that foam stars doesn't work and Splatoon does? Two very similar games. And why is it that you can watch the trailer for foam stars or perhaps even just hear the word foam stars and know that it reminds you of Splatoon? And yet Splatoon is a great name.
I think it's because foam just isn't cool. Foam is kind of wimpy. It floats around and isn't soft. It doesn't do much. It doesn't splat the way that the paste does. We're splatoon combined with splatting. It has a big splat, like Nickelodeon graphics. You're like, splatoon, that looks fun. Foam stars, it's like we're the stars of foam. Yeah, okay. It's actually maybe obvious why it's still a good name now that we talk about.
Let's keep going what multiverses. No, I don't think that name that name has never really worked for me. It's a little too abstract. It's a little too cute. It's like multiverse. I get it. I get what they're going for. Right.
I don't know. That's not horribly offensive to me, right? It just doesn't convey like Tony Soprano beating the shit out of scrappy do with Ogi. God, I wish I wish Tony Soprano was it. I wouldn't say it's as bad as ex-defiant and Dustborne, which you also have on here and which just give me douche chills. Yeah, both kind of forgettable. Especially ex-defiant. Yeah, ex-defiant. Ex-defiant might be the worst.
Yeah, anything where you're doing that kind of extreme games like combination with X and stuff, it just feels like it's a relic of another era. I would describe X to find as a fairly sweaty thing. Like you can see the perspiration. You're not only defiant, you're putting an X in front of it. And what does that tell you about how to fight? And also Senua's saga, Hellblade 2, is an interesting one because like they've established a franchise
with Hellblade Senua's sacrifice was the first one. Then they flipped it. Suddenly, it's as though the series is Senua's something, but then it's not Senua's sacrifice too. It's Senua's saga. It's a real hash. They made a hash out of that one.
I don't know why it's not Hellblade 2, send you a song. Why not? Just have to be that. Because Hellblade is cool. Like we were talking about Stellarblade. Like Hellblade, they're kind of very similar names. I assume they're trying to position to do a new game that is send you a saga called something else and get away from the Hellblade branding. That's the only possible explanation for doing the flip.
Right, because like Hellblade is, I guess it is a little bit discordant with like those games. Like the games do have like fighting and every intense, but they're much more like these serious like survival psychological thrillers. They're not really like Hellblade, which means you think of like Devil May Cry or whatever. Right. Where Cellarblade actually is like, you know, a character action game with a sword. Right. Doing acrobatics and fighting huge robots. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, that's true. Hellblade doesn't actually really like match with that series anymore.
Okay, before we keep going, I just want to read out with no commentary, some hall of fangs. Yeah, see you guys ready?
Octopath traveler, bravely defaults, various day life, Kingdom Hearts 358 slash two days, infinite undiscovery, triangle strategy. And you read those because they're all good. Great examples of the incredible localization. That's just a sampling. That's just a sampling of the Square Enix experience. So leave them hanging there.
So let's wrap up by looking at some upcoming games. I put a big list here. We could just kind of pick and choose. One worth mentioning is a game that I think looks awesome, but has a totally flummoxing name, which is Claire Obscure Expedition 33. I'm so upset by this one.
break in every single rule, man, even though when I... Claire of Skier calls in. I don't know what Claire of Skier is. I don't know why I should care about Expedition 33. Expedition 33 is like one of those genera sized words, or like, okay, there was an expedition. I go on expeditions and games all the time. And yet, I have... I can't wait to play this game. Like having seen footage of it. It's this like sick looking like...
turn-based RPG. Oh, man, it looks really dope. It might be one of those ones that follows the original rule of if your game rocks, you can call it whatever you want, and it'll still do well. But I guess we'll see. I think if you got rid of the Claire obscure nonsense in that and just called it Expedition 33, Kirk, you said you don't like that. I like that.
I think it helps a lot. Expedition 33. Expedition 33, it's specific enough that it makes me think, oh, interesting. I wonder if this is like a time travel story and it's like the same expedition keeps happening over and over again and they have to repeat it. I wonder if there was like a lot, if it's like Apollo 13 where it was like a lost expedition. That to me is intriguing. I like Expedition 33 on its own. I certainly agree that Expedition 33 is a significant improvement over Claire Obscure Expedition 32. The Claire Obscure adds very little.
Yeah, that's that's a big loss. Yeah, but if you if you have to call it clear obscure, even that's better like get rid of one of them. I'm begging you. Yes, that's all I ask. Can we talk about there's a game coming up called like a dragon cola pirate Yakuza in Hawaii, which even putting that
absurd cocktail of a name aside. The fact that like, I know the like a dragon series is amazing. I mean, the Yakuza games have gone fully off the map with their names. I know the like a dragon series is popular. So like that aside, the fact that they've switched from Yakuza, which is a fantastic title and series and had all this branding power.
Switch from that to like a dragon might be the biggest, like shooting yourself in the foot in history. And these games appear to be successful regardless. So maybe it doesn't matter that much, but like going, what a downgrade. God, that's like just as maybe worse than Dread Wolf to the Vale Guard. I think the thing with these games is that it's both that if the game is good enough, it'll just be successful despite the name and also the like East Asian localized game exception where it's like, yeah, it's a weird name just like whatever.
you know, various day life or Kingdom Hearts three, five, eight, slash two days. And like, yeah, it's an unusual name. But also, I think pirate Yakuza in Hawaii is hilarious. Like as a subtitle and amazing. Like, I actually kind of love that. Sure. I'm going to go to the store and be like, one copy of like a dragon pirate Yakuza. And don't you kind of want to do that? I just want to know what you're talking about.
because they're going to remember this title. It is so unwieldy that it kind of becomes memorable, like circles back around. Can we talk about yet another colon game, intergalactic the heretic prophet, another one that has become an obsession of mine? Just fun. It's fun to say for the wrong reasons.
Yeah, I mean, I think this also feels to me like they want intergalactic to be this big series franchise thing. And this is just like one entry. So intergalactic colon, the heretic prophet and this story picture uncharted, right? Intergalactic is a lot like uncharted as a name. And that started with uncharted Drake's fortune.
Right. And so maybe they want you to call this particular game the Heretic Prophet, which isn't like the best name. Like it's tough to say. It's hard to say. It doesn't stay in your brain. Not super memorable. But I mean, I understand where they're going, what they're trying to get at with the intergalactic at the top of that. Yeah. Maybe if it was just called bad. But it's bad. This is bad. Don't get me wrong. This is really bad. Or if they just called it Heretic or just Prophet, it's like these are some cool words. Heretic is already a game series.
Okay, fair enough. Fair enough. I just, I don't know. There's something about it that just feels like it's too much. It's too much. I think the heretic prophet is trying too hard. Like it's like a heretic who's actually a prophet. It's like it's got a lot going on and it's just a little, it's another one that's a little sweaty, a little bit sweaty for me.
And I see what they're going for. Again, though, this is like the same studio that called a game The Last of Us, which is like one of the great video game titles, like an amazing title. So like, they've got it in them. They can certainly do it. And a lot of the uncharted, you know, among thieves or what's a thief's end, like their subtitles for uncharted games are great. This one's a little sweaty for me to agree.
And one other that I want to shout out that comes to mind for me at least is Split Fiction, the new one from the makers of A Way Out, and it takes two. I feel like they've been steadily improving their name game. I think A Way Out is a little bit generic. I really like that game, but title is a little bit generic, even if it is what the game is about. I think It Takes Two is clever, like it's Snappy and Clever. It kind of captures the vibe of that game. And Split Fiction is, I think, a great name.
I agree. Granted, it's similar to split screen. It has that same kind of punchy, snappy energy that I at least really like in titles. But split fiction, I think, very, very strong. And then especially knowing what that game is about, that it's about writers who get trapped inside their two fictional worlds. And it has split screens, too. It's a split between sci-fi and, yeah, it's really a hell of a name. So I find that one very impressive.
Yeah, I like it too. Yeah, it's okay. I mean, it's tough to say. It's followed by the ikt, which makes it tough on the mouth. I think it's great. But I like it. The mouth feel isn't great, I would say.
I would say I'm looking at split gate. I even had a hard time saying it right there. Split gate is not as good as split fiction. It's funny, like these little rhythmic things, like split gate is a little like... Yeah, it's like it stops too soon or something. Gate is okay and split is good, but like split gate is a little hard where split fiction has a much nicer flow to it when you say it.
Also, Demon's School. That's a cool name. That's a good one. It follows Jason's rule. That plays into my rule from earlier. If you have a place and you fill it with something unexpected and that is an immediate winner of a name. Yeah, Demon's School.
Yeah, yeah. Looking at a few more of these. Frag punk. It's all right. There are too many other games of punk. Yeah, exactly. You don't want to remind everybody of every other game in your genre. And then you automatically feel like you're the same as all those other games.
Yeah, it's the kind of name that at least is punchy and kind of memorable enough that if that game is sensational and becomes a big phenomenon, I could see it. Like everyone just being really into fragpunk for a while, I suppose. I could see it happening, but I agree that it's a little, yeah. Names are funny like that and that if something becomes ubiquitous enough, it can just kind of stick with you even when it's bad. Like the word podcast. Like the word podcast. It's maybe one of those. Like the podcast is a good one.
Terrible. Yeah, that's true. And we're stuck with it. Jason, did you want to talk about the sports FC game? I don't know what your thought was, but I didn't want you to not have your chance. I do. So a couple of years ago, EA kind of parted ways with FIFA, the soccer licensing group, and they said, hey, we don't want to pay you anymore.
We're just going to do our games under, like, from our own branding. And they switched it to possibly the worst title of them all, calling it EA Sports FC. And so now, if you want a new soccer game from soccer, from EA, you have to go and buy EA. You have to go up to GameStop and say, I would like a new copy of EA Sports FC, please.
which is like, my goodness, what a cell phone. And then so EA put out preliminary results last week on their earnings that were just like a debacle and their stock has been down something like 20% in part because the most recent EA Sports FC didn't do well compared to the previous game. And that happened because, or one of the big reasons that happened was because when they did the name switch, they put in a huge marketing budget to
kind of telling the world that they had switched the names. And so they had a very high marketing budget for the 23 game. And then that marketing budget went down for the 24 game because the 20 fee game was successful. They felt like, OK, and people get it. They know the new brand. It doesn't need to happen anymore. And so they reduced the marketing budget. And as a result, the comp was really bad. And the game didn't sell as well and didn't bring in as much revenue.
But I still think that like marketing budgets can't save an awful name and EA Sports FC is still an awful name. Yeah, man I mean just knowing that there are people who only play FIFA and who call it FIFA and that that's video games to them is just FIFA and that suddenly what are they gonna say I can't really picture the guy who only plays FIFA being like oh I'm gonna go play some EA Sports FC probably or just like I'm gonna play FIFA
Like I'm gonna go play that soccer game or play that football game. Yeah, that's probably what there's a new EA football game the new EA soccer game So yeah, it's it's that's like a real bad cell phone because I feel like there are a lot of ways You can say okay. We're moving away from FIFA. We're gonna call it something else There are a lot of lot of ways that you could go that would be a lot more interesting and stronger than EA Sports FC
Yeah, it's like two letters on either side. It's like a kind of incomprehensible sandwich. Yeah, that's part of what's bad about it. EA is on one side, FC is on the other side. And then in the middle, you have sports, which tells you everything you need to know. If you look at the title, it's like, I don't know what this is. Just straight enough, I don't know what's happening. There's letters and there's the word sports. And then there's going to be a number at the end.
Compare that to Madden, which is just iconic. Who would have thought that one guy's name would just make for this perfect name for a series? Well, it goes to show that if whatever owns Madden, I suppose, the Madden estate ever was like, you can't use that anymore. Like if they were the same as FIFA, if they basically broke their partnership with EA, they would be in a similar pickle where they are relying on an outside brand.
to brand their very, very well-known franchise. So I suppose it's like, it's a vulnerability anytime you have to partner with another brand and then use their brand to power up your own product. Well, have we got any other, any other ones you guys want to get to? I feel like we'll probably come back to this subject from time to time. Yeah, this was fun. We review the games of the year each year and how the names are going, but this was a lot of fun. But yeah, I don't know any of these other ones jumping out at you, anything we haven't mentioned.
Yeah, I mean, I think we should start a consultancy and charge people a lot of money to come give us their names and we'll tell them if it's good and we'll make it better for them. We will give you good names. Yeah, we're here to help. It's like, okay, so there's a game coming out this week and I know some of the people involved, they seem like good people, I met a few of them and I haven't really played much of the game yet and it is called Eternal Strands.
And that name is just so bad. It is so offensive. It is so generic. It is like two words that are just awful together. But eternal strands, God, like strands in a name is just so bad in the first place. Eternal should just never be in anything ever. It's just so generic. And like, eternal should be banned. Or infinite.
Yeah, infinite. And any of those, it just makes me think of the most generic fantasy book cover. It's just like eternal strands, and you open it up in their 40 proper nouns, and it's just indecipherable. And God, there are so many ways that a name can go, and if you're going to go with eternal strands, you're just kind of shooting yourself in the foot. It's also funny because Kojima invented the strand type game.
If you put strands in the title, it's going to imply to people that it's a strand type game. As far as I know, Eternal Strands is not a strand type game. That is true. That is also confusing. Death Stranding is in its category of its own. It breaks every rule and yet makes it work. It does. It's such a weird set of words. It does follow the weird set of words rule that we've decided upon. Do we have it that we've invented here?
We'll refine these rules and I'm sure that we will apply them to game names in the future. And yeah, if we open that consultancy, I guess the first thing we'll have to do is name it. That'll be a terrible floppy confusing name for it. Then we can tell people that we won't do that for their game. I got it, guys. Name mansion. All right, let's take a break and we'll be back for one more thing.
Hey everybody, I'm Jeremy. I'm Oscar. I'm Demetri. And we are the Eurovangelists. For a weekly podcast spreading the word of the Eurovision Song Contest, the most important music competition in the world. Maybe you already heard Glenn Weldon of NPR's pop culture happy hour talk up our coverage of this year's contest. But what do we talk about in the off season?
the rest of Eurovision. Duh. They're nearly seven decades of pop music history to cover. Mm-hmm. We've got thousands of amazing songs, inspiring competitors, and so much drama to discuss. And let me tell you, the drama is juicy. Plus, all the gorillas and bread baking grandmas that make Eurovision so special. Check out Eurovangelists available everywhere you get podcasts, and you could be a Eurovangelist, too. Ooh, I want to be one. You already are. It's that easy. Oh, OK. Cool.
The greatest generation has been going on for more than eight years. And if you've been greatest gen curious, but have never taken the lead, we recommend exploring your greatest gen curiosity in a safe, fun environment with partners you can trust. And right now is one of the best times ever to become a new listener. That's because we just started covering a new Star Trek series, Star Trek Enterprise, one of the horniest and weirdest editions of Star Trek.
Ever released. This is your chance to ease in to the greatest generation lifestyle. The greatest generation, now covering Star Trek Enterprise. The one with Scott Bakula. Every Monday on MaximumFun.org or on your podcast app. And we are back for one more thing. Matty, why don't you go first?
Sure. So this week I watched all of Silo season two, which is a television show on Apple TV plus, but I really enjoyed and that we we actually did a beans cast together about season. Talk about bad names. There's Apple TV and Apple TV plus. I think Silo is pretty good for what it's worth. Yeah. Silo is good.
Oh yeah, no, it's Apple TV and Apple TV plus two different products and nothing to do in one another. Anyway, sorry to interrupt it. We're on name field forever. It's fine. But Silas season two really enjoyed it. Kirk and I were talking about it before the show and you pointed out that the middle is really slow. But I kind of didn't notice that because I just saved up all the episodes and watched them all in a whack.
I guess I'm saying this advice way too late for anyone else to take advantage of it or rather you're inherently taking advantage of it if you're watching the show now. But I think that's the best way to go about it. It does slow down a bit in the middle. Really, really love this show. It has common playing a weird evil guy. It has Tim Robbins playing a different evil guy. They're both amazing at it. And Rebecca Ferguson is like the enigmatic heroine who
I think stronger this season. I know Jason. I remember you saying that you felt like she wasn't emoting very much, but she's got a lot of high stress situations. She has to get through this season and like dialogue free high stress video game traversal type scenarios that I really enjoyed.
watching her get through a solo acting, just watching her solve problems by looking at things and you have to follow her train of thought. Yeah, I like that kind of thing. Very, very cool. Ellen, Steve Zahn is on this season and he plays a new character that I was obsessed with. So it's just great performances all around wonderful science fiction show about people who live in a silo underground in a post-apocalyptic world. And what more do you need to know? There's twists, there's turns, but they're not that complicated and you'll be able to follow along just fine. It doesn't.
I think what shocks me about the show is just how wonderful I find the performances to be. I don't know that the plot is ever really blowing my mind. That's fine with me, though. I enjoy it every time. So if you've never gotten around to it, I really recommend it. It's one of my Apple favorites. And now I just have to wait until severance season two is over, because that's how I watch these shows. Just wait until they're over. And then I'm going to watch them all. So yeah, silo. Really good show.
Yeah, I like the season overall in the end. There was a part in the middle where I was definitely kind of struggling just because Emily and I watched it week to week. Yeah, that seems tough. And there are points in it where it's like so many of those kind of dystopian tropes of the people in power are not telling everyone what's going on and the control of misinformation. And there are points where you're like, wait, why don't they all just sit down and talk? And this would be fine.
which can feel a little bit frustrating even though like obviously there are wheels within wheels and there's a lot going on with the silos but then once it starts carrying you away and you just get into the plot and the logistics of the silo which are always very fun and there's a lot more of in season two of like well we need to get to floor 33 because at 33 that's like where the farm is and we can get food but like if
If we can like block up two more floors from there and there's a lot of like fainting between the resistance and the, you know, authoritarian leaders and a lot of cool stuff there. And I enjoyed all of that. And yeah, in the end, I thought the last couple of episodes were very strong. Oh, yeah. And it's really strong.
Which helps. Looking forward to season three for sure. All right, I'll go next. I just wanted to recommend an essay that I read from 2021. That's actually in part about Jason's second book, Press Reset. And it's a really great piece called All Work and No Play written by Sam Adlerbell for Descent Magazine back in 2021.
So Sam, some listeners might know, along with Matthew Sitman, hosts the podcast Know Your Enemy, which is an extremely brainy politics and history podcast. It's kind of about understanding the American right, going all the way back to William F. Buckley and the times before my understanding of American politics.
And Sam and Matt are fantastic co-hosts, and I've loved their show for a while, and I wound up emailing with Sam, and he mentioned that he listens to TripleClick, which is another reason for us to feel very intimidated about some of the people who listen to our show, because there are some very, very smart people out there, apparently, who listen to TripleClick. But Sam likes video games and pointed me to this piece that he wrote that was
kind of a response and further thoughts to Jason's second book. It is a fantastic piece of writing and I really just want to recommend it to anyone out there who wants to read just some very intelligent writing about video games and labor and the way that video games interface with and reflect the nature of work in America, which is kind of the theme of the piece. It's a pretty long piece. It starts
focusing on Jason's book and talking about the this is press reset which is largely about the fallout and labor conditions in the video game industry and then it kind of pulls this pivot after about a third and starts to talk about video games themselves the pivot is very fascinating it's basically hinging on an idea that I've
I've had myself and have talked about many times in reviews that most video games, like all art, really reflect something about the way that they were made. You know, the society, the culture, and the people that made them are reflected in the finished work itself.
So then he gets into how video games are designed in the ways that video games really simulate work. And he's citing all kinds of great writers and people who will be familiar to, I think, a lot of readers from, you know, Tom Bissell to Frank Lance and Sarah Jaffe and Cecilia Donastacio turns up at one point some of her reporting.
and actually David Graber and Bullshit Jobs makes an appearance too. So it's kind of like, it crosses a whole lot of various interests that listeners of this show, I think we'll kind of clock as they read it. And really, I just think it's like a wonderfully written, a very provocative, at times almost revolutionary piece that I really recommend reading. Like, I just loved it. I've read it twice. I thought it was so good. And I'm just, it's really cool to see someone like Sam writing about video games so thoughtfully.
So that's my recommendation, a piece called All Work and No Play, that will link in the show notes by Sam Adler Bell, written for Descent. And yeah, Jason, you're last. What's your one more thing?
My remember thing is a book by Stephen King called You Like It Darker. This is his most recent book. It's a compilation of short stories, although that might be a misnomer because it's actually a group of short stories and then one novella in the middle of it that is like 120 pages long.
And so I opened and I went into it. Yeah, I went into it expecting this story. Then there's one that is not a short story. And that also happens to be the best one. And it's awesome. It's like getting a little mini bonus Stephen King book in the middle. So this book.
It's funny, despite the title and the tagline is like, oh, you like it darker, huh? So do I. Here's a bunch of super dark stories. None of them are all really that dark. They're all just kind of Stephen King stories. Some of them are disturbing and there's obviously horror all over the place, but it's not like some of them are going to make you start questioning your emotions or something like that. It's not like they're... Is there a point in any of the stories where someone looks at someone else and says, oh, so you like it darker?
No, there is not. The quote is from the title is from The Afterward. That's Stephen King-Pens. But there's a lot of good stuff in there, as you might expect. It opens with this great story about this super-talented prolific writer at the end of his life, and the secrets behind his talents as a writer. And that one is great and unsettling.
There's a lot of good stuff in there. There's stuff about aliens and supernatural stuff, all sorts of cool stuff. But the best part is this story, this novella. And it's called Danny Coughlin's Bad Dream. And the premise is that this guy named Danny has a dream that just is haunting him that he cannot stop thinking about. And it's about a dead body. And he winds up trying to track down the specific place where he sees the dead body in the dream.
and he goes and finds the place and he finds a dead body. And then he seeing the body and like feeling bad because he's like a good dude and he's like empathetic and he sees this dead woman and he's like oh my god. He kind of clumsily makes an anonymous tip to the police to be like there's a dead body here like he wants it to be rescued. There's a dog trying to gnaw at the
the body's feet, and he doesn't want the dog to get it. And so he buys a burner phone and does it in a clumsy way, and he's caught on the security camera. And of course, the police get the stamp, and they track him down, and they think he's someone who killed her. And the story unfolds from there. And he's like, this guy who had the stream, saw this vision, and then tries to explain to the police that actually he saw it in a dream. And they're like, how did you know that dead woman was there? Wait a minute. This is kind of like a dead zone riff. It's a little dead zony.
Um, so that story is really good. And that's probably the highlight of the book and the fact that you're buying the short story book, which I was a little hesitant to get it at first, even because I was like, I don't, I want to full on Stephen King, but I don't want to just short stories, but he sneaks a novella in there and it's great. And it's worth getting just for that novella. Um, plus you get a bunch of cool stories surrounding it. So, uh, as always with Stephen King, uh, enjoyed it quite a bit and, and how he recommended it. I actually, uh, uh,
have been thinking Kirk I think you'll appreciate this. I never read the dark tower books and I have the gunslinger like sitting on my desk here and I think I'm gonna try to find some time to start it. I have a bunch of other books to get through but gonna try to sneak this up in the queue.
Nice. Our buddies over at Just King Things just finished the Dark Tower. They did all the three recent ones on their show, and it made me want to reread the whole thing because they were very up on the final three books. I'd say Song of Susanna is still the one with the most nonsense going on, but they really had this really fascinating take on it.
that it was partly informed by the fact that they've read every single Stephen King book up until the end of the Dark Tower and because the Dark Tower- In publication order, as they say. And yes, that's the method. And because the Dark Tower is such a meta textual book that encompasses everything he's ever written, if you've done that, it's actually a very rewarding and interesting book. And now that I haven't read every one of his books, but I've read a lot more than when I first read the Dark Tower. And I've listened to basically every episode of Just King Things since it's my
It has to be my favorite podcast forever because there's a t-shirt that says that it's my favorite podcast. So anyways, I'm much more familiar now with his work and I want to reread it too. So, uh, well, let me know when you read it. Maybe I'll read it along with you. We can do a little text message book club or something. That would be fun. If you want to join in, you would be welcome. I've never read it. Yeah. I've never read it. Maybe we should do a gunslinger bonus episode, beans, gas.
Yeah, that could be fun. There we go. Okay. Good stuff. All right. Well, good bonus planning, planning meeting on this show. We'll come back to that. That would be good. It'd be a little intimidating trying to make a podcast about Stephen King after listening to the masters do it for so many years. I know what we have to have. Michael, that's in Cameron Councilman on. Who's to say? So yeah, maybe we just have have Michael and Cameron come on.
And they just be like, why are we here? We already did a whole episode of every drug. We don't want to talk about it anymore. No, maybe we pretend to have them on, but we actually just play excerpts from their episodes and make it sound like we're talking to them. Yeah, normal. Normal suggestion. Just normal podcasting stuff.
All right, well, this has been a very enjoyable episode. Just King Things, great name. Yes, it is. It is a great name. Yeah, it is a great name. You know what else is a great name? Triple click. Triple click. It is a great name. We really thought about it. We did. We did spend some time thinking of it. And I'm still pretty... We spent a lot of time brainstorming this thing. We did. Takes a lot of work to come up with a good name. Can't just throw out the first thing you think of.
It does. As we learned in talking about these names today. So yeah, this was a lot of fun. Let's say goodbye for now and we will see all of you next week. See you next week. Bye.
TripleClick is produced by Jason Shrier, Maddy Myers, and me, Kirk Hamilton. I had it next to show and also wrote our theme music. Our show art is by Tom Geejay. Some of the games and products we talked about on this episode may have been sent to us for free for review consideration. You can find a link to our ethics policy in the show notes.
TripleClick is a proud member of the Maximum Fun Podcast Network, and if you like our show, we hope you'll consider supporting us by becoming a member at maximumfun.org. Find us on Twitter at TripleClickPods and email the tripleclick at maximumfun.org and find a link to our Discord in the show notes. Thanks for listening! See you next time!
Maximum fun. A worker-owned network of artist-owned shows. Supported directly by you.
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