Distribution How do you come up with a name for your video game company?

It’s difficult to come up with a name for a video game company. Like Nintendo, Bandai Namco, Square Enix, Konami, Capcom, etc.
 

PinkySwear

Member
well, it depends on how you are and how you want it to represent you or your values.. for exemple if you are someone greedy and always want more from your devs, you could go for names like GreedyOnes, or Greedun (wich is a mix of english greed and french 'un')
So it all goes depending of you, and if you want a name that clearly indicate what it is, or a name invented with parts of what it represent.

Needless to say, if you are totally unsure, you should call it Notime4Name 🙃
 
Honestly names aren't the biggest deal. They're the kinda thing that always sound kinda corny and weird the first few times someone hears them (or just 'eh'), but if you actually do good things, then that name becomes associated with those good things and takes on a meaning beyond the simple words. Just pick a word or a phrase or concept that you like and google it to see if there're any other game companies associated with it. If not, then you're in the clear. Also, when you're a small fry, no-one cares too much if you change your name, especially before you release anything. Without anything associated with the name, you don't really have a brand to uphold and there's no problem in changing things around.
 

Yal

🐧 *penguin noises*
GMC Elder
A lot of big indies these days pick something related to whatever they release first: Red Hook is a Lovecraft novel, White Rabbit's first game is about the inevitability of death and it's right in their logo, and so on.

Not to mention people that just use their regular name outright: Tom Happ, Toby Fox etc.
 

Khao

Member
There's a lot of ways. For my own game company, the whole team talked for a while and we tried to come up with... concepts and ideas that brought us together.

We talked about a ton of stuff. The whole team have similar taste in music. We've all played role playing games together (like, D&D style role playing games) and have had an absolute blast with it. We like telling stories, but we also like keeping things somewhat goofy and lighthearted. And definitely, absolutely we're super invested into fantasy worlds. Magic. Fun characters.

We danced around those concepts for a while, and we landed on the concept of the bard. Like the medieval bard. The guy that plays and writes music and tells stories. Also the goofiest D&D class. We envisioned a magical bard traveling through the universe and running into all sorts of fun shaenanigans and weird adventures. Basically thinking about this... almost character, on a conceptual level. Eventually we convined the idea of the Bard, and the Stars (which btw, is also kind-of in honor of our first game's main character, who has a star motif going on and is also named after a real star). And that led to Astrobard Games, which became the final name.

Now, the method is not perfect (I still stumble a bit when someone asks why we're called that, lol), but it's still a method and it worked decently for us. Think about the things you have in common with your team. The things you all stand for. The type of games you want to create. Even just... things you like. Think of a way to put those things together in one concept. Then think of fun ways you can use that concept.

Alternatively, you can just not think too hard about it and pick something that sounds cool. For example Blizzard famously got their name because they literally just decided to find cool-sounding words in the dictionary and got bored when they reached B.
 
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