New Company Needs Help with Name Take 2

[Hjorimir]

Toss me into that "moral majority." I find most of the names so annoyingly dark I'd be wondering if I was buying a game resource or some kind of cultist propaganda that I'm altogether uninterested in.

Hey, you asked.

 

[I'm A Banana]

DOUBLE BLOODY POSTAGE!

 

[I'm A Banana]

I did notice that a lot of them were 'grim' or 'dark' or 'macabre' sounding names, which is a funky thing to name a company after....

So make it Happy Fluffy Bunny Land Productions, and you should be fine.

The clincher is to have your logo be a bunny in dark gray, glaring angrily out of the cover at you, edgy and dangerous....

But your name....Happy Fluffy Bunny Land...I mean, who can argue with that! Unless you hate apple pie, baseball, and America!

 

[WCrawford]

How about Meat Shields R Pretty... MSRP for short.

Use a pretty boy with a stupid grin for a logo. The Jauxer (sp?) character from the Xena show pops into mind almost instantly.

 

[archastrel]

Dr. Anomalous, what do you find "offputing" or "mildly offensive" about the names? Well, besides Gut Puppet, that is rather offputing. I am not disputing your feelings towards the names, just trying to better understand them.

I'm not Dr. Anomalous, but I felt the same way, so:

Black Anvil Press

- A bit dark. I didn't pick this one, but it's not particularly problematic.

Dark Art Creations

- "Dark Art" has negative connotations and didn't evoke a good feeling of someone I would want to buy from.

Chaos Theory

- The one I picked. The most interesting, to me, and had only mildly displeasing overtones.

Foul Brethren Inc.

- "Foul" does not evoke confidence for a company name, and "Brethren" has some negative connotations.

Gut Puppet

- Evoked various negative visceral images to me, and definitely did not seem like a company I would want to deal with.

Seven Sins Studio

- Negative religious connotations (Seven Deadly Sins), and not a company I would trust. (Greed? Lust?!)

Fallen Virtue Designs

- Negative connotation with respect to trust.

Amoral Oracle

- Negative connotation with respect to trust and, well, morality.

Grim Ledger Publications

- Minor negative connotations, evoked dark imagery.

As an aside, there was a suggestion of "Prospero Press" above. Had that been a choice, I would have picked that one. Very ingenious.

 

[Bloodstone Press]

I voted for "Other." The best name for a gaming company I've seen was something like "Black Mountain Tactical Research Center."

When I saw that that I said, "Damn, I wish I'd thought of that." I like it because it sounds more like a defense contractor than a gaming company. Normally, I would advise against doing something like that. The rule really is that your company name should make it clear what it is that you do. But in that case, I thought it was a good move because it does still say what the company does, and it says it in a way that is memorable – by not sounding like any other game company name.

My company’s name is not really a very good one for a publisher. The fact that it says “Press” makes it passable, I think. But it doesn’t really say what I do. I picked it for lack of a better name, and “Bloodstone” is something at least familiar to most gamers. But if I had it to do over again, I’d probably pick a name like “The Center for Strategic Research,” or “The Bureau of Tactical Studies” or something of that nature.

 

[Harlock]

Meat Shield Productions

but I'm stoopid that way.

 

[Turanil]

Prospero Press

This I like much! A publishing company with that name is doomed to be prosperous.

Anyway, all these evil sounding names sound boring. Your forgot to add "Glistening Skull Press" and "Bleeding Fiend, inc" to the list.

 

[NeuroZombie]

I choose Black Anvil for many of the same reasons as mentioned above. I am definitely not offended by any of the choices, but I think choosing a particularly visceral name, such as Gut Puppet would be akin to publishing suicide. You must find the fine line between "dark and edgy" and "politically correct (for lack of a better term)".

 

[Davelozzi]

Foul Brethren Inc.

"Inc." has a legal meaning - that your company has been officially incorporated. You can't just slap it on there because you like the way it sounds with the name. I'm not sure if that's what you were doing but since it didn't appear on your other names, I'm guessing so.

I voted Black Anvil, but Chaos Theory was my second choice.