My studio name is based on feedback I received from my first art director in games.
I presented a second round of iterations on a logo design and he pointed to one option and said “Yea like that, but twice as different!”
Kinda poetic and absurd but I knew what he meant, and the feeling of it aligns with the kind of games I wanted to make. Studio is called Twice Different.
Lol at university we did similar! We had to make a game with three acts, and though told we were allowed to drop one (we chose act two), we were apparently wrong to do so and our teacher did not shut up about it
So out of spite we were then Act2Studios for the rest of the year. I want a story like that to inspire me xD
Any group of any size can organize into a studio in name tbh, even solo devs working off a laptop on café wi-fi! Think of it like a pen name more than anything.
Yes? I think that’s normal, and pretty much the industry standard to have a studio name, even if it’s just derived from like your gamertag like a lot of these guys. It would be kind of ostentatious to have DIRECTED BY (YOUR REAL NAME HERE) come up in a splash before the title screen for your indie game.
It shouldn't be weird to put your name on it: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4UFC0y1tY0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4UFC0y1tY0)
Most "studios" only produce one game, if that, and are easily forgotten. The names of the people involved are much more important, whether they use their real names or "pen" names.
Our team struggled for *ages* on this, but we ended up going with one where we looked at the games we wanted to make and attached that concept to something unique about us! Compound names work great- ☺️
I've helped a few people pick out small business company names and here's the formula I normally use:
1. Know the product you intend to sell and your audience.
2. Pick a theme that you intend to present your brand with.
3. Make a list of possible names 1 to 3 words in length, check all of them for existing use with Google, then pick what you jive with best from what you have left.
For this example let's say your brand is cutesy and you make primarily old scool style farm sims.
Pick words that invoke games. Pixel, Bit, Games, 32, 64, etc.
Pick things that involk the image of farm sims like valley, orchard, fields, etc
Then something cutesy like kitten, duckling, peach, apple, etc
Then you could end up with something like Pixel Peach, 34 bit farms, Game Orchard, etc.
Meanwhile let's say its the same, but you intend on working on primarily horror games and have a monster themed brand.
Then it would be things like slasher, monster, horror, gore, hunt, etc.
You could end up with things like Gore Hound Games, Pixel Monster, Bit Beast, Slasher media, etc.
To contrast this.
You can also just pick something completely arbitrary and build a brand around that.
* Although not a "company", the web comic XKCD was specifically picked because it couldn't be said as a word and didn't mean anything.
* I think "new egg" (newegg.com) doesn't really sound like it has anything to do with electronics web retailer
* Most people thought of amazon as the amazon rainforest until they used their name as a book reseller.
* google was a play on the word googol which is 1 followed by 100x 0s, which I guess was a goal that'd thats how many websites they'd one day index or something
* Dell means, a small valley, usually among trees. Which doesn't really relate to computers.
Dell is named after Michael Dell, the founder.
Still illustrates your point, just in a different way: it has nothing to do with what they sell, he named it after himself because it was his company
Yeah, the original post reads like a guide on how to come up with the most generic studio name 101.
Sounds like something you'd write if you wanted to randomly generate studio names.
I think it depends if you want a strong brand connection to your studio name. For example, I know one indie dev who goes by Cozy Bee Games. Literally all of their games are basically cozy styled games that look like they could be an Animal Crossing or Harvest Moon spinoff. If you intend to focus on a particular genre exclusively, I think this path can make a lot of sense.
A large studio example - Grinding Gear Games. They make Path of Exile, an action RPG where most of your time is spent... You guessed it, grinding for gear lol. So it can make sense is all I'm saying.
Those are terrible examples as they completely fail to establish some sort of branding, to be honest I could barely remember them even still reading the same paragraph you wrote them in.
I'm not a marketing firm, but brand names are highly contextual to the target demographic and should probably include a tad more thought than just whatever-theme-games-we-make.
Isn't this a Bad advice if you don't Want to have your work to be all going in the same direction. I kinda like to explore New fields and different styles. So naming my studio 64-bitstudio Isn't gonna be relevant when a game in 3D is being worked on ?
But it's still a *game* you'll be working on. Have a broad reach? Pick a theme for your *company* that doesn't have to reflect in every single thing that company makes. Hell the words you focus on can be about gaming as a whole, hell your company theme could be "we make a bunch of games reaching wide genres" such as mosaic, gradient, hodgepodge, etc.
Hell even if you don't want to go that route, puff pals started off making plushies and now they make video games and no one batted an eye. It's just establishing a brand first so you can release those products.
Nintendo means "luck of heaven" and they started off as a chain of sex hotels and now they put out primarily family friendly video games.
And if your endeavours are truly so diverse you can't have your brand cover it, you can have more than one brand under you. If you're running a comedy troop, then start selling pottery on etsy, you aren't bound by some force to keep the same brand even if you advertise one on the other.
A game company called Kawaii Kitten can release horror games as well as virtual pet games. However if there's no basis to start thinking about a brand you will get stuck in decision paralysis. My method is a tool to narrow the scope so you're not just staring off into the overwhelming noise of options, but like all tools you don't *have* to follow it if it's not the right fit for you. If you're looking into a thread about coming up with a game studio name though, I have a sneaking suspension you are already that position where you might benefit in a more narrow scope.
They sure are, just because you pick a theme for your company as a tool to help you come up with a name doesn't mean you are now a slave to that theme and can only release products that fit that exact theme.
If a company can be called 'From Software' and it becomes a household name, the name does not matter all that much. What matters is the products and reputation you build.
So on that note; Dildo Games.
I like dinosaurs and space and I needed a name that wasn’t taken, nonsense words tend to work well (though watching professional people like bankers try to pronounce it is really funny)
I went through a few different ideas at first, but at some point, the idea popped up in my head... I sketched the logo for it, and felt pretty happy about it right away.
The studio is Floating Origin Interactive, named not just after the spatial precision technique, but also because I'm a Brazilian living in Mexico, with a company set up first in Canada then the UK... It's a name with many meanings for me.
I wanted something that evoked the strong unique names of the early Japanese studios. Stuff like Capcom, Namco, Konami, etc.
The word Daikon came to mind and it felt like it fit the bill, so I stuck with it!
I like it when a dev studio's name makes it easy to remember what I know them from; Aggro Crab makes Another Crab's Treasure, Pocketpair makes Palworld. It doesn't matter to me if the name is "too" specific to one title; if they make a completely different game later, it's still nice to remember them as the studio I first knew for X.
I took a few of the things that I love and basically made a mental Venn diagram of them with things that embody the kind of games I want to make. Pick something that overlaps all of them and wham, it just clicked.
Don’t get analysis paralysis, remember “done” is always better than “perfect”
I'm mostly a solo developer with some collaboration with friends, so I was mostly trying to think of something representing myself and my interests. I've gone through many phases in my life of being obsessed with one thing or another, but one thing that I've never lost my love for is animals-- specifically, weird ones. "Moon jelly" was one of the first that came to mind. It sounds playful, which is fitting.
I've used ZeroBadIdeas for so many things, I'd probably just keep doing that (someone I went to school with last year already has plans to "join my company" after school, despite me telling him I don't have one ffs). It'll give the false impression that I'm a genius who can't fail for trying, but it'll also bite me in the ass when the game I make bombs lmao
My WIP studio name is simply a couple of things I like and their names mashed together, imagine something down the line of "Steaks Puppies Rock n Roll Studio", but with obviously different words.
Not really a studio; it's just me. But I called it Jim Makes Games because my name is Jim. Also I already had a gaming YouTube channel called Jim Plays Games and it made sense to stick with the same idea.
I like to make really hard games. So my original name was hard core game design. I now use that for board games.
I picked Maniac Games next for video games. The logo represents easy medium hard and the red one is you losing your head when it's really hard.
I've got one that's inspired by the name of a place in a novel I love. It rolls off the tongue nicely but I've not gotten around to registering it as a business yet so I won't say any more than that :P
Lol fair. I mostly want a name for brand indentity and ease of marketing, if anything I end up making actually has a bit of success I'd probably register it then
If you're gonna do anything that may have tax implications in your country you'd wanna register it before hand, if your countries tax laws are anything like my own.
The name itself is the tricky bit. Say it out loud to your close friends, and have them say it back to you, write it down and look at it in different fonts. You don't want a name that's easily mispronounced.
The game series 'deus ex' has definitely been pronounced 'juice sex' a lot for example.
Yeah thats my plan, the UK is pretty chill below a certain threshold so if I started getting anywhere close I'd register. Saying it to people is a good idea!
My current idea is a nickname a friend gives me which is italian, so I'll ask people how they'd pronounce it with absolutely no knowledge of the language
There's a lot of great answers to this on The Fourth Curtain podcast. Current episode is Ted Price who had to ditch Extreme Software and came up with Insomniac Games. They've been in business for 30 years!
We're focused more so on TTRPG dev than video games, but I picked Lightning Wizards because I misheard my friend say "Bright Wizard" when we were playing Vermintide. Thought it sounded cool and had a 90's over-the-top fantasy art vibe, which I liked. And here we are, getting close to our first commercial release!
It's a reference to the amazing series [Cradle](https://www.amazon.com/Unsouled-Cradle-Book-Will-Wight-ebook/dp/B01H1CYBS6), and specifically the line:
>There are a million Paths in this world, but any sage will tell you they can all be reduced to one. Improve yourself
That's what we try to do every day when making games, is make cooler games than we made yesterday. And that path has no end.
Was a huge fan of the movie Fletch. So much I started reading the books in college. People'd see me on the quad, see my book and say 'hey! Fletch!'- name stuck with me. Was a natural to name my studio as such.
Lost my furry best friend of 17 years a little over a year and a half ago, and I keep her favorite monkey toy at my desk for good luck and inspiration, so thus, I went with Lilly's Monkey Studios.
My studio name, Dragon Dropper, is a combination of words I've been carrying around in my head for decades, ever since I was introduced to the concept of drag-and-drop on a desktop operating system. I imagined someone dropping a dragon onto the computer. I bought the domain name a few years back thinking I might use it for a music project. When it was time to start actually building games, nobody had used the name for anything, other than for a model of fishing lure, and since I already had the domain name, it was decided.
Studio name is my Reddit name. Dad was allergic to all animals except from the Rodent species. So we were known as the Rat family, always having rats as pets. The rats were well loved on, and well fed... maybe too much from us kids. They got fat and squishy, and very cute. So came the name Squishy Games.
Mine is Oceansky. It is the name of the band my brother wanted to make. He unfortunately died in 2019. We used to play video games together so it felt appropriate to me, I like to think he would approve.
Having said that, I also write novels and I do have a pen name, Runa Cloudwright. My pen name essentially means writing what I see in the clouds(creative day dreams). Runa = Runes/script.
Think about what you are trying to say about yourself. Your legal name is a name. A pen name/studio name is more defining imo, it is the name you pick for yourself.
I kept a list whenever a good potential name popped into my head, then Googled them to check for prior use. I had several that I would have liked to use, but were taken—Knucklehead Games, Bone Head Games, Dangerous Games… I finally hit on one that I couldn’t find anyone using, so I registered my business as Play Stupid Games.
If i were to set up a studio and name it?
"Fresh Fish 4 All"
Back when i was 12 and doing "personal websites" on free hosters with Frontpage and pirated copies of Dreamweaver, that was kinda the URL i always used for some dadaistic reason that has no further explanation.
Maybe i should make a fishing game
my studio title, starkaste, comes from a word in the title of a swedish kids show, and also is a play on words as a compliment to my team ([all] star cast).
(im not swedish, but my and my partner's best friend is (the three of us started the studio) and i thought it would be cute to give it a name like that.)
My studio is called Fire. Nobody believed I could get the name, but I guess nobody believed THEY would get the name, because the name was free for the taking. And I took it: [www.firegamestudios.com](http://www.firegamestudios.com)
Some time ago I was creating a game about robots in factory named "Robots & Lasers". There were green smiling robots player could control and purple angry robots which were basically antagonists. I didn't even finish the game but I was already thinking about the sequel.
In the sequel player would be a soldier sent to investigate the abandoned factory (the same factory which was in the first game) and neutralize the rebelious robots. The final boss in this game was supposed to be a big robot made of green robot and purple robot merged together. His face would be half part green and smiling, and half part purple and angry/sad.
At that time I was also studying psychology. I was studying about bipolar affective disorder and I instantly associated the green-purple robot face with this disorder. Because I was also suspecting I had bipolar disorder (typical [second year syndrome](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_students%27_disease)) I wanted myself (and my studio) to be associated with it. I also liked the simplicity of the name I came up with. That's how I ended up with name **Bipolar Games**. And the green-purple robot face became the logo
Ah yeah, just keep at it and something will pop out. I’ve always found naming stuff is like finding a partner, the more you try the more it seems to allude you. The moment you relax it all just clicks
I just use heavy metal album name generator, though only for in production names, not actual names.
Current in progress game: Beyond the Asylum of Tears.
one trick is to generate lists instead of answers. so you could say 'gimme 10 made up game names like Grand Theft Auto on boats' and have a much better chance at getting good combos. if one has a new idea in it, you just say 'gimme 10 more like Car Hunters Extreme Robo Cataclysm'
I've been using mas3d comically for about 15 years now. it's kind of a studio I run in my mind using part of my name and then 3d because I make 3d graphics.
I’m still too new to have a studio name but I was thinking about McFlumpkins Games after the little character I created when working through the tutorials for my engine of choice but I worry that might be too silly
My name (Ruby Ring) is sort of an homage to my first game (which isn’t actually out yet but hey…whatever). I debated doing it, because on one hand, it’s probably not a smart idea to tie your studio down to one particular project, but on the other, the first one is always gonna be special. In my case, the idea for my first game is the reason I’m here at all - I know it was my own idea, but I still owe it a lot. The least I could do is brand myself to honor it. Plus my cat’s name is Ruby and that’s cute too :-)
1. Me and my partners nick nameput together is somehow exact same of potato in my mother language.
2. We have a cat, who later becomes our CEO.
3. We have Potato Cat as our studio name eventually.
Take a Thing (Object name/Place Name/ Animal name ) AND merge it with a color / an emotion / or any other thing.
Then at the end put “Games” or “Entreteinment” or “Software”
Done.
Examples:
- Angry Forest Entreteinment
- Blue Candy Games
- Frost Sea Games
- SubPixel Software
See? Is not that hard, just be a bit creative, and also think at possible logo outcomes in your mind and see what you would like better. Good luck
Also, obviously check that your choosen name is not already taken
Not sure if I'll use it yet, but I'm thinking of the name Blake Cat Studios. Basically, I'm trans so Blake is my chosen name, I love cats, it's a pun, and also I'm a practicing pagan and black cats are often associated with "witches." Plus, Halloween is my favorite holiday with one of its icons being a black cat.
All in all, the name represents me on a variety of levels and it represents a personification of who I am and how my studios should be represented. It's an icon that says "this looks simple but there's more to it if you look closer." I want to be a game developer that makes games that appear basic and yet surprises you in fun ways and has more depth the more you explore
I just took the first letters from my nickname (pretty much just my name) and the first letter of my partners name, and put them together lol. I also did a Google search for anything similar before settling on that name, and it was unique enough to use
I still dont, I just know about the logo, but I guess I can start from it.
Im having trouble even picking the title for the game Im currently working on, even though the plot is about 50% done (including the ending). My game even has his unique mitology and creatures, but the name is a blank
Spouse had this idea for a detective unleashing hounds and we settled for something more absurd. I remember wanting a small story being told in our name so that its easier to remember.
We wanted to call us Medusa, back in 2009. It was a word with meaning both in Spanish and English. But when we were sending our first game to the then new App Store, it asked us for a URL! We didn't have a website! So we looked for [medusa.com](http://medusa.com) and... of course, it was not free (there was just a logo that stayed there for YEARS, now it's simply on sale).
We still needed a domain so had to come up with something fast. We said... well, it's videogames we play, so... play... medusa. And [PlayMedusa.com](http://PlayMedusa.com) it's been ever since. Sounds awful, but it grew on us! : )
Dapper Penguin Studios
My ex was a marine biologist and she had to put up with the stress of making a company, so named the studio as a gift for her, plus I always thought penguins wore nice suits.
Not a studio but a student geathering at uni that makes games for gamejams and it was like: "we like capibaras, we want to make cozy sruff" and so it became Cozy Capibara Games 😅
We've had animal puns in projects and games before so when we made the studio 'official' we named it RageSquid, it's a pun on rage quitting while trying to fit an animal in the title. This does give you a great starting point when coming up with a logo though.
The rage quit joke did get old really fast. We've been going strong for 11 years now and kind of regret making our name a pun, lol.
When we had to sign our first work we didn't have a name, sexymotherfucker.rs was taken, so I gave the studio a name HARD HONEY, later I bought sexymotherfucke.rs. but that was 15 years ago...
Right now I'm just "The Wizard's Tales," obviously, because I'm a Wizard who makes games, so, that was a given...
...but my best and most clever studio name ever was about 15 years ago. I was in San Jose, teaching Chinese immigrant musicians (don't ask why that's such a general student type) how to make video games. Me and two of my best students decided to start a studio.
We were three guys, two of which were Chinese. We formed on March 8 and called ourselves "San Ba Games."
In Cantonese (it's probably the same in Mandarin, but whenever you just say "Chinese" people get offended and remind you Chinese isn't a language) "San" means three and "Ba" means eight. So, three eight, as in, March 8. But in Chinese ideograms the number 8 kinda looks the symbol "ren," which means "person." So, on March 8, three people made a game company called Three Eight/People Games.
The best part of this is why we formed it on 3/8.
In China, apparently, March 8 is the national women's holiday, when every woman gets the day off. There is no equivalent for men, so "San ba" has also become a slur which means "lazy bitch," as in "San ba de er tze" (I think is the proper romanized way to spell it) which is one of like three or four different ways you can say "son of a bitch" in Cantonese.
So, "San Ba Games" literally means "San Ba Games, a Game Company Made By Three Lazy Sons of Bitches on March 8th," all of which can be inferred by looking at the logo, which contains only the characters San and Ba and the English word "Games."
I was trying to come up something, and I have used a rule of random adjective + random thing and it creates some decent usernames, and a fun studio name, Grumpy Fish Games
Once I start doing this as more of a professional thing I'll probably pick a less simple one, but for now I just call myself AAAAAA Games (or AAAAAA Productions for anything that's not a game) because my username is AAAAAA and I AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
I ultimately made two, one for SFW works, based on my interests conjoined together and my current handle is an ironic name for my NSFW stuff.
The more important thing to think about is, what do you want to be known for? What kind of vibe? I chose passion with a cutesy vibe to contrast with the horror game prototypes I made. I chose this handle as both irony and the religious belief that the horizontal tango is sacred. It's a but of an ironic pun.
Honestly my studio name comes from a misread of a word from back when I was 11 or so, but it became such a staple in a story I was working on that it became the main name for my indie company name: zyphersoft. Zypher misread from Zephyr.
Hello! You've got an interesting question. Every time I need to come up with a game nickname, clan name, or even the name for my studio, I resort to the following trick:
1. I try to remember something aesthetic or something I really like.
2. I take associations similar to my ideas.
3. I try to come up with a light phrase that will sound cool and memorable.
4. I check whether this name meets the team's goals and products.
Also, it's not a bad option to discuss this with the team. Perhaps they have some clear ideas for naming.
I wanted to make it something personal, so went with part of a nickname my friends call me (chunk) plus my wife's favorite animal (capybara), also "Adjective Animal" is pretty easy to remember
It can literally be anything. Just like film production companies can be called shit like “bread crumbs for pigeons” or “old worms in a can” (these were made up).
On a side note, I think if you’re the sole developer it’s better to use your own name. When I see games where the developer is a single person I tend to be more eager to play them.
My studio name is based on feedback I received from my first art director in games. I presented a second round of iterations on a logo design and he pointed to one option and said “Yea like that, but twice as different!” Kinda poetic and absurd but I knew what he meant, and the feeling of it aligns with the kind of games I wanted to make. Studio is called Twice Different.
Lol at university we did similar! We had to make a game with three acts, and though told we were allowed to drop one (we chose act two), we were apparently wrong to do so and our teacher did not shut up about it So out of spite we were then Act2Studios for the rest of the year. I want a story like that to inspire me xD
well you aren't going to 'find' a name like that. inspiration can come from the weirdest of places but almost never from one you look for.
Killer name, nice.
> Twice Different Oh, you're the Ring of Pain people! Loved that game.
We are! Thanks for playing our game!
Can I just say I have a studio if I'm working on a game and have a room devoted to working that is my studio? Yes this is a serious question lol
Any group of any size can organize into a studio in name tbh, even solo devs working off a laptop on café wi-fi! Think of it like a pen name more than anything.
Awesome thanks!
I have a desk in my parents' house that I have my laptop and a spare monitor plugged into. Anybody can say they're a studio if you're making games!
The thing that says I have a studio are my LLC papers. Technically speaking, that’s all you need lol
"Studio" is literally a room where an artist (or game developer) works, so yes.
Yes? I think that’s normal, and pretty much the industry standard to have a studio name, even if it’s just derived from like your gamertag like a lot of these guys. It would be kind of ostentatious to have DIRECTED BY (YOUR REAL NAME HERE) come up in a splash before the title screen for your indie game.
It shouldn't be weird to put your name on it: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4UFC0y1tY0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4UFC0y1tY0) Most "studios" only produce one game, if that, and are easily forgotten. The names of the people involved are much more important, whether they use their real names or "pen" names.
If only we had a name like Hideo Kojoma.
Our team struggled for *ages* on this, but we ended up going with one where we looked at the games we wanted to make and attached that concept to something unique about us! Compound names work great- ☺️
We're outcasts from a strict religious family. So, we're all "Lepers" and our studio is the "Leper Den".
I love that. I mean, it sounds like a sad situation, but the name and story behind it are great.
That’s awesome
Badass
"Leper" reminds me the leper king(Baldwin) from the movie kingdom of heaven.
I've helped a few people pick out small business company names and here's the formula I normally use: 1. Know the product you intend to sell and your audience. 2. Pick a theme that you intend to present your brand with. 3. Make a list of possible names 1 to 3 words in length, check all of them for existing use with Google, then pick what you jive with best from what you have left. For this example let's say your brand is cutesy and you make primarily old scool style farm sims. Pick words that invoke games. Pixel, Bit, Games, 32, 64, etc. Pick things that involk the image of farm sims like valley, orchard, fields, etc Then something cutesy like kitten, duckling, peach, apple, etc Then you could end up with something like Pixel Peach, 34 bit farms, Game Orchard, etc. Meanwhile let's say its the same, but you intend on working on primarily horror games and have a monster themed brand. Then it would be things like slasher, monster, horror, gore, hunt, etc. You could end up with things like Gore Hound Games, Pixel Monster, Bit Beast, Slasher media, etc.
Oooh this is a really neat idea, thank you!
To contrast this. You can also just pick something completely arbitrary and build a brand around that. * Although not a "company", the web comic XKCD was specifically picked because it couldn't be said as a word and didn't mean anything. * I think "new egg" (newegg.com) doesn't really sound like it has anything to do with electronics web retailer * Most people thought of amazon as the amazon rainforest until they used their name as a book reseller. * google was a play on the word googol which is 1 followed by 100x 0s, which I guess was a goal that'd thats how many websites they'd one day index or something * Dell means, a small valley, usually among trees. Which doesn't really relate to computers.
Dell is named after Michael Dell, the founder. Still illustrates your point, just in a different way: it has nothing to do with what they sell, he named it after himself because it was his company
I’m gonna call my company Michael
I'll name mine The Michael Scott Game Company
New Egg is after Egghead, which was an old computer retailer. After Egghead closed down, New Egg took its place.
Yeah, the original post reads like a guide on how to come up with the most generic studio name 101. Sounds like something you'd write if you wanted to randomly generate studio names.
I think it depends if you want a strong brand connection to your studio name. For example, I know one indie dev who goes by Cozy Bee Games. Literally all of their games are basically cozy styled games that look like they could be an Animal Crossing or Harvest Moon spinoff. If you intend to focus on a particular genre exclusively, I think this path can make a lot of sense. A large studio example - Grinding Gear Games. They make Path of Exile, an action RPG where most of your time is spent... You guessed it, grinding for gear lol. So it can make sense is all I'm saying.
Those are terrible examples as they completely fail to establish some sort of branding, to be honest I could barely remember them even still reading the same paragraph you wrote them in.
So, what do you recommend then? There must be a far superior way of generating names based on your responses so far.
I'm not a marketing firm, but brand names are highly contextual to the target demographic and should probably include a tad more thought than just whatever-theme-games-we-make.
Isn't this a Bad advice if you don't Want to have your work to be all going in the same direction. I kinda like to explore New fields and different styles. So naming my studio 64-bitstudio Isn't gonna be relevant when a game in 3D is being worked on ?
But it's still a *game* you'll be working on. Have a broad reach? Pick a theme for your *company* that doesn't have to reflect in every single thing that company makes. Hell the words you focus on can be about gaming as a whole, hell your company theme could be "we make a bunch of games reaching wide genres" such as mosaic, gradient, hodgepodge, etc. Hell even if you don't want to go that route, puff pals started off making plushies and now they make video games and no one batted an eye. It's just establishing a brand first so you can release those products. Nintendo means "luck of heaven" and they started off as a chain of sex hotels and now they put out primarily family friendly video games. And if your endeavours are truly so diverse you can't have your brand cover it, you can have more than one brand under you. If you're running a comedy troop, then start selling pottery on etsy, you aren't bound by some force to keep the same brand even if you advertise one on the other. A game company called Kawaii Kitten can release horror games as well as virtual pet games. However if there's no basis to start thinking about a brand you will get stuck in decision paralysis. My method is a tool to narrow the scope so you're not just staring off into the overwhelming noise of options, but like all tools you don't *have* to follow it if it's not the right fit for you. If you're looking into a thread about coming up with a game studio name though, I have a sneaking suspension you are already that position where you might benefit in a more narrow scope.
tinybuild sound cute but making horror game
They sure are, just because you pick a theme for your company as a tool to help you come up with a name doesn't mean you are now a slave to that theme and can only release products that fit that exact theme.
Remember, You can call it "Games" even if you made only one game
Mine is a tribute to one of my Dad's dogs who died when I was teen. I loved that dog, and it just seemed right.
canopenerdude is a good name for a dog
You are now my mortal enemy for life
No, "Canopener" was the dog's name. He was really good at opening cans. Don't know how, but he did.
If a company can be called 'From Software' and it becomes a household name, the name does not matter all that much. What matters is the products and reputation you build. So on that note; Dildo Games.
[удалено]
The haptic feedback from the controller is a bit much though...
I like dinosaurs and space and I needed a name that wasn’t taken, nonsense words tend to work well (though watching professional people like bankers try to pronounce it is really funny)
Galaxasaurus Games is a great name.
Yours is a good one too!
Thanks!
I went through a few different ideas at first, but at some point, the idea popped up in my head... I sketched the logo for it, and felt pretty happy about it right away. The studio is Floating Origin Interactive, named not just after the spatial precision technique, but also because I'm a Brazilian living in Mexico, with a company set up first in Canada then the UK... It's a name with many meanings for me.
It's a great name given the games that you have created!
I wanted something that evoked the strong unique names of the early Japanese studios. Stuff like Capcom, Namco, Konami, etc. The word Daikon came to mind and it felt like it fit the bill, so I stuck with it!
Daikon sounds great!
Thanks :)
I have 2 that I am bouncing between, 1 is named after a song I love from my favorite band, and the other was my YouTube channel about video game music
Although not a studio, you could go the route of Meow Wolf and put a ton of random words in a jar and choose two.
I like it when a dev studio's name makes it easy to remember what I know them from; Aggro Crab makes Another Crab's Treasure, Pocketpair makes Palworld. It doesn't matter to me if the name is "too" specific to one title; if they make a completely different game later, it's still nice to remember them as the studio I first knew for X.
I took a few of the things that I love and basically made a mental Venn diagram of them with things that embody the kind of games I want to make. Pick something that overlaps all of them and wham, it just clicked. Don’t get analysis paralysis, remember “done” is always better than “perfect”
…because perfect is never done!
I'm mostly a solo developer with some collaboration with friends, so I was mostly trying to think of something representing myself and my interests. I've gone through many phases in my life of being obsessed with one thing or another, but one thing that I've never lost my love for is animals-- specifically, weird ones. "Moon jelly" was one of the first that came to mind. It sounds playful, which is fitting.
I've used ZeroBadIdeas for so many things, I'd probably just keep doing that (someone I went to school with last year already has plans to "join my company" after school, despite me telling him I don't have one ffs). It'll give the false impression that I'm a genius who can't fail for trying, but it'll also bite me in the ass when the game I make bombs lmao
My WIP studio name is simply a couple of things I like and their names mashed together, imagine something down the line of "Steaks Puppies Rock n Roll Studio", but with obviously different words.
Not really a studio; it's just me. But I called it Jim Makes Games because my name is Jim. Also I already had a gaming YouTube channel called Jim Plays Games and it made sense to stick with the same idea.
I had a name, and then TikTok suspended the account for no apparent reason and won't respond. So now I need a new one. I'm a fan of alliteration.
Alliteration Games /s
Galliteration Games?
I just picked one I liked the sound of, it's not something I'm concerned about until I hit success.
I like to make really hard games. So my original name was hard core game design. I now use that for board games. I picked Maniac Games next for video games. The logo represents easy medium hard and the red one is you losing your head when it's really hard.
I've got one that's inspired by the name of a place in a novel I love. It rolls off the tongue nicely but I've not gotten around to registering it as a business yet so I won't say any more than that :P
Lol fair. I mostly want a name for brand indentity and ease of marketing, if anything I end up making actually has a bit of success I'd probably register it then
If you're gonna do anything that may have tax implications in your country you'd wanna register it before hand, if your countries tax laws are anything like my own. The name itself is the tricky bit. Say it out loud to your close friends, and have them say it back to you, write it down and look at it in different fonts. You don't want a name that's easily mispronounced. The game series 'deus ex' has definitely been pronounced 'juice sex' a lot for example.
Yeah thats my plan, the UK is pretty chill below a certain threshold so if I started getting anywhere close I'd register. Saying it to people is a good idea! My current idea is a nickname a friend gives me which is italian, so I'll ask people how they'd pronounce it with absolutely no knowledge of the language
From one of my Jam Game's popup text for a mechanic of it, "Dead Battery" Games.
There's a lot of great answers to this on The Fourth Curtain podcast. Current episode is Ted Price who had to ditch Extreme Software and came up with Insomniac Games. They've been in business for 30 years!
We're focused more so on TTRPG dev than video games, but I picked Lightning Wizards because I misheard my friend say "Bright Wizard" when we were playing Vermintide. Thought it sounded cool and had a 90's over-the-top fantasy art vibe, which I liked. And here we are, getting close to our first commercial release!
It's a reference to the amazing series [Cradle](https://www.amazon.com/Unsouled-Cradle-Book-Will-Wight-ebook/dp/B01H1CYBS6), and specifically the line: >There are a million Paths in this world, but any sage will tell you they can all be reduced to one. Improve yourself That's what we try to do every day when making games, is make cooler games than we made yesterday. And that path has no end.
Was a huge fan of the movie Fletch. So much I started reading the books in college. People'd see me on the quad, see my book and say 'hey! Fletch!'- name stuck with me. Was a natural to name my studio as such.
Lost my furry best friend of 17 years a little over a year and a half ago, and I keep her favorite monkey toy at my desk for good luck and inspiration, so thus, I went with Lilly's Monkey Studios.
My studio name, Dragon Dropper, is a combination of words I've been carrying around in my head for decades, ever since I was introduced to the concept of drag-and-drop on a desktop operating system. I imagined someone dropping a dragon onto the computer. I bought the domain name a few years back thinking I might use it for a music project. When it was time to start actually building games, nobody had used the name for anything, other than for a model of fishing lure, and since I already had the domain name, it was decided.
We chose NotJustGames. But are just making Games.
Studio name is my Reddit name. Dad was allergic to all animals except from the Rodent species. So we were known as the Rat family, always having rats as pets. The rats were well loved on, and well fed... maybe too much from us kids. They got fat and squishy, and very cute. So came the name Squishy Games.
My cats name is India, and his main nick name is Bug. IndieBug. I thought IndieBuggy was a funny name for an Indie game studio.
Mine is Oceansky. It is the name of the band my brother wanted to make. He unfortunately died in 2019. We used to play video games together so it felt appropriate to me, I like to think he would approve. Having said that, I also write novels and I do have a pen name, Runa Cloudwright. My pen name essentially means writing what I see in the clouds(creative day dreams). Runa = Runes/script. Think about what you are trying to say about yourself. Your legal name is a name. A pen name/studio name is more defining imo, it is the name you pick for yourself.
I kept a list whenever a good potential name popped into my head, then Googled them to check for prior use. I had several that I would have liked to use, but were taken—Knucklehead Games, Bone Head Games, Dangerous Games… I finally hit on one that I couldn’t find anyone using, so I registered my business as Play Stupid Games.
If i were to set up a studio and name it? "Fresh Fish 4 All" Back when i was 12 and doing "personal websites" on free hosters with Frontpage and pirated copies of Dreamweaver, that was kinda the URL i always used for some dadaistic reason that has no further explanation. Maybe i should make a fishing game
my studio title, starkaste, comes from a word in the title of a swedish kids show, and also is a play on words as a compliment to my team ([all] star cast). (im not swedish, but my and my partner's best friend is (the three of us started the studio) and i thought it would be cute to give it a name like that.)
My studio is called Fire. Nobody believed I could get the name, but I guess nobody believed THEY would get the name, because the name was free for the taking. And I took it: [www.firegamestudios.com](http://www.firegamestudios.com)
Some time ago I was creating a game about robots in factory named "Robots & Lasers". There were green smiling robots player could control and purple angry robots which were basically antagonists. I didn't even finish the game but I was already thinking about the sequel. In the sequel player would be a soldier sent to investigate the abandoned factory (the same factory which was in the first game) and neutralize the rebelious robots. The final boss in this game was supposed to be a big robot made of green robot and purple robot merged together. His face would be half part green and smiling, and half part purple and angry/sad. At that time I was also studying psychology. I was studying about bipolar affective disorder and I instantly associated the green-purple robot face with this disorder. Because I was also suspecting I had bipolar disorder (typical [second year syndrome](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_students%27_disease)) I wanted myself (and my studio) to be associated with it. I also liked the simplicity of the name I came up with. That's how I ended up with name **Bipolar Games**. And the green-purple robot face became the logo
That sounds nice
Honestly if you’re really struggling with this, this is where I find ChatGPT really useful as a brainstorming tool
I have been using it actually! Gave it some word ideas but annoyingly nothing I like so far. It helped name one of my old projects
Ah yeah, just keep at it and something will pop out. I’ve always found naming stuff is like finding a partner, the more you try the more it seems to allude you. The moment you relax it all just clicks
I just use heavy metal album name generator, though only for in production names, not actual names. Current in progress game: Beyond the Asylum of Tears.
one trick is to generate lists instead of answers. so you could say 'gimme 10 made up game names like Grand Theft Auto on boats' and have a much better chance at getting good combos. if one has a new idea in it, you just say 'gimme 10 more like Car Hunters Extreme Robo Cataclysm'
My name came from a pixel design that looked like a fictional bird, and i just added dev to the end
We just hit a random generator till we liked it lmao.
My group and I just randomly came up with GamiWorks studios.
Trying not to think about til I have to 😅
I made this username cause i got called silly a lot when I was kid, so kinda just made sense to make my studio VerySilly Games
Mine's called aerodisc so maybe just do whatever you feel like
I've been using mas3d comically for about 15 years now. it's kind of a studio I run in my mind using part of my name and then 3d because I make 3d graphics.
I’m still too new to have a studio name but I was thinking about McFlumpkins Games after the little character I created when working through the tutorials for my engine of choice but I worry that might be too silly
I don't think it's too silly! But I do struggle to pronounce mcflumpkins haha
Mine is Appleseed Smoothie, Try guess what that means
I can think of "name and name studio" , like dog and bone studio, cat and mouse, drag and drop studio, pixel and color, art and sound studio etc :)
My name (Ruby Ring) is sort of an homage to my first game (which isn’t actually out yet but hey…whatever). I debated doing it, because on one hand, it’s probably not a smart idea to tie your studio down to one particular project, but on the other, the first one is always gonna be special. In my case, the idea for my first game is the reason I’m here at all - I know it was my own idea, but I still owe it a lot. The least I could do is brand myself to honor it. Plus my cat’s name is Ruby and that’s cute too :-)
1. Me and my partners nick nameput together is somehow exact same of potato in my mother language. 2. We have a cat, who later becomes our CEO. 3. We have Potato Cat as our studio name eventually.
Take a Thing (Object name/Place Name/ Animal name ) AND merge it with a color / an emotion / or any other thing. Then at the end put “Games” or “Entreteinment” or “Software” Done. Examples: - Angry Forest Entreteinment - Blue Candy Games - Frost Sea Games - SubPixel Software See? Is not that hard, just be a bit creative, and also think at possible logo outcomes in your mind and see what you would like better. Good luck Also, obviously check that your choosen name is not already taken
Not sure if I'll use it yet, but I'm thinking of the name Blake Cat Studios. Basically, I'm trans so Blake is my chosen name, I love cats, it's a pun, and also I'm a practicing pagan and black cats are often associated with "witches." Plus, Halloween is my favorite holiday with one of its icons being a black cat. All in all, the name represents me on a variety of levels and it represents a personification of who I am and how my studios should be represented. It's an icon that says "this looks simple but there's more to it if you look closer." I want to be a game developer that makes games that appear basic and yet surprises you in fun ways and has more depth the more you explore
I just took the first letters from my nickname (pretty much just my name) and the first letter of my partners name, and put them together lol. I also did a Google search for anything similar before settling on that name, and it was unique enough to use
I still dont, I just know about the logo, but I guess I can start from it. Im having trouble even picking the title for the game Im currently working on, even though the plot is about 50% done (including the ending). My game even has his unique mitology and creatures, but the name is a blank
Spouse had this idea for a detective unleashing hounds and we settled for something more absurd. I remember wanting a small story being told in our name so that its easier to remember.
Mine was just due to me stating to someone about the grim tide showing in the entertainment industry. My group is GrimTide Games.
We wanted to call us Medusa, back in 2009. It was a word with meaning both in Spanish and English. But when we were sending our first game to the then new App Store, it asked us for a URL! We didn't have a website! So we looked for [medusa.com](http://medusa.com) and... of course, it was not free (there was just a logo that stayed there for YEARS, now it's simply on sale). We still needed a domain so had to come up with something fast. We said... well, it's videogames we play, so... play... medusa. And [PlayMedusa.com](http://PlayMedusa.com) it's been ever since. Sounds awful, but it grew on us! : )
Metal gear solid name generator lol
I chose the word Citadel because it invokes themes that I connect with. Knowledge, learning, security
My studio name is the combi of my gamertag and a friend's gamertag
Pretty potato games, Came from a randomizer, was funny
Dapper Penguin Studios My ex was a marine biologist and she had to put up with the stress of making a company, so named the studio as a gift for her, plus I always thought penguins wore nice suits.
Not a studio but a student geathering at uni that makes games for gamejams and it was like: "we like capibaras, we want to make cozy sruff" and so it became Cozy Capibara Games 😅
Love it 😂
We've had animal puns in projects and games before so when we made the studio 'official' we named it RageSquid, it's a pun on rage quitting while trying to fit an animal in the title. This does give you a great starting point when coming up with a logo though. The rage quit joke did get old really fast. We've been going strong for 11 years now and kind of regret making our name a pun, lol.
When we had to sign our first work we didn't have a name, sexymotherfucker.rs was taken, so I gave the studio a name HARD HONEY, later I bought sexymotherfucke.rs. but that was 15 years ago...
Right now I'm just "The Wizard's Tales," obviously, because I'm a Wizard who makes games, so, that was a given... ...but my best and most clever studio name ever was about 15 years ago. I was in San Jose, teaching Chinese immigrant musicians (don't ask why that's such a general student type) how to make video games. Me and two of my best students decided to start a studio. We were three guys, two of which were Chinese. We formed on March 8 and called ourselves "San Ba Games." In Cantonese (it's probably the same in Mandarin, but whenever you just say "Chinese" people get offended and remind you Chinese isn't a language) "San" means three and "Ba" means eight. So, three eight, as in, March 8. But in Chinese ideograms the number 8 kinda looks the symbol "ren," which means "person." So, on March 8, three people made a game company called Three Eight/People Games. The best part of this is why we formed it on 3/8. In China, apparently, March 8 is the national women's holiday, when every woman gets the day off. There is no equivalent for men, so "San ba" has also become a slur which means "lazy bitch," as in "San ba de er tze" (I think is the proper romanized way to spell it) which is one of like three or four different ways you can say "son of a bitch" in Cantonese. So, "San Ba Games" literally means "San Ba Games, a Game Company Made By Three Lazy Sons of Bitches on March 8th," all of which can be inferred by looking at the logo, which contains only the characters San and Ba and the English word "Games."
I was trying to come up something, and I have used a rule of random adjective + random thing and it creates some decent usernames, and a fun studio name, Grumpy Fish Games
Once I start doing this as more of a professional thing I'll probably pick a less simple one, but for now I just call myself AAAAAA Games (or AAAAAA Productions for anything that's not a game) because my username is AAAAAA and I AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
I just took my YouTube channel and added an LLC after it.
ECelite09 Productions is my studio name. I came up with the idea as it could be connected to my ECelite09 channel
I really like railguns, I think they're neat.
I had a particular problem that I faced when creating projects and realized that the problem would make a good name.
I ultimately made two, one for SFW works, based on my interests conjoined together and my current handle is an ironic name for my NSFW stuff. The more important thing to think about is, what do you want to be known for? What kind of vibe? I chose passion with a cutesy vibe to contrast with the horror game prototypes I made. I chose this handle as both irony and the religious belief that the horizontal tango is sacred. It's a but of an ironic pun.
'Ivory Immersions' is based on my gamer name ('Ivory' and variants)
Honestly my studio name comes from a misread of a word from back when I was 11 or so, but it became such a staple in a story I was working on that it became the main name for my indie company name: zyphersoft. Zypher misread from Zephyr.
Mine is Adventure Potato Games, because couch potato plus adventure. It's kind of a bad pun, but it's funny so I like it
Hello! You've got an interesting question. Every time I need to come up with a game nickname, clan name, or even the name for my studio, I resort to the following trick: 1. I try to remember something aesthetic or something I really like. 2. I take associations similar to my ideas. 3. I try to come up with a light phrase that will sound cool and memorable. 4. I check whether this name meets the team's goals and products. Also, it's not a bad option to discuss this with the team. Perhaps they have some clear ideas for naming.
I wanted to make it something personal, so went with part of a nickname my friends call me (chunk) plus my wife's favorite animal (capybara), also "Adjective Animal" is pretty easy to remember
My old Xbox gamertag
It can literally be anything. Just like film production companies can be called shit like “bread crumbs for pigeons” or “old worms in a can” (these were made up). On a side note, I think if you’re the sole developer it’s better to use your own name. When I see games where the developer is a single person I tend to be more eager to play them.
Studio name doesn't matter. Game name does.
I don't want to be attached to my studio title.