Name my game development blog

February 24, 2008 5:14 PM

I'm going to be launching/relaunching a blog focused on the game development industry. I'm all set to go, but I need a name! Anyone have suggestions for names, or just general help on creating a name for a blog that is memorable, descriptive, and not lame?

I have a blog that I haven't updated in a year that called JZigishness. That's a horrible name, and it's got a lame, narcissistic url. I want to make another stab at the whole blogosphere thing, hence my need for a slightly less crappy name. I'm mostly going to be talking about insider-but-not-fireable stuff about the industry, as well as game design and game culture stuff (with a focus on MMO's, because of where I work). I'm probably going to be hosting it at typepad (I'm lazy), and I'll go pay $30 for a url, so this question is about the branding/marketing as opposed to any technical stuff. Also I'm not famous at all, so I can't just pull a Raph Koster and put my real name in my blog title.

posted by JZig to computers & internet (16 answers total)

Game In/Game Out (aka GIGO) ... domain gameingameout.com is available.
posted by furtive at 5:20 PM on February 24, 2008

gulchure
posted by rhizome at 5:22 PM on February 24, 2008

joystick
posted by gcat at 5:51 PM on February 24, 2008

There already is a very popular gaming blog called Joystiq.
posted by rancidchickn at 5:56 PM on February 24, 2008

invsqrt. (invsqrt.com is available!)
posted by esd at 5:59 PM on February 24, 2008

DoubleBluffer
DubbleBuffer
DuffleBubber
BufferDouble
posted by unixrat at 6:13 PM on February 24, 2008

how about "prerendered.*"? The .com is taken, but most other TLCs are still available.
posted by thecaddy at 6:27 PM on February 24, 2008

DoubleBuffered dot com is still available. Fly, fly!
posted by unixrat at 6:49 PM on February 24, 2008

Are there already blogs called GameDev and GameBiz? I think there might be, but, if not, maybe one of those would be a good choice.
posted by box at 6:56 PM on February 24, 2008

The following domains are available in .com, .net, and .org flavors:

levellords
levelcult
levelculture
levelbiz
posted by bonobo at 7:21 PM on February 24, 2008

gamecrun.ch

Available via gandi.net and you can forward it to your typepad blog address.

Having said that, bugger typepad. It just sucks and is just a lame way to go if you're planning to make a more serious go of your blog. You can get inexpensive hosting with one-click install of WordPress, Typo or whatver; there's plenty of tasty, free themes; and you have better control of your domain and your data.
posted by DarlingBri at 7:22 PM on February 24, 2008

The Chipset
posted by regicide is good for you at 7:58 PM on February 24, 2008

Good suggestions so far! Many of these could work, and I'll post a followup if I pick any (and a link in the about page).

DarlingBri: I realized I had been mixing up typepad.com and wordpress.com. I did the evaluation a few months ago and yeah, typepad.com seems to suck. I'm going to start out on wordpress.com, and then migrate to my own WP installation if I need to. I spent a lot of time dealing with system administration and spam blocking stuff with my previous blog, so I'm going to try hosting for now.
posted by JZig at 8:23 PM on February 24, 2008

JZiq, just so you know, by default wordpress.com won't let you put ads on your blog or upload audio or video files, unlike TypePad -- those seem like pretty big constraints for a video game dev blog. And contrary to what DarlingBri said, TypePad lets you use your own domain name and has dozens more themes than WordPress.com, in addition to offering actual help and support and built-in tools for spam blocking. It's serious enough for, for example, Wired's gaming blog. I work with the team, and we'd be glad to help you get started if you need.

And to answer the question posed, think about things that are uniquely resonant to game developers, or that are appealing to anyone but have special connection to the jargon of the business. Some of the real functional parts of making games might be attractively geeky, like btrees or d-pads or z-order -- those are all short names that are evocative for that audience. There are also the trappings of actually playing games, like "Select, Start" or levelgrinder or the like. You lean more towards MMORPGs than traditional console/platformers, it seems, but some of the terms of art that you take for granted are really evocative as names in general: Kinematic, basemesh, zbrush, all that kinda stuff.
posted by anildash at 10:29 PM on February 24, 2008

Alrighty, I went with DoubleBuffered, and my blog is up (with only old posts) at DoubleBuffered.com. Thanks a bunch unixrat, I cited you in the about page :) I went with DoubleBuffered because it's programmer-y (I'm a programmer), but not quite as obscure and graphics techy as invsqrt. It also flows well (I forget the correct poetic word).

Anil, thanks for the comments on the branding stuff, that was interesting and helpful! I ended up going with WordPress.com because I didn't need ads (I sorta feel it's a bit odd to make money off a personal blog when the reason you'd be making money is because you're employed at a company), audio, or video. If I do decide to get more professional, I'll definitely re-evaluate typepad. Also, from a usability standpoint, I found it much easier to use wordpress.com's FAQ than it was to find info on typepad's site. Wordpress.com has a nice visible FAQ link, while I just realized what Knowledge Base actually means on typepad's site. It took me some effort to figure out if typepad would do what I wanted, so I didn't bother looking after I determined that WP did.

Thanks everyone.
posted by JZig at 12:55 AM on February 25, 2008

interesting blog - subscribed!
posted by junesix at 10:44 AM on February 25, 2008