Triple Click - Please Let Us Fix Your Video Game Name

Episode Date: January 30, 2025

Wondering what makes some video game titles good and some bad? Just bring in Triple Click Consulting — we've got you covered. This week, the gang goes through a whole bunch of names and discusses what makes them work and what doesn't, from Balatro to EA Sports FC.One More Thing:Kirk: “All Work and No Play” - Sam Adler-Bell for Dissent, 2021Maddy: Silo season 2Jason: You Like It Darker (Stephen King)LINKS:The Know Your Enemy Podcast: https://www.dissentmagazine.org/category/podcast/know-your-enemy/Support Triple Click: http://maximumfun.org/joinBuy Triple Click Merch: https://maxfunstore.com/search?q=triple+click&options%5Bprefix%5D=lastJoin the Triple Click Discord: http://discord.gg/tripleclickpodTriple Click Ethics Policy: https://maximumfun.org/triple-click-ethics-policy/A good name should be at least two of:Memorable (vs. Forgettable)Punchy (vs. Floppy)Understandable (vs. Confusing)Enticing (vs. Off-Putting)Surprising (vs. Predictable) (??) Happy MaxFunDrive! Right now is the best time to start a membership to support your favorite shows. Learn more and join at https://maximumfun.org/jointripleclick 🚀  SUPPORT TRIPLE CLICK:Join Maximum Fun | Buy TC Merch💬 JOIN THE TRIPLE CLICK DISCORD🎮 Triple Click Ethics Policy📱 SOCIALS | @tripleclickpodInstagram | YouTube | TikTok | Twitch

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 Triple Click, 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. Hello. Hello, my favorite. friends. Welcome back to another episode. We're doing it again. Yes. We've decided to keep doing it. We have. Every week we get together and we're like, time to vote. And we should we keep doing this? And we should keep the podcast going. That's why three of us. Every week. Like Rick and I have voter. And I keep getting out voted. It's why three is a good number because you can have votes and have a clear winner. 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 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 is really what Kirk's getting at. Some of you have been getting our work for free.

But those of you who have been, we really appreciate. Thank you. Maximumfund.org slash join. That's the website to go to, to join the network and become a member, start supporting triple click, 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 one that 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, maximum fun.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. Yes.

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 also maybe what makes a video game name not works 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 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. Like, this is going to be maybe a separate project on top of triple click that we're watching. I think we will know by the end of this whether that business endeavor would succeed or fail. Because it could well be that our advice is terrible. We don't know. People will tell us. Right. 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 name 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. Yeah. Sometimes you call a game Fortnite and it becomes the most popular game in the world. I'd say, you know, I guess another couple of things to keep in mind are that sequels kind of don't follow the same rules as original like first games in a series. So those, you can't really like say, oh, well, this name 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 East Asia, tend to have names that are pretty weird and like don't follow. They don't do what I would call like good naming hygiene. But at the same time, you know, you'll have.

You'll have a game called Triangle Strategy that is like pretty beloved or various daylife and a lot of people will play it. So I think, I think, and this is a starting, 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 there'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. 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 like 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 like what you do in the game like it's easy to understand when you see it

versus it's this abstract term it's confusing you know 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 good 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 offputting. Obviously the most subjective of the fore that this whole thing is subjective. All right. So let's just talk through some games. Let's start with a really interesting name, Balatro slash Balatro. 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 Balacho is a fantastic name. Same. I think that the fact that the creator, Local Thunk, resisted the urge to name it something like crazy poker. Wacky Joker time. I think Balachro. 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 them 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 Bellatro 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 Balatro means, you know, like where that word comes from.

And you're like, ooh, it's all a little bit enticing as well. So yeah, I agree. Despite the fact that it's a little confusing when you first see it, it does, it is definitely a really strong name. Yeah, it's, it's, it's, 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 like kind of more esoteric and also not as fun to say. Then it kind of squirms out of your brain a little bit more. I think we'll see. 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 balatromite. 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 resist. 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've got to think of another way to do that, I think. Yeah, I think pronunciation is kind of an issue. It's interesting that Balatro, Balatro 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 thunk 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 100X resist,

if it was even called a thousand times, resist and 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 1,000 is also. a little off-putting if you're used to the way that numbers are written.

Yeah, no, but picturing that name 1,000 times resist, that's kind of a sick name. Yeah, it 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 of animal well. Perfect name. 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? And wells aren't a place you wanted an animal to be in. 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. Like it's not like, you know, quest of the dark sphere. It doesn't have like that typical drama.

It's like animal well. But first off, it is totally representative. Like the minute you see an image of the game, it's usually some like underground kangaroo or something. You're like, oh, an animal and a well. And also, yeah, there are two words that are very enticing and mysterious and really capture the vibe of the game. It is also like punchy. It's easy enough to say like it's not as like snicky, snicky boom boom as some names. Animal Well is a little round, I guess. But like, but it's fine. And it's it's very memorable. It's an unusual name. It really matches with the game itself, I think. Yeah. Agreed. Yeah. I think it's you can't get much better than Animal Wall. 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. And. You have a bunch of them written down here, epic and eternal and rising. This list is incredible.

Eternal, darkness, cosmic, protocol. Reading this is upsetting. 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 mash 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 that animal and well would be so much more exciting together than like secret protocol. Right. 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 overview. Yes. 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, a 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 anything that's like a place and something unexpected, I think is 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. Like something surprising that kind of surprises you. Yeah. Versus predictable. It's like, 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 name changes. I've got a big list of name changes, like series that changed names. 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 punchy or more memorable where their kind of working title or whatever was less strong.

But in this case, we're going to talk about Dragon Age the Veilgard 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 we're at our live episode in L.A. But anyways, yeah, this went from Dragon Age Dreadwell. to Dragon Age, the Veilguard. And it's not like a really obvious downgrade.

Like, you know, they're both kind of abstract concepts, Dreadwolf, the Veilguard. But I do think Dreadwolf had a couple things going for it. One being that we knew what the Dreadwolf was, if you were a Dragon Age fan. Like, the Dreadwolf was Solace. And we learned that about him. And so it was this exciting thing for anyone who'd finished Inquisition

that you were going to now get a game that centers on this character. that we know, where the veil 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 veil guard is just not as punchy as dreadwolf. Like, dreadwolf is freaking cool. It's just like a cooler pair of words than the veil guard, which is like a little off-putting, a little abstract. Yeah, and all one word.

Valeguard. Yeah, Val-Gar. I mean, that, like, we've harped on that enough. Like, that putting a the in there is such a horrible mistake that I don't know how. why they would possibly do that. But even if it was just called Dragon Age Vail 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. Dreadwolf is, like, such a stronger word. And also just implies, like, the drug. Red Wolf part of it, it evokes horror. It evokes kind of an enemy. It evokes something you want to destroy. Whereas Vail Guard, you're like, okay, like, what do I care about the veil? Why do I 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 down there, the change toward punchiness is big. There are two game change, name 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 name changes, like name evolutions and video games. Is that a name change? Isn't that a sequel to like a one game? 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 Fromsoft 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 Stellar is a good. Blade should go in this generic list. Stellar at least is surprising, but Blade. Stellar Blade is 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. And it also, it sounds good. Stellar Blade sounds good. It's fun to say. That all works. But it definitely docks some points for having blade in there because that's so generic and meaningless and overuse. And it's kind of, it's also representative because that's like a sword fighting slash home-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, which is sort of funny. 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 like runs the table. I think that it's memorable and iconic. Like tactical breach wizards is incredibly memorable. It's punchy. Technical 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 like 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 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, like, tactical and breach are both kind of common words in titles that conjure military and Tom Clancy and chemo and stuff. And alone, you look at the first two words and you're like, oh, I don't want to play that. but then you see Wizards. Tactical Breach Squadron would be like any other game on Steam. That would be 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. That's not a huge deal.

Yeah, because like, and comedy is kind of pacing. Like it needs to be long enough that the win. the Wizards arrives, you've had time to, like, get ready to be surprised. Sure. But in the sense that if you want a game to, like, go viral, if you want your game to really sell 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, when 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 Balatro? 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 biggest deal in the world, but I would say that's the one thing that is going against it. 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 top ten list. So maybe you go first. Yeah, well, important to note here that it's S-O-L-S, not S-O-U-E. 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 titles. 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. Well, I mean, kids aren't the best at spelling, so you never know. You should see the way my five-year-olds spell 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 local, like an East Asian title like 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 do, I like numbers in titles that are in intriguing ways. Like, 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 thing. I'm not sure how I feel about it. Like I like, like thinking about a title like Hollow Knight, which is a similar type of game and a similar type of title, hollow night 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 night 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 punching, like it's easy enough to say. It's not bad. 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 Sekaro's case, everyone just ignores the rest and just calls it Sekaro. And that, I think, is a strong name. I mean, obviously, it's a Japanese word.

And people, like in English, you wouldn't understand what it means. But it's easy to say, unlike some other, a certain Sweet Kodin series that is a little bit harder to parse. Sekaro is easy to say. It's memorable. It's punchy. The shadows die twice. I mean, I just ignore that part. But if you're counting that, obviously that's terrible and clunky and awful.

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 like 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 like icon status because it's such an amazing game and because it's a FromSoft game. that like no one needed that anymore. Like it strikes me as kind of like a publisher marketing decision that I understand in principle even if, yeah, the game basically just dropped the subtitle completely. Yeah, it's a cool subtitle though.

I remember thinking that even at the time and being intrigued by it. So I guess I'm the audience who was marketing to. Is that in that first moment I was like, shadows die twice is cool. It sounds like a metal band. It's got the right vibe. Right. It just has a cool factor. It's enticing.

It's a little mysterious. It's not like shadows, you know, shadows rising or something. Yeah, exactly. Eternal shadows. Dark shadows. Shadows die twice as a little cooler. It feels more like a movie slogan. Like you can imagine a poster that is like,

Sekaro, shadows die twice. Like that would be better. Like the prepare to die slogan, for example. It should have been maybe more of a that type of sloganeering situation. A tagline rather than a subtitle. But again, I mean, I think. 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 colon seba's odyssey which is an atrocious name mostly because of that first part like the puzzle maker colon seba's odyssey if it was just called seba's 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 seba's odyssey which helps a little bit and i think in general when you have these kind of weird clunky subtitles if if the first part is strong enough that you can just use that then you can you can kind of ignore what's after the colon right and 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 that's a perfect title actually pretty great name

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 subtext title to be like reflecting the next thing like um middle earth shadow of mortar middle earth shadow of war like that that sort of thing those are terrible names too but even even like if you're if you're thinking in terms of like uh this is going to 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 and great name they also were planning like it's going to be duck detective colon something else next after that and that is when it's more excusable. You're establishing a franchise. Right. And it kind of lays like a rift

on like a Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew style like old timey mystery where it's like the the and 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 And I think that an established brand like Indiana Jones or Star Wars, like 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. Like those, 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. Like you need to have just something punchy or something, you know, 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. Which for all that movie's problems is a fantastic title. Great title, though. Last Crusade. Yeah. Raiders of the Lost Art, all stronger titles than Great Circle, unfortunately. Well, and 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 marketing, they changed it. Yeah.

Yes. And then I believe later was marketed as Indian and the Raiders of the Lost Dark, which is actually maybe a little floppier. Raiders of the Lost Dark, 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 Selico and Arco.

I have these all next to one another. God. That all kind of suffer from... God really doesn't do them get any favors putting them all next to each other like that. 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 sounds like a gas station. Like it really is, it's like an abstract thing. It's short enough. All three of these gas stations. Well, except for Indica. Oh, yeah, I got to go to the Indica and fill up.

I think Indica is just sounds like. like Indica versus Sativa. Like Indica just sounds like something that you would hear from a weed dealer. But the other two end in Coe, which sounds like company, which is what's making you think of the gas station I would expect. And then the case of Salaco, that at least makes sense in World. But for Arco, it doesn't. Well, Arco literally is a gas station.

It is. Oh, no. Like that is a company, the name of a line of gas stations. I thought we were just making jokes about like Sitgo and Texaco here, but sure. 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 Balatro

and the kind of Italian of it that makes it just sounds so much better than any of these. Indica, Salaco, Arco. Those all sound like they just like took 10% hits on the stock market when that's a really good comparison. And it's,

that's like, I feel like there's something very important there in the difference between Balatro and Celico. Because like Celico is a fantastic game. Yeah. We're not talking about the games here. 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 that it must be something to what you're saying, that, like, Bala is just a more interesting collection of words than Sella. Jesus, that feels, like, very thin. Well, I think there is something to it, though. No, I think it's just, it's the, it's the, the syllables. It's the way it comes off your time. Blahotro. It's so much more fun to say than Salaico.

Slico. So it's a punchiness. Like, Seleco, it feels like your mouth is kind of like heading in the wrong direction. It feels like a downer. It's like that c is just so ugly. Selico. Oh, yeah, like, Selico is poisoning the water around our house. Like, oh, God.

We got to see that New York v. Seleco in the case of the century. New York v. Seleco does sound like some mass twerkirt litigation. There's fucking guys that Seleco are trying to take away our community center. Yeah, it just like it sounds so. gross. Indica, you're right, does have that kind of weed vibe and Arco I don't know, Arco reminds

it, it feels like a Roman building or something. Like it just feels like like, I don't know. None of these are just like really stand out in a way Balochra does. I'm like, I'm picturing like, I don't know, if Indica had had a subtitle like the Nun 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 worked. I mean, they should have called it the nun and the devil. Yeah, that's pretty cool, actually. Man, I had Kill Night Down, which is a game I never even played, but there's a good game name for you.

Kill night. That is that game. It's a game about a night day kills people. You know what? Sometimes it's just that simple. Or Little Kitty, Big City is another one. Yeah, that's another great one. I mean, 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 sub-rule is the game Never, 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 never if someone's like, you should never 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 reviewers. 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 going to, like, okay, Balatro, it doesn't signal anything about the game. Like, I could tell someone to go play Balotro and they would be like, like, what the fuck is that? like that doesn't mean anything to me as opposed to, I don't know, duck detective, which hits all the boxes, which is like perfect.

But like 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 like never. I don't know. It feels like some like. Sounds like a soap. Yeah. Just have 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 thought you meant soap opera. Oh, sure. Sounds like that too. No, I don't really hard.

It 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 has never looked so good. Never. It's, it does. It just doesn't, whenever a game title sounds like a product that you could just like be buying from Procter and Gamble, then it probably doesn't know.

Last 2024 name that I want to shout out is Lorelai in the Laser Eyes. Speaking of long names that are pretty sweet. I think that's a pretty sweet. could actually, worth it. Worth it in the end. Yeah, that's strong. It's a journey. 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 like memorable. Memorable. I think based on your categories, which are good categories, I think memorable might be the most important. And like, 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, Selico, Arco, Neva, none of those are memorable at all. Even something that is clunky as hell, like Unicorn Overlord is still memorable. And I think that is the most important thing. If you're going to 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 going to 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, too. 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. Oh, 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, the Concord, which was a fixture.

Which is the obvious inspiration for... A fixture of the Borchbelt for many years. I spent many, 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 one of the first like... Well, that was the fastest jet in the world. Yeah.

Yeah. But it was a disaster. It was like an infamous disaster. Was it? It was a cool word but it doesn't quite work.

Another one is foam stars which is very representative of what the game is. Like there's no reason exactly that foams, well, why is it 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 like kind of wimpy. It floats around and isn't, it's soft. It doesn't do much. It doesn't splat. The way that the paint does in Splatoon.

Spatune combined with splatting. Like, and it has a big splat like Nickelodeon graphics here. 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 kind of a name now that we talk it through. Let's keep going.

What? Multiverses. No. I don't think that name. That name is never really. worked for me. It's a little too abstract. It's a little too cute too. It's like multiverse. 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 dew with with a hoagy. God, I wish I wish Tony Sopradda. I wouldn't say it's as bad as ex-defiant and dustborn, which you also have on here in which just give me douche-chills. especially ex defiance. Ex defiance. 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 feels like it's a relic of another era. I would describe X defiant as a fairly sweaty name. 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 defiant you are? And also Seniaua's saga Hellblade 2 is an interesting one because, like, they've established a franchise with Hellblade Senua's sacrifice was the first one.

Yes. And then they flipped it. So suddenly it's as though the series is Senua's something, but then it's not Senuous Sacrifice II. It's Sennau's saga. So confusing. It's a real hash. They kind of made a hash out of that one. I don't know why it's not Hellblade 2 Senuas saga.

Why not have to just have to be that? Because Hellblade is cool. Like we were talking about Stellar Blade. like Hellblade, they're kind of very similar names. I assume they're trying to position to do a new game that is Senu and Saga Colas something else and get away from the Hellblade branding. That's the only possible explanation for doing the flip. Right, because Hellblade is, I guess it is a little bit discordant with, like, those games.

Like, the games do have, like, fighting and are very intense, but they're much more like these serious, like, survival psychological thrillers. They're not really, like, Hellblade, which makes me think of, like, Devil May Cry or whatever. where Stellar Blade actually is like, you know, a character action game with a sword and doing acrobatics and fighting huge robots. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, that's true. The Hellblade doesn't actually really match with that series anymore.

Okay, before we keep going, I just want to read out with no commentary, some Hall of Fame square in existence. 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 loophole. That's just a sampling. That's just a sampling of the Square Inix experience. So to 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. That is like breaking every single rule, man, even though when I... Claire Obscure, Colin. Yes, for Expedition 3. Where you're like, I don't know what Claire obscure is. I don't know why I should care about Expedition 33.

Exhibition 33 is like one of those genericized words or I'm like, okay, there was an expedition. I go on expeditions in 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. really dope. It just, 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 clear, obscure nonsense in that and just called it Expedition 33, Kirk, you said you don't like that. I like Expedition 33. I think it helps a lot. Expedition 33, it's specific enough than 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 Clare Obscure Expedition

32. The Clare Obscure adds very little. Yeah, that's a big loss. But if you have to call it Claire Obscure, even that's better. Like get rid of one of them. I'm begging you. That's all I ask. Can we talk about, there's a game coming up called Like a Dragon Cola, Pirate Ya-A

in Hawaii, which even putting that absurd, like, cocktail of a name aside, the fact that, like, I know the Like a Dragon series is an amazing name. 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 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 Dreadwolf 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 daylife or Kingdom Hearts, 358, 2 days. and like, yeah, it's an unusual name,

but also I think pirate yakuza and Hawaii is hilarious 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 Hawaii. Don't you kind of want to do that? And you know what? The clerk is going to know exactly what you're talking about

because they're going to remember this title. It is so unwieldy that it kind of becomes memorable. It 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. 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... When you picture uncharted, right? Intergalactic is a lot like uncharted as a name and that started with uncharted

Drake's fortune. Right. And so 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. Hard to say. Bad mouth feel. It doesn't stay in your brain. Not super memorable. But I mean, I understand where they're going, where they're, what they're trying to get at with

the intergalactic at the top of that. Yeah. Maybe if it was just called that. 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 profit.

It's like these are some cool words. Okay, fair enough. Fair. 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 profit is trying too hard. 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 the, 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's 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. Like, it has that same kind of like 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, like, writers who get trapped inside their two fictional worlds. And it has split screen, too? It's a split between sci-fi and, yeah, it's like really a hell of a name.

I find that one very impressive. Yeah, I like it too. Yeah, it's okay. I mean, it's tough to say, like the it's, like the it, the it's followed by the ict is, makes it it makes it tough on the mouth. I think it's great. But, yeah, I mean, I like it. I just, it's, the mouth feel isn't great, I would say.

I would say, I'm looking at split gate. 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, 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. I think that's good one. So that plays into my rule from earlier. Spider Mansion or whatever. Oh, you're right. If you have a place and you fill it with something.

I don't know. Yeah, the Spider Mansion rule. You take a place and you fill it with something unexpected. And that is like an immediate. winner of a name. Yeah, demon school. Yeah, yeah, looking at a few more of these. Frag Punk, it's all right. There are too many other games with punk at the end. 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 frag punk 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. Yeah,

it's 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 different, 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 23 game was successful. They felt like, okay, 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.

So, 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 going to say I can't really picture the guy who only plays FIFA being like oh I'm going to go play some EA Sports FC they're like they probably are just like I'm going to play FIFA yeah or like I'm going to go play that soccer game or play that football game

yeah that's probably what they're saying the 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 going to call it something else. There are a 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. It's like, if you look at the title, it's like, I don't know what this is. Like just straight up. 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, and it goes to show that like, you know, if the whatever, whoever owns Madden, I suppose the Madden estate ever was like, you can't use it anymore. Like if they were the same as FIFA, if they basically like broke their partnership with EA, they would be in a similar pickle where like 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. Maybe 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 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. 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. 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 like, like, are 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. Like any of those, it just makes me think of like the the most generic like fantasy book cover. It's just like eternal strands and you open it up and they're 40 proper nouns and it's just indecipherable. And God, there's so many ways that a name can go.

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. And so if you put strands in the title, it's going to imply to people that it's a strand-type game. And as far as I know, Eternal Strands is not a strand-type game. That is true. And that's also confusing. Death stranding is in a category of its own. That's true.

It kind of breaks every rule and yet makes it work. Well, it kind of does. It's such a weird set of words. It kind of does follow the weird set of words rule that we've... I guess that's true, that we've invented here. Well, 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. So that'll be a high pressure.

It'll have to come with a really terrible, floppy, confusing name for it. And 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 Dimitre.

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And we are back for one more thing. Maddie, 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 actually did a beans cast together about season one.

Talk about bad names. There's Apple TV and Apple TV Plus. I actually think Silo is pretty good for what it's worth. Silo's good. Oh yeah, no, it's Apple TV and Apple TV plus being two different products and have nothing to do in one another. Anyway, sorry to interrupt you their goal. We are name filled forever now. We are named filled.

It's fine. But Silas Season 2 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 is, 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 lot of 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. Oh, and Steve Zahn is on this season and he plays a new character that I was obsessed with. So 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. And 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 not telling everyone what's going on.

And, you know, the controlled misinformation and there are points where you're like, wait, why don't they all just like sit down and talk and like 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 we can like block up two more floors from there and there's a lot of like fainting between tactics. 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 episodes were very strong. Oh, yeah. Ends 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 Adler Bell 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 like William F. Buckley and 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 Triple Quick, which is another reason for us to feel very intimidated about some of the people to listen to our show because there are some very, very smart people out there apparently who listened to Triple Click. 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 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 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 Bessel to Frank Lance and Sarah Jaffe and Cecilia D'Nastasio 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 is a whole lot of various interests that listeners of this show, I think, will 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 we'll link in the show notes by Sam Adler Bell, written for dissent. And, uh, you know, Yeah, Jason, your last. What's your one more thing? My one more thing is a book by Stivon King called You Like It Darker.

This is his most recent book. And 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 went into it. Yeah, I went into it expecting just short stories. and 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 like super dark stories. None of them are all really that dark. Like they're all just kind of Stephen King's stories. Like 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 like 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 Penns.

But there's a lot of good stuff in there, as you might expect. It opens with this great story about like this super talented, prolific writer at the end of his life. the secrets behind his talents as a writer and that one is great and unsettling. Sounds like classic Steve.

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, like, where the specific place where he sees this dead body in the dream. And he goes and finds the place and he finds a dead body. And then he, uh, 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, um, 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, like, feet. And, like, he doesn't want the dog to, to get it. And so he, like, buys a burner phone and does it in a clumsy way, and he's, like, caught on the security camera. And of course, the police get this tip, and they track him down,

and they think he's someone to kill her. And the story unfolds from there. And he's, like, this guy who had this dream, 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. Like, it's a little dead zony. 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 know, I want a full on Stephen King book. 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 highly recommend it. I actually, 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 going to try to find some time to start it. I have a bunch of other books to get through, but I'm going to 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 be one. reread the whole thing because they were very up on the final three books. I'd say Song of Susanna still is the one with the most nonsense going on, but they really had this a really fascinating take on it that 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. Yes, that's the method. And because the Dark Tower is such a meta-textual book that like encompasses everything he's ever written, if you've done that, it's actually a very rewarding

an 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 like 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, 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. Matt, if you want to join in, you'd be welcome. I've never read it. Yeah, I've never read it. Maybe we should do it.

a gunslinger bonus episode. Beanscasts. Yeah, that could be fun. There we go. Okay. Good stuff. All right. Good bonus 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 several years. What do we have to have Michael Lutz and Cameron Consulman on? Who's to say? So yeah, maybe we just have Michael and Cameron come on. And they'd just be like, why are we here?

We already did a whole episode about this book. We don't want to talk about it anymore. 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, normal suggestion. It's 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. Triple click. I agree. 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 happy. We spent a lot of time brainstorming this. 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. Triple Click is produced by Jason Schreier, Maddie Myers, and me, Kirk Hamilton. I edit and mix the show and also wrote our theme music.

Our show art is by Tom DJ. 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. Triple Click 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 Maximumfund.org slash join. Find us on Twitter at triple clickpod. Send email the triple click at maximum fun.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 artists-owned shows. Supported directly by you.