Jump to content

Essential Project Title Change


Kimbo_Slice

Recommended Posts

Greetings,

 

My sole source of discontentment with the direction and theme of your game is the title. Project: Zomboid is too clinical, reminiscent of the theatrics of arcade and a disruption of the immersion explored by your game via its realism. The title you should adopt is the following:

 

This is How You Died

 

Those words imprinted themselves upon me when they appeared in your introduction in a way that was as deeply affecting as my first experiences of the game itself. I think that this title emphasises the engaging narrative aspect of your game as well as the game's exploration of mortality and inevitable doom.

 

I won't waffle on any longer, but these are the fundamentals of my contention.

 

Keep up the good work lads,

 

Paul.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This kind of makes sense, because for about 2 or 3 years earlier before State of Decay got it's name the game was called Class 3, so was it introduced all over the internet as Class 3. I would think that "Project Zomboid" could be a placeholder name, because of the word "Project".

 

I can see how badly the name change can hurt the developers now that they've got so much publicity and "Project Zomboid" itself is already a trend. The name, however, isn't bad. And people don't get to find dozens of other results when they type "This is how you die" in google. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, i guess this idea isn't bad. Sure "zomboid" tells everybody that this game is about zombies, but "This is How You Died" its a much more accurate description of the game :)

Anyway, keep this name or change it to whatever you want, this will remain a really good game :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I like the current title. It stood out to me when I first read about the game, so much so that when I decided to check it out months later I remembered what it was called. If this was named "this is how you died" as the original post suggests I probably would not have remembered since I don't find it as memorable.

Really it's just such a bland name.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

One does not simply . . . toss out well-known branding.

Good thing Project Zomboid isn't well known branding then. Most of the people who will recognise the name are the people who already own it. Changing the name to something that isn't rubbish would probably only help sales. If you say the name "Project Zomboid" to someone who's never heard of it they'll probably just think it's another dumb, uninspired zombie game.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Good thing Project Zomboid isn't well known branding then. Most of the people who will recognise the name are the people who already own it. Changing the name to something that isn't rubbish would probably only help sales. If you say the name "Project Zomboid" to someone who's never heard of it they'll probably just think it's another dumb, uninspired zombie game.

I'll probably be yelled at for this, but this is exactly what i thought:

when i saw this game on Steam i was expecting something like "kill zombie hordes in a nice old-style graphics, and some times remember to drink or eat because this is a survival game".

It was pure luck that made me tried the demo "just to pass an hour or so with a free game", and discover what an amazing game this is!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Project zomboid, as most will know by now was only ever meant as an internal, temporary name, as time went on however, and with the rather large initial buzz surrounding the original pre alpha tech demo, word got out about PZ and it was already kinda too late to change its name. To have changed its name once it was already out in the public domain would have been somewhat confusing to new/existing players. Yes it would have been easier the earlier on this was done, but at the end of the day the only other names the team had thought of at the time were your generic zombie game titles such as "dead territory, "something" of the dead, dead "something" etc, which most likely would have blended us right in with every other zombie game and possibly (at least by name) getting lost in the horde.

Also, since zomboid is still gonna be developed for year(s) to come, the team eventually decided that the word "project" in the title seemed quite fitting.

And I can say that, since the game is now on steam, there's no chance of a name change now :-D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Project zomboid, as most will know by now was only ever meant as an internal, temporary name, as time went on however, and with the rather large initial buzz surrounding the original pre alpha tech demo, word got out about PZ and it was already kinda too late to change its name. To have changed its name once it was already out in the public domain would have been somewhat confusing to new/existing players. Yes it would have been easier the earlier on this was done, but at the end of the day the only other names the team had thought of at the time were your generic zombie game titles such as "dead territory, "something" of the dead, dead "something" etc, which most likely would have blended us right in with every other zombie game and possibly (at least by name) getting lost in the horde.

Also, since zomboid is still gonna be developed for year(s) to come, the team eventually decided that the word "project" in the title seemed quite fitting.

And I can say that, since the game is now on steam, there's no chance of a name change now :-D

Yes. The name of this game is what got me curious of it, If it as just any other generic crap zombie title I wouldn't have given a shaz about it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think I'd agree that at this point in development it'd be a financial risk to change the name. Whether it could theoretically be improved or not. People already recognize and associate the name PZ with the game, and by changing it you could potentially lose some of that recognition. Plus having a unique name isn't necessarily a bad thing. If nothing else it helps it to be memorable, over the throngs of games with names like Dead City, of Zombie whatever, or Undead Birthday Party, etc. I think at this point it'd also make the devs seem like they weren't very confident about their product. You continue changing big things like that and it does carry a certain implication.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

<...>

And I can say that, since the game is now on steam, there's no chance of a name change now :-D

 

This is pretty much it, I think.

If the Devs wanted to change the name at any point after how long it's been, the obvious time to do it would have been before the Steam release.

Besides, I think the name is very memorable and interesting. It's what originally drew me in, and what has kept me reminded of it these past years.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Google Project Zomboid: Only PZ stuff for pages on end (didn't bother to count past 3)

 

Google Dead State: Unrelated results on first page

 

Huzzah for unique title!

 

well, it's actually because it's a unique keyword :|

you have to know the name to find this result in the serps

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Google Project Zomboid: Only PZ stuff for pages on end (didn't bother to count past 3)

 

Google Dead State: Unrelated results on first page

 

Huzzah for unique title!

 

well, it's actually because it's a unique keyword :-|

you have to know the name to find this result in the serps

 

 

True, but project zomboid has never relied upon people finding it randomly via search engines! Mostly, word-of-mouth, gaming press, and now steam are how people find out about it :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think name changes can make people feel conned, if they wrote off Project Zomboid then it got a name change then bought it but didn't realise it was the same game it might make them feel conned. Not to mention name changes are rarely seen as a good sign I mean look at WarZ, eh... I mean Infestation Survivors Story.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...