No Numbers

[Eleazar]

One of the things I like a lot about books is that they don't use numbers to represent sequels, but words. You don't hear people saying Lord of the Rings 3 or Harry Potter 4, you hear Lord of the Rings: Return of the King or Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. It might just be me, but it makes books seem less commercial and more pure.

[SpazROK]

Thing is though, in the advertising world, a book that hasn't already established a good reputation with the public may slap a number on the end of the title in order to increase interest in the previous volume.

Not only in books either. Hell, today I found out that Daft Punk is doing the score for Tron 2. I've never seen the first Tron, but rest assured I do now. Bad example, but it's been a long day.

As long as no company ever pulls something as cheesy as "2 Fast 2 Furious" I don't think we have anything to complain about.

[Ender]

A lot of the time, that's because games with numbers simply are more commercial.

Not many games are created as an arching story beyond the first game. Two recent examples (even though everyone knows, sorry that I sound preachy) are Too Human and Mass Effect.

I've heard A LOT of complaining about that, too. Some people think this is pure arrogance. Well, developers have to be a bit arrogant to put out a truly unique product, and I applaud them at the very least for the effort.

Take SK, for example. I was one of those people with which the game just didn't click. I still think they did a FANTASTIC job with their game, innovating the control schemes like they did. More development studios should take a page from their book. What went into the creation of Too Human was fantastic. The final product ended up being focused on a rather narrow audience, though.

[Eleazar]

Well I'm not just talking about games, but also movies. Really I just don't get is what is so hard to just have a subtitle instead of a number. In the end it really isn't that big of a deal, but just a little something that I think would be a extremely small step towards a more perfect world.

[SpazROK]

What about Star Wars? The pull out both stops and go with numbers as well as a sub-title.

[Ender]

This is true, but I think with a space-opera structure, it makes more sense this way.

Though I think subtitles would definitely be a good decision. Taking it a step further, I think games should be given entirely new titles. The second Halo game, for example, should have a totally new name. What might that name be, you ask? Well.. I don't know. That's not my job, is it?

[Eleazar]

Although I do think having a completely new title is a good concept, it doesn't really work in practice if you are trying to make a living off the story. If you don't have that name recognition you are going to automatically lose a certain percentage of sales.

[Ender]

Well, I would have to concede that point to you, but do you think it would be a sizable percentage?

I don't. In fact, I think the percentage of people who bought games like Halo 2 and Halo 3 without knowing what they were getting into was really, really low. People who buy games, for the most part, know what they're buying. At least the "hardcore" gamers, anyway. Which made up the bulk of the sales for the Halo games.

The people who don't know what they're buying are buying things for the Wii. That's not meant to be an insult, but that's just the market Nintendo is vying for. Casual crowd casually drops some cash on an impulse buy. Hardcore crowd reads up on the games months before release.

[Guirec730]

I actually like the concept of the totally new title.

It works for books, because they can be X: Book One in the Blank Series, Y: Book Two in the Blank Series, etc.

The first movie parallel that I can think of is The Chronicles of Riddick, though the original was just called Pitch Black (the DVD rerelease added the Chronicles of Riddick subtitle).

[Eleazar]

That isn't really giving it a new title, it is just moving where the title is and making the subtitle more prominent.

Any game that sells 8 million units is going to have a large amount of people who are uninformed and are just going by the name. They know what they are getting into because of the name, not because they were actually knowledgeable. I've talked to tons of people who bought Halo2 on release with never even playing Halo:CE. Also the stories that this would effect the most wouldn't be the huge blockbusters with the largest advertisement campaigns ever for a video game. It is going to effect the games like F.E.A.R. or Lost Odyssey. How many people cared about Project Origin or even heard of it before the name was changed to F.E.A.R.2 or how many people would care about a Lost Odyssey 2 if it was called Forgotten Adventures? I would bet very few, and by the time the majority of gamers figured out it would be too late to create the hype needed to be as successful.

[Guirec730]

Oh, it completely doesn't work, but that doesn't mean I don't like it.

What bugs me is when new IP's that aren't necessarily going to be continuing franchises insist on a subtitle.

"Lost Planet". Good title. Mysterious.

"Lost Planet: Extreme Condition". Stupid title. Conjures thoughts of MTV reality shows.

[Eleazar]

I should say making the subtitle more prominent than the main title would be a good idea that would probably work.

A good subtitle does seem to be a bit more elusive than a good main title, but I think that stems more from people not putting as much thought into the subtitle because "it is just a subtitle, right?" kind of attitude.