Split Fiction – kbrecordzz

I have a few things to say about names. Names on products. And on things, etc.

I love Hazelight, and I loved their last game "It Takes Two", and if I'd play their upcoming game "Split Fiction" I would probably like it too. But... Hazelight's earlier games - "Brothers", "A Way Out" and "It Takes Two" - all had names that described what the games were about. But there was also something more in them, something that made them... good. You can't analyze what that is, but you feel it. There is soul in them, at least some of it.

In the same way, the name "Split Fiction" gives a good and clear description of what Hazelight's newest game is about and what you'll do in it. But it feels so practical. I don't feel the art and soul in it. It's like they most of all just wanted people to immediately get what the game is about. Like the game is a product only. Like a name is only for marketing. Like a video game, made with the care and artistic vision that few others than Hazelight have in this field, is to be treated on the same level as putting out a Youtube video or a social media post. When it's really much more than that. This game will live on for decades! It deserves a cool name, and not just a marketing description!

The point isn't to criticize Hazelight, but to make them, or probably more likely you, rethink how you go into naming things, presenting things, and making things at all. A great blog (https://entropicthoughts.com/) I follow changed their name a while ago from "Two Wrongs" to "Entropic Thoughts", to make the name better fit the content of the blog. Fair enough, but I always thought the cryptic name that had nothing to do with the content was cool for just that reason alone! Like the name lived its own life and wasn't just a practical description of the site.

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