Tell me more ×
Game Development Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for professional and independent game developers. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 6 down vote favorite
1

Is there any list of game names anywhere, so i can choose a name for my game and avoid (legal) conflicts with other games as much as possible?

share|improve this question
9  
You should also make sure you have a list of every character in every game, and every identifiable name for a game mechanic. You know, just in case. – Joe Wreschnig Jun 8 '11 at 12:50
9  
Instead of indie, it's hipster game development. I need a name you've probably never even heard of. – The Communist Duck Jun 8 '11 at 13:39
7  
There's only popplers and zigglers left. – alxx Jun 8 '11 at 17:03
2  
This question has inspired me to write BIOS-Hawk. I'm not sure what the game is about yet but the name is sure to get it lots of attention. :-) – Zan Lynx Jun 8 '11 at 17:48
3  
What's with all the sarcastic comments? Do we really need to make fun of the guy's question? – Tim Holt Jun 8 '11 at 18:26
show 3 more comments

5 Answers

up vote 9 down vote accepted

I'm not sure if it's complete but I guess you can complete it yourself if you want/need:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_video_games

Looks like there are TONS of pages *__*

For your licence problem, a google search might be more useful.

Also, from comments :

I think the only thing you can do to make sure you got a licence not registered is to register it. The laws of different countries and other things makes it hard to check if you have legal rights on a licence you're creating a name for. If you can't find anything on google, check again, check variants. Then if you don't find, maybe try a legal move. They will tell you if it's already taken. Or they should.

Contact a lawyer for details relative to your country laws and international laws.

share|improve this answer
5  
+1 There is a list on which you can look up any name and see if a game exists for it and its name is Google. – Jonathan Hobbs Jun 8 '11 at 13:00
1  
@Jonathan, i was about to say i tried google but didnt, since i assume people already know i googled... i found nothing, but it doesnt mean the game doesnt exist with copyrighted name etc. – Tollo Jun 8 '11 at 13:05
@Jonathan, also, the google search isnt going to help me if there exists a game with SIMILAR name than mine is. I want to make as unique name as possible... – Tollo Jun 8 '11 at 13:08
@Klaim, is there some way of getting the complete list of that page without clicking thousands of links manually? (i could write a script but erm, hoping for easier way) – Tollo Jun 8 '11 at 13:09
6  
If you want a unique name I recommend a random string generator sampling from all human-language Unicode code pages. – Joe Wreschnig Jun 8 '11 at 13:19
show 4 more comments
up vote 7 down vote

You can use Google to fast-discard some names, but if you are doing something seriously and professional I really encourage you to pay some legal advocates/experts to do that. There exists many registry for products and brand names, and all this stuff is too much complex to be managed by someone that is not an expert.

If you are starting a game I also suggest you to take a PROJECT name and leave the decision of the final PRODUCT game to a more advanced stage.

share|improve this answer
up vote 5 down vote

There is a much easier way around this: go onto Google, or your favourite search engine, and search for <yourgamenamehere> game. If nothing comes up, it either a) does not exist, or b)is too obscure to worry about - it could be a small open source project that was abandoned for example.

share|improve this answer
as i said in my another comment, what if the name is SIMILAR to one already existing name, i cant be sure i will find those on google. – Tollo Jun 8 '11 at 13:33
1  
@Tollo You aren't going to have problems with similar names. If you're really that worried, a few extra searches for similar names won't hurt. – The Communist Duck Jun 8 '11 at 13:38
up vote 2 down vote

Using a longer name with more elements in it should open your options. For example (and I have no idea if these are real game titles because I just pulled them out of my ahem!! Moving right along...):

  • Potential conflict: Wizard Boxing
  • More likely available: Wizards of the Kingdom of Norr Boxing Championships

Although it isn't a definitive way to check, "Googling" your game name ideas can help to prevent the majority of conflicts. Reserving a matching internet domain name will usually do the trick though (especially for computer games).

An important note about using Google to check names: If your game name includes multiple words, enclose it "within quotations marks" to instruct Google to handle your phrase as a single keyword. This will save you a lot of time because fewer (if any) results, that are also more relevant, will be returned.

(Study exercise: Try using http://www.Google.com/ to search for both the game names I suggested above, or something similar of your own creation, and try it with and without enclosing "quotation marks." You'll be running four queries in total.)

share|improve this answer
1  
+1 for amazingly epicness in naming games... Wizards of the Kingdom of Norr Boxing Championships! – Jonathan Connell Jun 9 '11 at 10:23
@3nixios: Thanks! Here's a long one based on your name (which I turned into the name of a planet; I hope you like it): "Planet crusaders: The secret treasures in the mountains of Nixios 3" – Randolf Richardson Jun 9 '11 at 19:18
up vote 2 down vote

You can try Mobygames, they're trying to build a comprehensive index of all games.

share|improve this answer
That's an interesting web site. I particularly like seeing all the screen shots of Commodore 64 and other versions of various games all in one organized place. They seem to be making a really good effort. – Randolf Richardson Jun 10 '11 at 18:34
1  
Yes they are! Please note it's a Wikipedia-like effort (although with more verification), so all contributions help too. – jv42 Jun 11 '11 at 13:42
1  
Contributions from the community will be useful for anyone who releases a new game. Perhaps this web site ( gamedev.stackexchange.com ) could benefit from having a "resources for marketing your new game" section (this should probably be moved to meta though) that includes links to such web sites. – Randolf Richardson Jun 11 '11 at 22:36

Your Answer

 
discard

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.