I was wondering, there are plenty single word utterly cute, instant rememberable, super descriptive game names (like: Automobile, Dictator, Corporation, Empire) that are not taken by any recent game. Yet, after you try googling it you find out why... By using such name you simply make it impossible to find your game via google...

1) Do you think the memorable name outweights the "ungoogleability" (I'm talking here about indie devs, surely it would make no sense for an AAA title and a big company with a decent marketing budget since they can market even CrazyMuschroomEmpire :D)?

2) Any tricks (maybe add a second part to the title like "Automobile - The Story of Old Cars" or "Empire - The Conquest of Proxima Cluster")?

The bad side of "simple" names is that there is a high chance that you will be overshadowed by other things with such names in Google that have nothing to do with your game.

So you have to be in a middle point so people can google your game without ending in, say, Ford's Wikipedia page.

Talking about ungoogleable names, there was this game called "AAaaaaaahhhaaahh! To the awesome!" or something like that, I can't find it in Google :D

Some thoughts:

1) If you are not restricted to single-word name, sometimes when you put two simple words that are not normally used together you still get a memorable name that is googleable.

2) If you google "Risk" or "Monopoly", the game is listed. So I suppose if you want to use single word, just focus on making your game popular and it will show up.

3) If you picked a common word, when you refer to your game you could always refer to it along with your name. So, before "Velocity" is known as a game, when you refer to it, try to phrase it like "Acharis Velocity game". Then when people google it they might add "Acharis" or "game".

Just to add an example, there was a few years ago footage on gametrailers of a AAA first person shooter called "They"... and I remember thinking immediately about its ungoogability. The game is no longer in development by the way.

OK, it needs to be googleable, bad idea :) Thanks for pointing it out.