Your studio name is the first marketing decision you'll ever make. Before any screenshots, before any trailers, before any reviews — players and press encounter your name. "Naughty Dog" tells you something. "Blizzard Entertainment" tells you something different. "thatgamecompany" tells you something different again. All three work brilliantly, but they're working in completely different registers. The studio name signals who you are, what kind of games you make, and how seriously you take the business of making them — all before anyone's played a single frame.
Five Studio Naming Registers
Game studio names cluster into five patterns, each with its own signal. The right register depends on your games' genre, your team's size, and the audience you're trying to reach before the game launches.
Instant connotation — you know something about the studio before knowing anything about the games
- Naughty Dog
- Ninja Theory
- Team Cherry
- Wolfire Games
- Amanita Design
Games feel like forces of nature — something that arrives and changes things; weather, geology, and elements carry this
- Blizzard Entertainment
- Avalanche Studios
- Splash Damage
- Crystal Dynamics
- Obsidian Entertainment
Indie register — names that signal a person or small team rather than a corporation; authenticity over scale
- thatgamecompany
- ConcernedApe
- Double Fine
- Supergiant Games
- Heart Machine
The Naughty Dog Paradox
Naughty Dog is the most important case study in game studio naming. On paper, it should be terrible — a studio whose biggest franchises include Crash Bandicoot, Uncharted, and The Last of Us, named after a mischievous pet. The name has none of the confidence you'd expect from a first-party Sony studio responsible for some of gaming's most critically acclaimed work. And yet it works, completely. The reason: the name was chosen before the scale was known, when the studio was two people in a garage, and by the time the scale arrived, the name had accumulated too much meaning to change. "Naughty Dog" is now synonymous with cinematic game excellence — the name doesn't describe the games; the games have redefined the name.
This is the optimistic lesson: if the games are good enough, the name will follow. The pessimistic lesson is that you can't bank on this — most studios don't become Naughty Dog, and a poorly-chosen name competes against your games' quality rather than amplifying it.
Blizzard Entertainment — the natural force of the name aligns with the scale of what they make; you expect epic things from a blizzard
Size Changes Everything About Naming
The right name at solo-dev scale looks completely different from the right name at AAA scale. ConcernedApe — the handle of the Stardew Valley developer — works because it signals one person making a game they care about (concerned) in a slightly self-deprecating way (ape). "Concerned Apex Studios International" would be a worse name even if the games were the same. Conversely, "thatgamecompany" works for a studio that makes emotional, art-forward games; it would be actively harmful branding for a company shipping 100-hour open-world action games.
Horror Naming: When Mundane is Scarier
Horror game studios have discovered that the most unsettling names are the ones that feel almost right. "Bloober Team" — the Polish horror studio behind Layers of Fear and The Medium — sounds like it almost rhymes with something but doesn't quite. That slight wrongness is the whole effect. "Playdead" combines playground and death — childlike and terminal simultaneously. "Failbetter Games" (Sunless Sea, Fallen London) sounds like someone describing a failed product launch, then adding "but better" — it's deadpan horror delivered in corporate speak.
Obvious horror branding (Skull Death Blood Studios, Dark Evil Darkness Games) is the least scary option. The horror comes from the uncanny — the thing that looks normal but isn't quite.
What the Corporate Suffix Signals
- Match the name's register to your games' genre — horror names should feel slightly wrong; cozy indie names should feel warm
- Test the name as a domain: studio.com, studiogames.com, or an .io — check availability before committing
- Say the name out loud at a trade show: "We're from [Studio Name], and we make [genre] games" — does it feel right?
- Consider the corporate suffix carefully — "Games" is neutral; "Entertainment" implies scale; dropping the suffix entirely is the most confident move
- At solo/micro scale, embrace personality over professionalism — the authenticity is the product
- Use "Interactive" as a suffix — it's 1998 energy and tells people nothing
- Choose something obviously horror-branded if you're making horror — the uncanny is more effective than the explicit
- Pick a name that an AAA competitor might also choose — you want to be distinctive, not undifferentiated
- Name your studio after your first game — if the game fails or you pivot genres, the name becomes a millstone
Common Questions
Should my game studio name reference the games I make?
Generally no — or at least not too specifically. Naming your studio after your current game (or current genre) creates a trap: if you want to make different games later, the name fights you. "Rockstar Games" doesn't tell you that they make crime sandboxes; "Blizzard Entertainment" doesn't tell you they make RTS and MMOs. The name signals energy and scale, not genre. The exception is if you're genuinely a single-genre specialist with no intention of changing — "Pixel Noir Games" works if you're specifically a noir-pixel-art studio. Otherwise, aim for a name that fits the kind of games you make now and the games you'd want to make in ten years.
What's the right corporate suffix for a game studio?
"Games" is the most common and safest — immediately legible, no unnecessary implications. "Studios" signals slightly more creative/production scale. "Entertainment" implies spectacle and mass market (Blizzard Entertainment, Activision Blizzard). "Interactive" is largely outdated. "Soft" appears in Japanese studio naming (FromSoftware, Monolith Soft, Capcom used to be Capsule Computers) but reads as dated in Western markets. Many mid-tier and indie studios drop the suffix entirely and are just [Name]: Valve, Rare, Remedy, Supergiant, Devolver. The no-suffix approach is the most confident and increasingly the most common for studios that want to avoid the "corporate product" association.
Is it better to use a studio name or my own name as a solo developer?
Both approaches have strong precedents. toby fox shipped Undertale, one of the most beloved indie games ever, under his own name. ConcernedApe (Eric Barone) shipped Stardew Valley under a handle. Using your real name creates maximum authenticity — players know exactly who they're supporting. A studio name (even a solo-dev one) creates separation between you-as-person and you-as-developer, which can be useful if you want to collaborate later or if you prefer some privacy. The handle approach (ConcernedApe, not Eric Barone) threads the needle: distinctive personal identity without your full legal name. All three work; choose based on how you want to relate to your audience over time.
How do I check if a studio name is available?
In order of importance: (1) Search the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) at tmsearch.uspto.gov for existing trademarks in entertainment/software categories. (2) Check the domain — studiogames.com, studio.io, studio.gg — with multiple TLDs since .gg and .io are common gaming domains. (3) Check Steam, Epic, and itch.io for existing studios with similar names. (4) Check social handles on Twitter/X, Instagram, LinkedIn, and TikTok. (5) Search YouTube for the name. Trademark clearance is the most legally important step — selling games on Steam with a name that's trademarked by another entertainment company is a costly mistake that has ended studios.
