Logo Feedback

Hi guys!

Well, I had commissioned a logo for an identity as a video game publisher. From what I've heard, if you want to have a successful crowd-funding launch of a project, it's best to start building an online image at least a year prior to the expected release date.

That aside, I don't think I'll be able to use what I had designed. I believe I'm going to have to come up with a new name and get a new logo. I think the name is probably in violation of trademark rules and I don't want to risk a legal battle with Nintendo. I know they're not shy about such things.

The name was NESploitation. The name comes from the idea of exploitation fims, and I described the meaning of it as such:


The reason I'm posting this now, is to see if anyone has any feedback on the name and logo that may assist in coming up with a replacement, as well as a direction for the replacement logo. The artist and I both like what he did, and he suggested adapting what we had to a new name, however, I'm at least a little worried that the appearance of the NES cartridge could in some way be an infringement, of... something. I don't really know, and I realize that getting decisive answers to legal questions is outside of the scope of this forum. I just wanted to get some feedback on the name and logo since I don't believe I'll be able to use either of them as they are now.

The 2 S's confuse me.

Is it 'NESploitation'

Or 'NES'sploitation'

?

I'm not even going to lie, but NESploitation isn't a good name, because it doesn't even sound similar to exploitation. If you're going to be a video game publisher of sorts, I wouldn't include the name of a video game or anything, because to me at least, it sounds tacky.

I prefer the extra S, but ask a forum and get a thousand opinions.

Yeah that is pretty confusing. It is intended to be NESploitation.

It might be a bad idea to outsource your decisions to a forum. This forum is great, but can you imagine a company letting reddit make decisions? That would be disastrous.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_by_committee

Am I the only one who mentally pronounces NES as three letters? (I'm the same with GIF.)

No, I do the same. What drives me crazy is when people call the Super Nintendo Entertainment System the Snes, not S.N.E.S. I don't know if one way is considered correct and the other isn't, but I think Nes and especially Snes sound dumb.

I don't know why, (It's not that I play it every other day...) but when I first saw

"NES
'sploitation"

I somehow thought it said

"NES
'splatoon"

NES as three letters is official in the United States: see the commercials for Tiny Toon Adventures (N-E-S) (not the Japanese one with floating carrots and opera) and Super Mario Kart (Super N-E-S). And "Super N-E-S" was used in most commercials, with one slip-up (Super Game Boy commercial saying "S-N-E-S").

I'll admit, I had some counter-points to certain criticisms I thought I might receive, but didn't expect this one.

There are three possible ways I can perceive NESploitation being read. The first that comes to mind for me is to be read as a word rather than an acronym, which would be [ne-sploi-tey-shuh n] vs. [ek-sploi-tey-shuh n]. The s sound at the end of the word NES falls into the exact same position as the s sound in exploitation. Also, the first syllables share the vowel sound.

The next way would be to read it as an acronym, which would be [en-i-es-ploi-tey-shuh n]. I find that one to be even more obvious in it's similarity.

The only other pronunciation that I can imagine would be to read NES as a word, but change the s to a z sound due to a dialect. I've heard enough people say "nez" to believe that this will happen. In that case though, I don't think most people, hearing the word spoken, would process it as a z in spelling. Nez is just a little quicker and more comfortable to say. (Try saying, "look how fast those dogz are running" vs. "look how fast those cats are running")

Perhaps you've stumbled upon a pronunciation that I didn't predict.

In response to new reply: NES splatoon? Yeah, I didn't expect that. That's not what it says though.


Concerns of trademarks aside, if the sole purpose of the commercial identity is to develop and sell games for the NES console, I feel this matter simply highlights the specific products that you would expect under this brand name.

In contrast to your opinion, I felt it tacky when third party developers had to dance around description of the console for which their product was developed. I am making a game to enjoy on my Nintendo system the way I enjoyed and thought of Nintendo as a child.

For a branding, marketing standpoint, I don't think it's tacky to describe what product to expect from the company in the name. It's not so specific that you don't have to read more in depth to find out that it is in fact a game company, and not something more akin to NES hacking, but it conveys that it's products are for NES. If you see a NESploitation game, you would instantly know what console it is, at the very least, inspired by. Marketing an NES game successfully in 2016 will most likely require a lot of positive association with the NES and memories of playing it.

Don't worry.
In the nicest possible way, I'm not putting any weight on the responses here. I reserve the right to toss any opinion I get out the window if it conflicts with my judgement, and I do so on a regular basis. And to be fair, most of this so far isn't relevant on a conceptual level for design of a new logo or brand name, mostly specific criticisms about the already abandoned name, but I'm open for free-form brainstorming. No telling from where an idea may come.

As an analogy, I would say that I approach requesting feedback less like asking "how do I design the security for my network", and more like asking "do you see any security flaws that I missed?" I've gotten a lot of criticisms that have revealed things I did not see which were in grave need of improvement. I also receive a lot of criticisms with which I entirely disagree, and those are subjective choices, from my perspective. (sure, everything's subjective, a game filled with 32KB of NOP could be a "great game" to somebody) In those cases, I default to my own judgement.


I've always read and spoken NES as an acronym. [en-i-es]. However, I say, [gIf], with a G sound. I'm not sure why the difference. Also, when I read NESploitation as a blended word, for some reason I degrade the acronym to phonetics. I'm not sure why. I never thought about this until it was mentioned.


I do too, for the image, because I find it better than having "ploitation" on a line. If the words can fit together, however, I personally prefer NESploitation. I can't use NES in a trademark though.

If you're not going with 'Nesploitation'...

How about 'Grindhouse Games'.
(Reference to OP).

To tell you the truth, I like it. It captures the meaning of the original without infringement concerns. I'll kick it around for a while.

Edit: Somebody else likes it, as well: http://www.grindhousegames.com/

Boy, I really like Grindhouse games' logo.

To me, a gear like that screams "Settings".

That was why Howard Phillips suddenly "resurfaced", after all.

I actually like the name NESploitation, it reads and sounds as intended, to me. Who knows if you can use it, tho...

Thoughts:

The two different fonts for one word is bad.
The NES font is horrible.
The ' needs to go. It's not part of the name. Shouldn't be part of the logo.
The name NESploitation doesn't sound good. Infringement or no.
I don't know much about exploitation films.

Looks like that grindhousegames place may be floundering or died, hasn't been updated since 2014 apparently. Maybe try finding the people and asking them if you can buy the domain, hahah. Personally, I don't like nesploitation or grindhousegames, both sound violent and negative for one reason or another. I associate NES games with the innocence of youth so I can't relate to wanting to name yourself something unpleasant. *note* this is coming from somebody who called himself ZomCoder (zombie coder) in his youth, so, really I shouldn't even be talking. Name yourself something unpleasant and scary, it feels good til you hit about age 30 or so.

So I'm getting that you basically just start over... Personally, I think the worst part is the name. You talk about how you want to use NES in the name to tell people that the company makes NES games, but last time I checked, Toyota doesn't mean car in Japanese.