DragonJam Studios was founded in Madrid in 2013. They’re working on their first title, Wincars Racer, with which the company hopes to bring an updated take on kart racing to the PC.
When we chose the name for our first game, Formula Wincars, we didn’t have second thoughts. Some liked it more, some liked it less, but there was a general agreement around the choice.
Big mistake.
As you already know from this article’s title, unexpected problems arose and we had to change the name of the game after having been called Formula Wincars for nearly a year. We thought we’d relate the experience in hopes of helping anybody facing a similar situation.
Focus on Making Your Game, but Be Aware of Legalities
The advice we’d received (and acted on) was to not worry about the legal stuff and focus on making our game. We did take a few precautions — for example, since Formula Wincars is a free-to-play game for PC which downloads from its own site and is devised to be played online by players from all around the world, we bought the site’s domains and registered the name.
This helped us build a strong presence in social media and gain loyal followers, who share our updates and, most importantly, give us feedback. A thousand of these followers registered for the future closed beta.
Something Wasn’t Working as It Should
It was precisely the analysis of this feedback that warned us about something going on with name. The game was being perceived as a Formula 1 title when in reality, it’s a race car arcade influenced by classics like Mario Kart, Out Run and Burnout, with the novelty of strategy mechanics, garage management and the intense competitiveness of online PC games.
There were also people who were getting the concept but who simply didn’t like the name. On top of this, there was another problem…
Somebody Was Annoyed with the Name
Given that our game was titled Formula Wincars, it’s not difficult to guess who wasn’t happy about it. After learning that a complaint regarding the registration of our name had been presented, we decided that this was too much.
It was difficult to admit an error and face the name change when we had already achieved a certain impact in the media and we had followers of the project. Still, we decided to do what was right: to listen to the advice and avoid future problems before things got out of hand.
Goodbye Formula Wincars, Hello Wincars Racer
Since we already had a small but loyal base of followers, we asked them for suggestions for the new name.
Of course, we also had our own brainstorming session, from which dozens of crazy names were born, among them the brilliant Gesú Luengini’s Vincente Auto, in honour of our game designer, Jesús Luengo. To focus ourselves a little bit we set two rules: the new name would have to truly suggest what kind of game it is, and it would maintain at least the word Wincar. And so Wincars Racer was born.
People liked Wincars Racer a lot more, and we felt more comfortable with it, as it set us free from potential legal trouble. It was also a matter of not wasting the work we had done spreading the word so far and making sure that if anyone googled Formula Wincars, Wincars Racer appear as the search result.
Changing All Traces of the Past
The decision had been made but there was still a lot of work to do. We assumed that it would be impossible to change each and every single mention of Formula Wincars to Wincars Racer, but we could try and cover as much as possible.
We prepared new images for our site, social media and Indie DB file, and we took this chance to do a new presskit. Finally, we set a date to make the change effective and wrote a press statement announcing the name change to the specialized media. Have you ever heard that it’s advisable to only release notes to the press when it’s about important news related to your game? Well, this was one of those occasions, without a doubt.
As for mentions to the old name in the game, we had it easier as we had not yet released it, so there was time to make all the substitutions. Today, three months after the name change, we are still finding some leftover Formula Wincars logos in the game.
Careful with the SEO
There was one last thing to do: change the URL of the website. We had to pay attention to the SEO of our site to keep its positioning on Google, and changing the domain could cause huge problems. The solution? 301 Redirect.
301 Redirect is the most effective method for redirecting a site without negatively affecting the search ranking on Google. It’s not very difficult, and you can check everything’s been done properly with a search engine friendly redirect checker.
And so we managed to successfully change the name of the game without losing followers and getting new ones when the news about the change were published in the media. In conclusion, it’s better to solve problems during development, even if it seems difficult or laborious. Sometimes you even come out with a better product.
Wincars Racer is currently under development. You can follow its progress and register for the beta on its development blog, www.wincarsracer.com
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