I’ve been trying to come up with a name for this game I’m working on. I’ve done online polling – twice. I’ve asked all my friends and playtesters. The answer is here, it’s final, and it’s a surprise – even to me.

First of all, let me thank anyone and everyone who voted in either of the polls – I learned a lot from your answers. I am pretty sure I’d have made a different choice if those polls hadn’t been so informative.  Second, let me throw an appreciative link to the guys at Wufoo - their online forms are spectacularly easy, look great, and in the quantities that many people are likely to need them, totally free. I’m not affiliated with them in any way, I just think they make a better widget and wanted to say so.

Now that the preliminaries are out of the way, let me talk a little bit about the winning name and how it got to be that way. This name, as I said, was something of a surprise to me. It was the first name I really associated with this game besides the quirky-and-cute-in-a-Wii-sort-of-way, “My Game.” It was a name I really loved, but I couldn’t really see using in even a mildly serious context. It wasn’t even on the first of the polls – that’s how far out of the running I thought it was. But my own feelings on the topic, and some responses to the announcement of the first naming poll on The Forge, made me reconsider, and drove the creation of the second poll. 

It was the second poll that sealed it for me, though not in the way that I expected it to. The numbers on the poll were pretty even, initially, which would have been enough for me to follow my heart without having my brain try to crawl out of my skull and look for a better neighborhood. But steadily and surely, the numbers shifted. My favorite was no longer even. No longer close. The final figures were nearly three-to-one against my favorite – and the eventual winner.

I hear the cries of , “Foul! You asked, we voted, you ignored us! You never intended to listen to the poll, you were just trying to make yourself feel better about a choice you’d already made!” I hear you. And you’re wrong.

Because there was a very interesting feature in the polls – those who chose the losing name, when answering the question about how much they liked it, were pretty unimpressed with it as a rule. About 8% who chose it liked it “A Whole Bunch” or better.

But the winner, my favorite, had about 80% who liked it that much or more. That meant that like me, people who were attracted to that name felt very strongly about it – it made an impression on them in a way that the other name just didn’t. And making a strong impression is just about one of the best things any product can do in any marketplace. Nobody’s going to forget this name or confuse it with something else. And one commentor (thanks, anonymous voter!) made the trenchant observation that my favorite was also a lot more uniquely googleable. 

So, I’m betting that you’ve all already guessed, but it’s time to make it official: My RPG is now named….

Ultrablamtacular!