🎮 The naming of Channel 3

Plus: How much I paid for c3.gg (it's a lot)

Told Laura I need to write a substack this morning. She said “ANOTHER ONE?” I said yeah, I write one on Mondays (usually about The Dad) and another on Fridays (usually about Channel 3). She had no idea. You probably don’t either.

It’s not real until it has a name (and logo)

I love creating stuff. For me, a new brand, company, or any idea, doesn’t become REAL until it has a name. AND A LOGO. The logo is important.

I’ll fire up PowerPoint and throw in name ideas and mock up quick logos for em to see what feels right.

Do you have a new venture you’re trying to name? The naming process can NOT be overlooked. It’s important. I really think that the wrong name (or domain) can break a venture in a way that even major features cannot.

The best names are unique, memorable, concise, and give some indication of what the thing is. Easy right? No.

And as my old boss Vinit Bharara would say… The best name should “sound big.” You should see it and be like, “Whoa, that seems super legit.” (I’ll talk more about that when I tell you the names we discarded before settling on THE DAD. 👀 )

20 names I could’ve gone with instead

I start by brainstorming. I jot down literally anything that pops in my head that might be relevant, even if it’s clearly not gonna be the name. Here are my brainstormed names for “untitled gaming venture”:

• good.games

• Goodgaming.com or goodgaming.co

• Good Clan

• Good Squad

• Greatga.me

• Glhfxp.com (good luck have fun xp)

• e4e.gg (like e for everyone)

• 1more.gg (1 more gaming, like “okay fine we’ll play 1 more!”)

• XP Gaming

• LifeXP.gg

• FunXP

• ParentXP.gg

• Happy Trash Gaming

• famgaming.gg

• famup.gg

• Side Quest Gaming

• EntertainmentGaming

• letsogaming.gg

• OG Games

• 30lives.gg (like the contra code)

Of these, I liked Good Games the best. By far. It sounded “big.” It was memorable. It was concise. And the domain good.games felt BALLER to me.

Plus saying “gg” is a big thing in gaming. After a tough game, if you won or lost, good sports say “gg.” That’s the vibe.

Alright I’m feelin good about Good Games. Let’s see how it went…

I actually loved Good Gaming. But turns out, Good Gaming is a publicly traded company. (Current stock price: 0.039. Get it while it’s hot! Somebody Gamestop that bad boi ASAP.)

Okay, so Good Games then. I like Good Games because it’s like Goodreads, and rating and reviewing games (Goodreads for gaming) is a major feature I’m interested in.

good.games was listed as available but with a “minimum offer price” of $5,000. Just to see what would happen, I offered $5,000. I get an immediate reply with a counter offer. The counter? $68,000! Yikes. Don’t love it that much.

It was around this time my lawyer evaluated the names to see if there were other trademarks out there. Turns out, Good Games is so incredibly generic that they would NOT advise using that name anyway. There are so many variations of Good Games and GG out there already.

Side note: there is a great app out there called GGApp. I discovered this around this time too. It’s developed by one guy and it’s impressive. It is very much a Goodreads-for-gaming kind of setup. And it’s focused on reviews and lists. (Channel 3 does those things but won’t be the sole focus.) So if reviews/lists are your jam, check it out: https://ggapp.io/ The founder is a really good guy.

Attempting to salvage the Good Games / GG name (at this point I had sunk (mental) cost and was kinda committed to it), I literally googled “adjectives that start with G.” On that list was “goodish.” I said out loud to no one at all, “AHA!” The thing I was looking to make was for gamers of all skill levels, not just elite gamers. Goodish had a good(ish) vibe to it.

Goodish Games.

I made a logo:

I even made an animation:

Something about it bugged me.

It already discounts itself from the start. GoodISH? It’s like saying “It’s pretty okay. Check it out!” It lost the feeling of “sounding big.” And worst of all… it felt unoriginal. Especially since discovering Good Gaming, the GGApp, and all the GG variations out there.

But I was on a path. I bought domains for Goodish Games and was close to moving forward.

And then, a sign from Kanye…

I was watching the Kanye documentary jeen-yuhs. The filmmaker (talented dude named Coodie) started a Chicago Hip Hop news brand in 1994 called Channel Zero. That’s a cool name, I thought. Oh and remember Channel 1? It was a news channel back in the 90s that you got to watch before announcements in public schools.

Wait wait, what channel did we have to turn to for video games back in the day? CHANNEL 3. I paused the doc and searched domain availability, certain it was already taken.

channel3.gg was available. I snatched it up. And thus began a tense debate within my house: Channel 3 or Goodish Games. By “debate” I mean me CONSTANTLY wondering aloud which it should be while my wife and kids roll their eyes and say, “Clearly you like Channel 3 best, just go with that.”

And so I did.

(My kids actually still call Channel 3 “GG”)

Welcome to Channel 3.

Look, most people won’t get the reference and that’s fine. Young people especially. But Channel 3 is not just for olds; it’s for all gamers. (Young people probably also don’t know what a “Face Book” is. I have actually never seen one in my life either. I think Instagram is short for “Instant Telegram.” Yikes.)

But those who do get the reference are so excited about it. They might even wear the logo on a shirt.

Channel 3 is short, memorable, sounds big (to me). It’s cool. I’m very happy with it.

You paid HOW MUCH for a domain?

Social influencers and brands know that almost all platforms allow you to have ONE link in your bio. Even tho I would love to link to a bunch of stuff (my store, IG, Twitter, FB, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitch, OnlyFans (just seeing if you’re still paying attention)).

This has created a ton of link-in-bio solutions. The biggest is linktree.

And a ton of gaming content creators use linktree.

So one of the main features I want from Channel 3 is to make a gaming-optimized link-in-bio solution. It could show your Rocket League rank, featured clips, your favorite games, your PC setup. In addition to all the standard link options.

To do this, we need a link shortened domain. Like how YouTube has youtu.be.

So I also bought ch3.gg.

I wanted c3.gg. Way cooler. But it was taken. I hired godaddy domain brokerage to see if they’d sell. I offered $1,000. They countered with $50,000. Hahahaha. This sounds familiar. I passed.

They asked for a final counter counter.

I offered $5,000. And they…. accepted.

So that’s that. My biggest expense (so far) for Channel 3. A domain we barely use.

It does work! It just doesn’t have all the gaming features I want yet.

Here’s mine: https://c3.gg/joel

Here’s Channel 3’s: https://c3.gg

And here’s SUPER USER Dan Tucker’s: https://c3.gg/dantucker

And that is why all of these links go to Channel 3.

https://goodish.games

https://goodishgames.com

https://channel3gaming.com

https://channel3gg.com

https://ch3.gg

https://c3.gg

https://channel3.gg

My wife is a saint.

Not only am I unemployed with no paycheck, I also just dropped $5k on a domain for my new business THAT ALREADY HAS 6 DOMAINS.

To say my wife is supportive is an understatement. The woman is a saint. She knows how much this means to me, and she believes in me.

I’ll try not to let her down.

Mario Kart, and Fortnite, and Rocket League. Oh my.

Season 1 Week 1 events are tonight. Stream will start around 8:45pm EST. Then Mario Kart at 9p, Fortnite at 9:30p, and Rocket League at 10p.

Join us or tune in.

---

If you're a gamer and want to check out the alpha release of the platform, email joel@channel3.gg. Please include: preferred username, links to 1-3 social accounts, and favorite video games of all time.