r/todayilearned • u/DueNeedleworker5036 • 4h ago

TIL that the Civilizations games (and others) include creator Sid Meier's name in the title because Robin Williams joked that it would help sell more copies of 1987's Sid Meier's Pirates.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sid_Meier#MicroProse
• Upvotes

98% Upvoted

443 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

•

u/n0respect_ 1h ago

Most of the other examples in this thread aren't autor-branding, it's just normal marketing.

•

u/Canvaverbalist 33m ago edited 25m ago

Yeah I don't think the examples count, and to be fair even in other media it's a pretty unique situation.

I don't know a single writer who's books have their name in the title, even if we say and write "Stephen King's It" the title is still officially only "It"

I don't know of a single movie who has the director's name literally in the title either. Best I can think of are self-titled music album.

Tony Hawks or Tom Clancy or Madden didn't make those games, anymore than Caesar or Napoleon made Caesar IV or Total War: Napoleon.

The only other valid examples I could find is Getting Over It with Bennet Foddy, other than that all the famous names on titles are either just consultants, taken from adaptations or producers (like John Carpenter's Toxic Commando).