I went through the exact same thing on a smaller scale when I decided to rename an independent project I was working on. The existing community suddenly became really attached to the old name, and I had a number of people tell me that the new name was a mistake.
Even people who agreed that the old name was a problem were still telling me that they just didn't like the shift in tone, that they felt doubtful about everything. It was a very surreal experience, because I knew the old name was a problem and I knew the newer name better invoked the feeling I wanted, but all of a sudden I was seeing so much pushback from so many people that I wasn't confident any more.
The solution was to take the project to a big conference with a bunch of brand new users and ask them about it while I demoed. Across the board, pretty much everyone liked the new name better, it immediately got across what I wanted. It was a complete 180 in reactions. So after that, I stuck to my guns and in a month or two everyone in the existing community was used to it and a lot of them had come around to saying they now preferred the new name.
My take is people are familiar with 'Riot', it has a sense of nostalgia for them, and even if they don't like the name Riot, that's just what pops into their head when they think about the project. If it's something you feel confident about, then you should ignore the people complaining. Or maybe not ignore, but at least filter their complaints a bit and don't treat them like gospel.
When thinking about branding changes, there's danger in listening too closely to the existing community, because it's going to be hard for them not to have a familiarity bias towards the things they're used to.
Even people who agreed that the old name was a problem were still telling me that they just didn't like the shift in tone, that they felt doubtful about everything. It was a very surreal experience, because I knew the old name was a problem and I knew the newer name better invoked the feeling I wanted, but all of a sudden I was seeing so much pushback from so many people that I wasn't confident any more.
The solution was to take the project to a big conference with a bunch of brand new users and ask them about it while I demoed. Across the board, pretty much everyone liked the new name better, it immediately got across what I wanted. It was a complete 180 in reactions. So after that, I stuck to my guns and in a month or two everyone in the existing community was used to it and a lot of them had come around to saying they now preferred the new name.
My take is people are familiar with 'Riot', it has a sense of nostalgia for them, and even if they don't like the name Riot, that's just what pops into their head when they think about the project. If it's something you feel confident about, then you should ignore the people complaining. Or maybe not ignore, but at least filter their complaints a bit and don't treat them like gospel.
When thinking about branding changes, there's danger in listening too closely to the existing community, because it's going to be hard for them not to have a familiarity bias towards the things they're used to.