Mainstream and domain names
 

Mainstream surfers seems to be more "picky" about things IMO so I wanted to ask around on this one. Specially because of the target audience that I want to hit with this new site.

I'm looking to build a video gaming site to target a specific niche as a side project. Out of all of the online surfers I think "gamers" can be the most picky IMO. So I'm trying to decide what to do as far as the domain issue I have.

There is a very specific "key word" that I will be targeting. There are currently two big sites that I would be competing with for traffic. One is a big player so I can't really compete with them right off the bat.

However the second site is a newer site and much smaller, so I'd definitely be trying to compete with that site for traffic. The problem is, this smaller site happens to have the domain of the keyword I will be targeting.

I was able to buy a domain of the same keyword with a "Z" at the end. So for example sake it would be like comparing "games.com" with "gamez.com" (I do not own gamez.com it's an example) then have two competing sites on each domain.

Of course "games" is better but "gamez" isn't too bad. Anyway getting to the point do you think it's worthwhile to try to brand the "z" domain knowing there is already a similar site on the "s" domain? Or am I better off to find a diffrent brandable name even if it doesn't have the keywords I'm targeting?

Keeping in mind this is a very big keyword that I'd be targeting.

The thing I look at is for example http://www.videoz.com have pretty much branded the "z" as part of their name. I'm just wondering if I'd be able to get away with the same sort of thing being the "s" will be direct competition.