whats-in-a-name
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What's in a Name: BioWare
It's time for the BioWare: Origins name story. At DICE 2011, we had the opportunity to ask Drs. Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk how their studio got its name: Dr. Ray Muzyka: "The three founders, Greg, myself and [Augustine Yip] our third partner, we were all medical doctors by training, so it was a tongue-in-cheek reference to us being medical doctors. It was also a reference to software for humans. The original logo had the BioWare name and then a robot hand and human hand, the idea of a machine and human interface. ... We thought it was a memorable name and it was free [for use], as well. The idea of the medical reference was quite popular, it's continually come back up over the past couple decades, so in that sense it was a pretty good name, I guess." Dr. Greg Zeschuk: "I think it was that and the software for humans concept. We're making software for people: Bio. Ware. ... We wanted something interesting, cool, memorable. I think the medical piece was the big thing, but also the interface concept." Muzyka: "We dropped the two hands as part of the logo. Our early business cards had it ..." Zeschuk: "... and T-shirts. Collector's T-shirts." BioWare will launch Dragon Age 2 in March and The Old Republic sometime in 2011. Like this feature? Be sure to check out the What's In A Name Archives.
What's in a Name: 2D Boy
It's time for another origin story of an industry presence. Today, Kyle Gabler explains how he and partner Ron Carmel came up with their studio name, 2D Boy, using the process of elimination: Ron and I bummed around for a few weeks throwing names back and forth. They were all either awful, a sexual euphemism or their domain was being squatted on. Some examples for you: "Funk Button": We thought that sounded pretty great! And in every game, we could have a "Funk button," where when you press it, all the characters drop everything and dance! But then we looked it up on Urban Dictionary. I recommend everyone search Urban Dictionary before naming their game/studio/baby/etc. "Power of 2": because we are two guys with powerful muscles. Unfortunately this was also the name of a Christian rock band. And a year or so later, another game related business named itself the same thing. "Big Kitty," "Milky Dolphin" and "Sassy Weasel": Basically, every possible combination of words in the form of "adjective plus animal" was already taken as a game studio in Australia or somewhere. There's even a group actually called Adjective Animal. "Huge," "Massive" and "Enormous": Every possible synonym of the word "big" is already a game studio. We're an industry of confidence. "2D Boy!" We liked that it was short, it immediately conjured up an awkward little 2D kid lost in a 3D world as a mascot, and it was not big or powerful or assuming in any way. And the 5-character domain was actually available. For a while, people (like our bank in San Francisco and my dad) thought this was some sort of gay porn business. But after we made World of Goo, that showed them! 2D Boy's World of Goo is currently available on WiiWare, PC, Mac and iPad. Like this feature? Be sure to check out the What's In A Name Archives.
What's in a Name: Double Fine
It's time for another origin story of an industry presence. Today, we've got Double Fine's Tim Schafer, who can thank Uncle Sam for the inspiration of his studio's name: It came from this sign that used to be on the Golden Gate Bridge. I used to drive down from Sonoma when I was a teenager to see rock shows in the city, and I'd see that sign that said, "Slow to 45 mph, Double Fine Zone" and I thought, man, if I had a band I would name it "Double Fine" so that people would think I bought a really expensive billboard on the GG bridge. All of San Francisco is now declared a Double Fine Zone. Since I never got around to starting that band, or even learning how to play an instrument, I had to use the name somewhere! Double Fine is currently working on a title for Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network called Stacking. Like this feature? Be sure to check out the What's In A Name Archives.
What's in a Name: Shadegrown Games
It's time for another origin story of an industry presence. Today, it's Matthew Burns who isn't quite sure if choosing Shadegrown Games makes him a hippie or a yuppie: I worked on big-budget titles in the game industry for about 10 years. I was a producer on the Halo series at Bungie, and before that I worked at Activision on Call of Duty. When you work on that games that big, the business really comes down to economies of scale: you have to sell millions of copies to recoup the millions of dollars you spent on making the thing. So people get pretty risk-adverse... there's hundreds of employees and millions on the line, so everyone retreats to tried-and-true themes, proven gameplay mechanics, and so on. When I left to start my own company, I wanted to be weird and make games that people hadn't seen before– explore some of the ideas I had about game design, interactive music and other aspects of development. I had a few dozen words and phrases I wrote down to express these kinds of concepts, but none of them were really sticking.
What's in a name: Irrational Games
It's time for another origin story of an industry presence. During a recent Gamescom interview with Ken Levine of Irrational Games we asked how the developer received its senseless, illogical name: "Naming things is my least favorite thing to do. In terms of BioShock Infinite, the name doesn't make a lot of sense to people. Even naming BioShock, I was never like, 'Oh my god! That's exactly it!' 'Irrational, that's exactly it!' Names are difficult because you're trying to do so much work in such a little space. So we're never happy with it. "Irrational was almost called 'Underwater Horse.' The reason that was, you know hex-based war games? My business partner John and I played this very complex World War II game where not only was there a horse-vs-horse combat table, it was so complex, but there was an underwater horse-vs.-underwater horse combat table. So we almost called the company that. We just couldn't come up with a name. "[Irrational] was the name we all hated least. But now after fifteen years or whatever it's been -- thirteen years. I think the identity has sort of subsumed itself into the name and the word means something to us beyond what "irrational" means in the dictionary because it's a culture, it's a kind of game." And what about the company's Prince-like name change from Irrational to 2K Boston, back to Irrational? With a very dry and clipped delivery, Levine said, "It wasn't my idea to call it 2K Boston." Like this feature? Be sure to check out the What's In A Name Archives.
Anti-Aliased: What's in a name
Earlier this week, Blizzard really got the MMO gaming community up-in-arms after the announcement of its latest Real ID feature -- your real name attached to all of your forum posts on its official forums. That's right. No more hiding behind a fake persona when you want to go a-trolling. But, with the transition to a "real name" system comes a whole slew of security issues, privacy issues, and comfort issues. Everyone has an opinion on the system, as well as their own theories on if the official forums are going to crash and burn or if the forums are going to experience a rebirth as people finally watch their tongues when they post. Blizzard is, essentially, asking, "What's in a name?" And, if Shakespeare is to be believed, there's not much back there. It's not the name that needs changing, it's the personalities behind them. It's less about the name, and more about what, or who, it represents.
What's in a Name: Ruffian Games
It's been months since we've brought you the origin story of an industry presence, so during our recent preview of Crackdown 2 we asked Ruffian Games creative director Billy Tomson how the new Scottish dev got its hooligan-inspired moniker: "When I was younger some people thought I was a bit of a troublemaker. There was a parent's evening at our school and everybody had their work laid out -- it's an odd school -- everybody had their schoolwork laid out on the tables and the parents were basically being carted around. "My mom and dad were there and one of my mates, his mom and dad thought I was a bad influence on him and they were just up ahead [of my parents] being carted around to look at all the work. My mom and dad ended up behind them and my mate's dad was looking at my work and he said to his wife, 'That's really good work, that.' It was just some artwork. And his wife said, "Oh that's Billy Tomson's stuff." And he kind of turned around and went, 'Oh, he's a ruffian, that boy!' "I told this story to Gaz [Liddon], who's the studio head at Ruffian and we're all laughing about it. And it was like two weeks later, this was before the company was formed, he basically phoned me up and said, 'I think I've got a great idea for a name for the company.' He said, 'It was about something you told me. How about we call it Ruffian Games.' "I thought he was joking. I just laughed and I thought, you can't call it 'Ruffian Games,' and after a while I thought, 'That's actually quite good. That could stick.' It was Gaz's idea. I would have never called it Ruffian Games myself, in the end I actually quite like it. I think it's a good fit for how we all are." – Billy Tomson, Creative Director at Ruffian Games Like this feature? Be sure to check out the What's In A Name Archives.
What's in a Name: Sledgehammer Games
It's been awhile since we've brought you the origin story of an industry presence, so here's what Glen Schofield had to say about coining his new studio, "Sledgehammer Games," during our recent chat: "We wanted to establish, with more than just a name, our passion and dedication to the studio goals -- from building a world class culture and team, to delivering top quality games -- so we needed a brand for the studio. We started with a list of adjectives that reflect our personality, style and games we like to play and make. Some were hilarious, and some didn't have a chance of getting through legal approval. In the end, Sledgehammer Games always stuck out. "We mocked up slogans for the studio in the same spirit. Slogans like 'hard hitting entertainment' and 'high impact games' seemed to capture the idea, and Sledgehammer nailed both really well. For us, the name Sledgehammer and logo felt right -- it's something that leaves its mark, and that's what we intend to do. We work hard and play hard, and in the end we plan to leave our mark within the gaming community. "It worked out well for us as we can also have a lot of fun with the logo, website and other branding opportunities. In fact, I am getting it tattooed on my forehead tomorrow." –Glen A. Schofield, GM and V.P. of Sledgehammer Games Like this feature? Be sure to check out the What's In A Name Archives.
What's in a Name: Blizzard Entertainment
It's been about a month since we've done one of these, but we thought it would be worth bringing WIAN out of retirement for one of the biggest developers on the planet. Here's the (astoundingly dry) story behind Blizzard's name: Blizzard co-founder Frank Pearce: You know, it is a complicated process. You look through the dictionary and make a list of big long words, and you start narrowing it down. [Laughs.] You get feedback from the people working at the organization, and then you get feedback from the legal department after they have done some trademark searches. And after that big extensive process, "Blizzard" is where we landed. Blizzard Entertainment. We specifically selected to append "Entertainment" as compared to anything else, because we always felt like we wanted to have the option to do more than games. I mean games are our foundation, but we always felt like, you know, if we were creating our own franchises, we would want to someday seem them on the big screen or see them in novelizations or comic books, or whatever. And so, we were conscious of the name when we selected it to call it Blizzard Entertainment, because we knew we wanted to have the option to do more than games in the future. Joystiq: So you don't have a secret meaning of your own behind "Blizzard?" Pearce: No. One of the first things that [fellow co-founder] Allen Adhem does as part of the process is literally start perusing the dictionary. Like this feature? Be sure to check out the What's In A Name archives.
What's in a Name: Pelfast and 2BeeGames
We don't want the big guys to have all the fun, so this week we're finding out the origins of a couple of indie names. First is Comet Crash developer Pelfast, and then we've got a bonus submission from indie gaming hub 2BeeGames. "Back in college (early 2000), I needed a company name that represented graphics/animation -- where I thought I would end up. Pixel was a little overused, so I went with the lesser known abbreviation, pel, and ended up with Pelfast after a little brainstorming. A quick internet search turned up only one hit for pelfast: some kind of WWII military ammunition, so I felt it would work." –John Bates, Pelfast founder "2BeeGames has several meanings. Originally the 'two bees' referred to myself and my partner who came up with the idea for an indie game destination/community. As the concept of the site evolved into a place where we would hold competitions and publish the best games on the site, the name took on another meaning, as in a place where indie games go 'to be' published onto consoles. Now as our community grows, we're running with the bee theme and our community is called 'the hive'." –Tony Tran, site manager Like this feature? Be sure to check out the What's In A Name archives.
What's in a Name: Robomodo
If you want to watch friends and loved ones pretend to skateboard/fall repeatedly this fall, Robomodo's Tony Hawk Ride is the only product catering to those admittedly unhealthy urges. Here's how those monsters came up with the name. When Josh & I first talked about creating this company, I offered up the name because I felt it fit the criteria we were trying to fill: Sounds "fun" (i.e. anybody hearing it would expect to be entertained by our product) Rolls off the tongue & unique Available (i.e. its .com isn't already spoken for) "Just fits" (i.e. is applicable to what we're all about) So in translation, it means "Robot Style". The way it struck a cord with us at the time is that it was made up of two words that apart represented the team's components, and together its development philosophy. "Robo" would represent the Software Engineers and gameplay code, while "Modo" would represent the Artists and their stylish vision for it. At Robomodo, we adhere to a philosophy loop of "art supports gameplay supports art...". It's all about harmony, with the end goal of developing fun & exciting games for a mass audience. Besides, who doesn't love robots? David Lee Michicich CEO / Creative Director Robomodo Inc. Liked this story? Be sure to check out the What's In A Name archives.
What's in a Name: Epicenter Studios
Epicenter is the studio that currently holds the title for "2009 Game That By All External Signs Should Have Been Awful, But Is Actually Pretty Fun" for its Real Heroes: Firefighter. To reward the company prematurely, we've decided to tell you exactly how it got it's name. A few years ago, Epicenter co-founder Nathaniel McClure and I were at a friend's house in the San Fernando Valley, just north of Los Angeles, brainstorming a name for the game studio we were just starting up. Now, naming things is actually a pretty difficult process filled with ups (coming up with an absolutely killer name that will destroy the industry as we know it) and downs (finding out it's already been taken by someone who likes to create flash games based on Creed videos). After coming to the bitter realization that just about any good name we agreed on was already taken, we sulked in our chairs in silence. That's when the walls started to rattle. Even after living in California for nearly 10 years, you still don't get used to a solid earthquake. As the adrenaline starts to flow, you tend to make internal guesses whether you should continue sitting there stoically or jump under the nearest table. Our good friend Kekoa, under the nearest table, wondered where we thought the epicenter of the quake was since it felt so close. Nathaniel and I looked at each other, realizing it was as good a name as any, especially considering we were just a few miles from the epicenter of Los Angeles' last big quake in Northridge. Epicenter Studios finally had a name. Brian Jury Epicenter studios co-founder Liked this story? Be sure to check out the What's In A Name archives.
What's in a Name: WayForward Technologies
With its gorgeous A Boy and His Blob remake in the pipeline, WayForward has been on our minds quite a lot recently. Unfortunately, we didn't have the answer to the real question: How did the company come up with its name? Our curiosity is now sated. "Back when we started in 1990, I happened to be reading a Douglas Adams book called Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. One of the lead characters in it is Gordon Way, who not only shares my surname, but also developed MIDI software for Windows, which happened to be a hobby of mine at the time. I decided to name my company after his partly as a tribute to my favorite author and partly because it was too weird a coincidence to pass up. "Five years later, the parallels continued when we were acquired by a company that subsequently spun us off. We effectively started over from scratch. Gordon Way's company was actually called WayForward Technologies II for similar reasons. "Honestly, I'm hoping the similarities end there, because Gordon Way ends up getting murdered." –Voldi Way, founder of WayForward Liked this story? Be sure to check out the What's In A Name archives.
What's in a Name: Infinity Ward
Have you heard about this game Modern Warfare 2? It's supposed to be pretty good. And we heard that it's expected to sell at least hundreds of copies this holiday season. How did these young upstarts at Infinity Ward get the name?We've got the story. Where did Infinity Ward come from? This is a great story. Nowhere. It means f***ing nothing. [Laughs.] Wow, that is truly a great story. So how did you come up with it? We were pitching a bunch of names. Everybody just kind of threw out random ones like, "How 'bout this? How 'bout that?" And it was like, "Ooh, that is terrible. That is terrible. Wait, hmm, I like that one." Infinity Ward floated to the top and stuck. What didn't make the cut? Do you remember anything that was below the bar? Oh, geez. I'm going to say "no" to that one. Because the suggestions were terrible? Right. Exactly. -Vince Zampella, studio head of Infinity Ward Liked this story? Be sure to check out the What's In A Name archives.
What's in a Name: Sucker Punch
We loved inFamous despite its unfortunate capitalization decisions, but since it's considered rude to ask about that sort of thing, we instead grilled the folks at Sucker Punch on how they came up with their studio's name: "The other company founders and I had worked at Microsoft for a decade or so before starting our new company. Having chafed under corporate policies about what constituted an acceptable project code name, we were looking forward to giving the company a name we'd never ever get away with at Microsoft. "We came up with a list of ten or so names, and eventually my lovely and talented wife saw the list. She said (and I quote), 'I don't care what you call the company -- as long as it isn't Sucker Punch.' We figured that the best way to choose a name a 14-year-old boy would think was cool was to choose a name that a lovely and talented 38-year-old woman thought was unacceptable ... so 'Sucker Punch' it was! "After twelve years, I believe I've been forgiven." - Chris Zimmerman, Sucker Punch co-founder and development director Liked this story? Be sure to check out the What's In A Name archives.
What's in a Name: Riot Games
We've had a good time with the League of Legends beta, so we asked the guys at Riot Games how they came up with their name, as well as the title for their spiritual DotA successor. On Riot Games: "We chose the name Riot Games because we thought it sounded a lot cooler than the other names that we came up with and it pretty accurately reflects the image we want to portray – we're a bunch of young guys who work hard, play hard and love to have fun. And yeah, the domain was available for a reasonable price ..." On League of Legends: "We came up with League of Legends because we believe it accurately characterizes the diversity of characters in the game and sounds 'epic.' Everyone wants to know if we picked the acronym on purpose ... we're always surprised people need to even ask that question – of course we did! -- Marc C. Merrill, President of Riot Games Liked this story? Be sure to check out the What's In A Name archives.
What's in a Name: XSEED JKS
While they may not be the most recognizable brand to you just yet, XSEED has been bringing some really interesting titles stateside. Here's the story behind the company's name: "Our president had seen a Japanese show about entrepreneurs where they talked about planting the seed, the foundation for a new business. So the original idea was to go with the name 'Seed,' but there were a lot of businesses that already had that name. "We then started looking for variations to this name when someone came up with adding 'ex' before it to give it the additional meaning of "to exceed." We messed around with the letters for a while until we got to 'XSEED,' but were told by our lawyer that it was too general a name to trademark and that we had to make it more specific somehow. After a lot of thought, we finally decided to add our initials to the end, 'JKS' (luckily 4 of the initial 6 founders had a name that started with 'K') to become XSEED JKS, Inc., similar to how Dreamworks SKG stood for Spielberg, Katzenberg, and Geffen." – Ken Berry, XSEED JKS spokesman Liked this story? Be sure to check out the What's In A Name archives.
What's in a Name: Gearbox Software [update]
If you looked at the Joystiq calendar, you would have seen a bright red circle drawn around today with something like 17 little smiley faces around it. Sure, that was in part because it's taco salad day in the cafeteria, but also because we couldn't wait to share this new What's in a Name with you. So, straight from boss Randy Pitchford, check out the totally epic story of how [Randy says] Gearbox Software got its name.Update: Valve has informed us that Randy and Gabe didn't meet until after Valve had shipped Half-Life, making Randy's story seem ... well, unlikely. We're trying to find out what happened right now.Update 2: Well, we just heard from PR and they confirmed that the story is a fabrication. Pitchford is apparently going to get in contact to explain what happened. We can't wait to find out his excuse for taking advantage of our Pollyanna-esque faith in the inherent goodness of people, and, by extension, telling tall tales to you, the people who are buying his games. "This is interesting because I've never been asked about how we got the name 'Gearbox' before, but there is a bit of a story to it. Given everything that's happened over the past 10 years or so, the story seems a little hard to believe now that I'm telling it!
What's in a Name: Stardock
In our ongoing feature What's in a Name, we ask developers, publishers and other game industry businesses the stories behind their names. Today our answer comes from Brad Wardell, CEO of Stardock: "I was in college and started the company to help pay for school until I could get a real job. I needed to get a computer and got a hold of a wholesale distributor to get the parts to build it. When I called, they asked me what the name of the company was and in panic, I looked around and was reading a book by Raymond E. Feist and the chapter was called 'Stardock' so that's what I said the company's name was. It stuck and has been since." That's it for this edition, maybe next time, we'll tell you the mysterious story behind "Joystiq." It's ... mysterious.
Got a bad reputation in World of Warcraft? Change your name for 10 bucks
Blizzard is issuing new World of Warcraft character I.D. name tags for a whopping 10 dollars on select servers. If it's bad, you know really bad -- your named drag through the mud sort of deal over random guild's cyber scandal -- you can transfer right away and get a name change! Behind every name is a story, you couldn't help the formula, it went (anonymity + online gaming = instant jacktard). You did the math wrong and very bad things happened. You tore your last guild asunder, made a few people shrivel up in a corner and shed tears, and caused people to lose brain cells spewing Chuck Norris jokes in Barrens chat. There, there, it happens to best and worst of us. That's not it -- fate is cruel -- you are the worst Paladin on your server because you didn't realize classes had talents until level 70 and life just plain sucks. You need a little identity switch-a-roo if you ever want get into a guild group or even find a guild for that matter. If you are like me and had no idea what you were thinking when naming a character, you probably want to change your naming etymology around from "trollbawlerinas" to something more sophisticated and fantastical like "paincakes." Oh, and if you have trouble thinking up a name check out this lovely gallery for a few ideas over at our other blog, WoW Insider. Yes, I know that there are practical and legitimate reasons why a player should have the ability to change their character names and I support Blizzard's decision to allow it. The Warden will beat down the hackers and Blizzard's Game Masters have all sorts of crazy tools at their disposal to track and penalize dastardly profiteering gold farmers -- make ban hammer go faster. Some players might want to change their character name if some weirdo is harassing them because you know stalking is bad. Official announcement and list of server test-beds after the jump:
