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.

Tags: a-boy-and-his-blob, wayforward, whats-in-a-name

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Joystiq Features





Featured Galleries (view all)

Trauma Team (2/10)
Ancients of Ooga (XBLA)
Need for Speed: Shift Ferrari Racing Pack
Rocket Knight character art
Calling (2.8.2010)
Age of Zombies (PSP and PS3 Minis)
Blaster Master: Overdrive (WiiWare)
Supreme Commander 2
Metro 2033 (02-04-10)

Team Joystiq

Chris Grant

Editor-in-Chief

RSS Feed

James Ransom-Wiley

Managing Editor

RSS Feed

Ludwig Kietzmann

Senior Editor

RSS Feed

Andrew Yoon

East Coast Editor

RSS Feed

Randy Nelson

West Coast Editor

RSS Feed

Justin McElroy

Reviews Editor

RSS Feed

Alexander Sliwinski

Contributing Editor

RSS Feed

Ben Gilbert

Contributing Editor

RSS Feed

David Hinkle

Contributing Editor

RSS Feed

Griffin McElroy

Contributing Editor

RSS Feed

JC Fletcher

Contributing Editor

RSS Feed

Kevin Kelly

Contributing Editor

RSS Feed

Mike Schramm

Contributing Editor

RSS Feed

Richard Mitchell

Contributing Editor

RSS Feed

Xav De Matos

Contributing Editor

RSS Feed

About Joystiq

Joystiq Podcast

New episodes every Friday! Now playing: Joystiq Podcast 125, for Friday, Jan., 29.



Archive | RSS | iTunes

Autoblog

Urlesque

Download Squad

Engadget

Massively

Asylum

WoW

Engadget HD

Big Download