What's In a Name: Robomodo

by Justin McElroy { Oct 5th 2009 at 6:00PM }

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.

Tags: activision, robomodo, tony-hawk-ride, whats-in-a-name

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

schuyler @ Oct 5th 2009 6:04PM

and most important of all it makes me think of mojo jojo

Special Agent Steve @ Oct 5th 2009 6:06PM

Tony Hawk Ride.... I feel so sorry for these people.

chulipin @ Oct 5th 2009 6:10PM

Domo, Robomodo.
The name sounds fun, I give you that, and I like the logo.

MuToiD_MaN @ Oct 5th 2009 6:14PM

Time to go home and do it "robot style."

CH3BURASHKA @ Oct 5th 2009 6:20PM

They read Gizmodo a lot. Bam.

Tom Kalinske, CEO. @ Oct 5th 2009 6:28PM

Sounds like another dev that needs to be saved from Activision.

False @ Oct 5th 2009 7:54PM

EA shut these guys down and left them jobless. If anything, Activision saved them.

Tom Kalinske, CEO. @ Oct 5th 2009 7:55PM

If EA shut them down, perhaps there was a reason?

[Tre (TM), who is forever confused] [blogs at trespeak.tumblr.com] @ Oct 6th 2009 2:58AM

They aren't Activision owned... yet.

Well, hopefully Ride won't do so hot, therefore repelling Activision from snapping them up and making them Neversoft's little clone.

Marco le Polo @ Oct 5th 2009 6:31PM

Robots will be the end of us all, but it's cool.

Wardo @ Oct 5th 2009 7:36PM

Cool name, too bad nobody care about Tony Hawk's Ride.

JeezWhiz87 @ Oct 6th 2009 5:35AM

"art supports gameplay supports art...".

Nothing says art like fake plastic skateboards.

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