whats-in-a-name posts (Subscribe to this feed)

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."

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.

"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."

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:

1. Sounds "fun" (i.e. anybody hearing it would expect to be entertained by our product)
2. Rolls off the tongue & unique
3. Available (i.e. its .com isn't already spoken for)
4. "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?

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.

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.

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."

---

Liked this story? Be sure to check out the What's In A Name archives.

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!

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.