Favourite name for a video games company

[beanheadmcginty]

Completely separate from their actual output, what are your favourite names for video games companies old or new?

I always liked the confident-sounding Mastertronic, whereas Ultimate Play The Game confused me at the time but in hindsight sounds pretty cool. And I know they're big cunts, but Electronic Arts is actually a decent name. Maybe I particularly like ones with "tronic" in them. Was there ever one called "Gin & Tronic" I wonder.

Oh, and Llamasoft is a given of course.

[Mister Six]

Psygnosis always sounded very cool and mysterious, and Team 17 sounds like some cool mid-90s superhero comic. Quite like Naughty Dog, but the whimsical name doesn't fit the vibe of most of their games.

Much like their real-life namesakes, Rockstar sounded cool and confident at first, but now just seem a bit bloated and hubristic thanks to their industry dominance and overproduced output.

I guess System 3 has the same format as Team 17 but it had a cool science fictonal vibe that I liked.

I too was confused by Ultimate Play The Game, and sadly it hasn't grown on me.

[frajer]

The Bitmap Brothers sounded like a cool hard-as-nails gang to my young brain, the sort of older lads with a bad rep but decent sorts who'd step in and sort out any cunt with a casually authoritative "what's the problem here then?"

[earl_sleek]

Magnetic Scrolls was a pretty cool name. Silicon Knights as well.

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

I dunno, but I will say that CD Projekt Red is an irredeemably shit name.

[Cold Meat Platter]

Quite like Postal edgelords Running With Scissors

[samadriel]

Epic Megagames clearly made the best type of game.

[Lungpuddle]

If Naughty Dog made games like Jazzpunk or The Stanley Parable, they would be my favourite. But they don't. So Galactic Cafe and Necrophone Games but only because of the quality of their games (one each) which is probably missing the point.

[Sin Agog]

I don't trust Feral Interactive.  They sound positively undignified.

I do quite like the name and games of Atlus, though.

[beanheadmcginty]

Mindscape was another good one.
The errant "r" in Infogrames pissed me off no end.

[Pink Gregory]

Introversion is a perfect name for a developer.  I don't really know if an extrovert would want to manage a prison or strategise nuclear war.

[Jerzy Bondov]

Neversoft sounds sort of fantastical and 90s gothic but also could be about priapism.

[Huxleys Babkins]

I loved From Software, mainly because of how badly it scans in sentences and the cloth eared attempts by press sub editors to "correct" it.

The errant "r" in Infogrames pissed me off no end.

The founders originally wanted to call Infogrames Zboub Système, which roughly translates as Dick System, until their lawyers advised that it would be a really bad idea.

[St_Eddie]

Ultimate Play The Game confused me at the time but in hindsight sounds pretty cool.

I too was confused by Ultimate Play The Game, and sadly it hasn't grown on me.

I had always assumed that Ultimate Play the Game ought to be pronounced as "Ultimate - Play the Game", with a pause between the words "ultimate" and "play", much in the same way that the advertisement voiceover used to say "Electronic Arts - It's in the Game!"

[ImmaculateClump]

Splash Damage and Witch Beam are nice

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

Sorry, I seem to be focusing entirely on shit names, and I've got another one, also from Poland:
Bloober Team, creators of Observer, that game with Rutger Hauer.
Bloober? The fuck is that? You're not even trying now, are you?

[popcorn]

I've always liked how Nintendo manages to be both a Japanese word but doesn't seem foreign, if that makes any sense. I don't think that's purely down to familiarity. There's something wholesome and round about it. I think it's the do. Dough. Delicious.

[samadriel]

I've always liked how Nintendo manages to be both a Japanese word but doesn't seem foreign, if that makes any sense. I don't think that's purely down to familiarity. There's something wholesome and round about it. I think it's the do. Dough. Delicious.

Like Atari! American company, but a Japanese word. I think we're just accustomed to these names though, i don't know that they really sound that Western.

[St_Eddie]

I've always liked how Nintendo manages to be both a Japanese word but doesn't seem foreign, if that makes any sense. I don't think that's purely down to familiarity. There's something wholesome and round about it. I think it's the do. Dough. Delicious.

"Nintendo does what Genesis don't".  Lots of undiscovered moralistic Sega employees, buried out in the Nevada Desert .. real wholesome.

[Consignia]

It's just words that enter you vocab from young don't sound foreign. Does Samsung sound Korean? Just sounds like a word to me.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Psygnosis always sounded very cool and mysterious

This was the first thing that popped into my head. I think I've been mispronouncing it for much of my life though: I've always said (or thought) "SIG-no-sis", rather than "sigh-NO-sis". The latter pronunciation sounds like some sort of druggie music thing - most likely prog rock, or '90s dance music.

[Fr.Bigley]

Also helped that they had that kick ass owl logo and developed the coolest racing game ever.

[bgmnts]

I like Wales Interactive because it's incredibly plain, like a Ronseal product.

Raven Software was a cool name too because ravens are the tits.

[St_Eddie]

I like Wales Interactive because it's incredibly plain, like a Ronseal product.

Scunthorpe Interactive.

[beanheadmcginty]

This was the first thing that popped into my head. I think I've been mispronouncing it for much of my life though: I've always said (or thought) "SIG-no-sis", rather than "sigh-NO-sis". The latter pronunciation sounds like some sort of druggie music thing - most likely prog rock, or '90s dance music.

I've always called it SIG-no-sis as well. Is there something somewhere proving that we're wrong?

[Ludicrous Display]

The Microsoft first party studios have terrible names, Playground Games, 343 Industries, The Coalition. Shite.

[popcorn]

It's just words that enter you vocab from young don't sound foreign. Does Samsung sound Korean? Just sounds like a word to me.

It's impossible to see it objectively when you grow up with a word but I think Nintendo, written down, just resembles existing western words/shapes/vowels ("intend", "do"). Unlike, say, the Japanese words karaoke, tsunami or okonomiyaki.

[Bazooka]

I always liked Traveller's Tales logo, doesn't sound like a software company, Ocean too.

[badaids]

Psygnosis always sounded very cool and mysterious, and Team 17 sounds like some cool mid-90s superhero comic. Quite like Naughty Dog, but the whimsical name doesn't fit the vibe of most of their games.

Much like their real-life namesakes, Rockstar sounded cool and confident at first, but now just seem a bit bloated and hubristic thanks to their industry dominance and overproduced output.

I guess System 3 has the same format as Team 17 but it had a cool science fictonal vibe that I liked.

I too was confused by Ultimate Play The Game, and sadly it hasn't grown on me.

I always thought psygnosis was a cool name, and psyglapse their subsidiary, with the same style logo but in red.

I'll never forget playing Blood Money for the first time with the hi-res (for then) splash screen graphics of the box art, the 'Psygnosis presents a DMA Design game... BLOOD MONEY', and the top tunes that sounds like it had been done by vince Clarke or speeches mode. All that totally blew me away.

DMA Design was a cool name too.  As was Thalamus who also had a phase of putting out top quality games like Armalyte, Retrograde and Creatures.

[Urinal Cake]

From Software simple and funny
Squaresoft nerdy
BioWare clever
Electronic Arts clever
Tokyo RPG Factory direct to the point