"Okay."
Thanks.
Now get this: video game companies are called what they're called for all kinds of strange and fruity reasons.
Here are but ten or eleven or something of the hidden stories behind the game company names. Get ready to have your mind blown...! By which I mean: "get ready to learn some facts that at most you'll find mildly interesting!"
He left the company in 1982 with a big, fat, business plan for a video games publishing company, and managed to secure $200,000 in funding off of some guy. Somewhere between writing the plan, and getting the money, the name changed to Electronic Arts - potentially at the behest of the first EA employee, a former colleague of Trip's called Rich Melmon.
"Hmmm... this melmon is a bit rich."
"Er... it's pronounced melon."
"Just be quiet and eat your icen creamen."
"Also, stop ordering melon just so you can make fun of my name, Trip."
"Waiter! Another five bowls of your richest watermelmon, please!"
However, the duo's legal counsel suggested a rude company name might not go down well with the delicate sensibilities of 1983, and so Bonnell and Sapet resorted to using a computer programme that mixed and matched various high-tech words. They eventually settled on Infogrames - a portmanteau of information technology and program.
Also, the company's homosexual armadillo logo was selected, according to Bonnell, because: "This dinosaur is our symbol; the armadillo has always survived changes to its environment, from the melting of glaciers to the worst of heat waves."
Of course, Infogrames later took over Atari, but was subsequently bought out by Bandai Namco. So, y'know... epic survival skills there. What really killed the "dinosaurs"? A corporate acquisition. I never read that in Darwin's Origin of the Species (I never read Darwin's Origin of the Species).
Notice: Armadillos aren't dinosaurs, Bruno. In fact, nobody knows what they are.
"Armadillo-ing out of here!!!!!"
Following the war, Standard Games was sold, and the prudish US government outlawed slot machines in US territories, as all types of slots were considered far too rude. The founders of Standard subsequently formed Service Games, to provide amusement machines to US bases in Japan - the service part of its name referring, quite literally, to the armed services.
Service Games was sold off in 1960, or something, but the name was brought back in 1965, following a merger between the company's new owner Rosen Enterprises - which imported arcade games to Japan - and a Japanese company, Klaatu Barada Nikto (Nihon Goraku Bussan).
The new company was named Sega Enterprises - shortly afterwards releasing the first of what would become many arcade games - Endoscope (Periscope).
Computer Space was released in 1971 by Nutting Associates (with whom Bushnell had been put in touch with via - again, not a joke - his dentist, Dr Fangboy Teef). Nutting had previously had success with a bar-based amusement machine known as Computer Quiz, and were looking for another hit product.
A year after the release of the commercially unsuccessful Computer Space ("How much money did it make? Nutting..."), Bush' and Dab' formed Atari Inc. - so-called when they learned that the name Syzygy was already taken. Atari produced Pong, an arcade version of the popular Magnavox Odyssey's home video tennis game. Permission to do this was not sought.
Atari was chosen from a list of words relating to the traditional board game 'Go'. referencing a position where a group of stones is imminently in danger of being taken by one's opponent. Which is somewhat ironic given Bushnell's then-association with taking the "stones" of his opponents, allegedly...
The iconic Atari logo was meant to symbolise the two Pong players, with a tennis court centre line between them... although it looks more like a sandwich stood on its end.
CAPCOM is an abbreviation of CAPsule COMputer, and not - as many assume - CAPricious COMmunists. The company sought to convey a new type of gaming experience that would exceed that of rival personal computers, which had also been increasing in popularity during the same period.
If that sentence feels a little unwieldy, that's merely because most of it was cut-and-pasted from Capcom's own website. Here's another slice of ill-translated English:
The "Capsule" segment of the CAPCOM name was based on 2 key concepts: "a container packed to the brim with fun" and "a desire to create securely packaged games to decrease the rapid expansion of pirated materials".
It's okay: I'm none the wiser either.
Could've been worse. They could've highlighted KageMASA, YoSHI, TaTSuo - and been known as Masashits.
It is commonly assumed to mean "leave luck to heaven", but there are no historical records to back this up. Other suggestions are "to leave one's fortune in the hands of fate", and - referring to the hanafuda playing cards the company was formed to make - "the temple of free hanafuda" or "the company that is allowed to make (or sell) hanafuda".
TRUE FACT: If you say "Nintendo" three times in the bathroom mirror Jambo Pelm appears!
Realising that the company needed a name that was easily pronounced outside of Japan - if it ever stood a chance of breaching Japan's borders - Tokyo Teletech, TTK, and Totsuko were all considered before Ibuka settled on Sony.
"Sony" was chosen from sonny - in 1950s Japan "sonny boys"; a word borrowed from English, referred to smart and presentable young men, which the company founders considered themselves to be - and the Latin word sonus, meaning your son's anus (sound).
It was Levy who poo-pooed the original suggestion to call the company Vsynch Inc., suggesting instead Activision, derived from the words Active and Television.
How much more of this article is there to go, Richard?
"Not Muchmore"
LOL.
It changed its name in 1989 after publisher Baudeville bought its game, Ski Crazed, for the princely sum of $250. It was taken from the name of a cartoon dog, with attitude, character that was often drawn by Gavin as part of the company's early logos. As can be seen in the above image, Andy Gavin was terrible at drawing.