Inside the NAME FACTORY
All these screwball names must be pretty hard to come up with, right? Of course not! Getting paid for gurgling seems to be one of the legitimate thrills around the old vid-game farm. Jack Hubka of Gottlieb explains: "It's really pretty simple—we get about 30 people standing around and we bounce things off each other."
Inside the NAME FACTORY
All these screwball names must be pretty hard to come up with, right? Of course not! Getting paid for gurgling seems to be one of the legitimate thrills around the old vid-game farm.
Jack Hubka of Gottlieb explains: "It's really pretty simple—we get about 30 people standing around and we bounce things off each other." Like what, nerf joysticks? Oh no, names. Gottlieb has one of the great gibberish names in Q*Bert, but Hubka is modest about the origins of the strange syllables. In fact he can hardly remember. "There was some discussion on how to spell it," he recalls. C'mon, Jack, isn't that "i-t?" Yuk, yuk. Well, in any case, more straightforward competition like Cubert was quashed.
Keith Egging over at Taito elaborates, stressing that names can come from anywhere, and usually do. "A lot of times the programmer will have the name (before he invents the game). We're presently doing one called Toasters And Chainsaws, and the game evolved from that name."
I should hope so. Gosh, it almost sounds like love and marriage, huh? Despite the fun, though, there is a moribund side to the Name Game.