it's time for another origin story of an industry presence. during a recent gamescom interview with ken levine of irrational games we asked how the developer received its senseless, illogical name:''''''naming things is my least favorite thing to do. in terms of bioshock infinite, the name doesn't make a lot of sense to people. even naming bioshock, i was never like, 'oh my god! that's exactly it!' 'irrational, that's exactly it!' names are difficult because you're trying to do so much work in such a little space. so we're never happy with it.

''''''irrational was almost called 'underwater horse.' the reason that was, you know hex-based war games? my business partner john and i played this very complex world war ii game where not only was there a horse-vs-horse combat table, it was so complex, but there was an underwater horse-vs.-underwater horse combat table. so we almost called the company that. we just couldn't come up with a name.

''''''[irrational] was the name we all hated least. but now after fifteen years or whatever it's been -- thirteen years. i think the identity has sort of subsumed itself into the name and the word means something to us beyond what ''''''irrational'''''' means in the dictionary because it's a culture, it's a kind of game.''''''

and what about the company's prince-like name change from irrational to 2k boston, back to irrational?

with a very dry and clipped delivery, levine said, ''''''it wasn't my idea to call it 2k boston.''''''

what's in a name: irrational games originally appeared on joystiq on fri, 20 aug 2010 17:00:00 est. please see our terms for use of feeds.




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