Burgess
UO Staff
Joined: 17 May 2003
Posts: 542
Location: Almost Heaven WV, USA
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 Posted:
Fri Oct 01, 2004 7:39 pm |
What inspired DE/Epic to name their bot in Unreal Tournament 2K3/4 Syzygy?
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In 1972, three friends decided to invent and market the worlds first commercially feasible video game. They were Nolan Bushnell, Ted Dabney and Larry Bryan. To become a partner each man had to submit a $100 to start the project - a remarkably small sum when you consider the company's success. The next step was to find a name!
Drinking beer and thumbing through the dictionary one day, the three friends came across an interesting entry under "S". The word was Syzygy, or "the straight-line configuration between three celestial bodies". What a perfect name, they thought, for three astronomically talented people!
Bushnell and Dabney applied for the name Syzygy to the office of the California Secretary of State, which regulates California Corporations, but were told they were too late. The name was already taken. Following unsuccessful attempts to buy the rights of the name from the first Syzygy corporation, which appeared to be inactive, the friends' solicitor pressed them to think up an alternative.
This time they decided to make a list of several Go words to see if one of them would fly as the new corporate name. First choice was "Sente", which means "the upper hand" - something that greatly appealed. Second and third choices were "Atari" which has a similar meaning to the English "Check", and "Hanne", an acknowledgement of an overtaking move. Bushnell and Dabney submitted the list once again to the Office of the Secretary of State, which approved "Atari", and the rest is history. |
http://www.atari-explorer.com/atariname.html
So a few years back Infogrames purchased Hasbro which owned the Atari name and became the present day Atari. As you know UT2K3 was released using the Atari label and I assume someone from Epic /DE /Atari ran out of bot names or was very clever. Thanks to everyone that participated! |
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