So what the heck is a "wadjet" anyway?

Several months ago, I sought the advice of marketing and PR people since I know virtually nothing about the subject myself.  A common thread among their advice was that I should give serious consideration to changing the name of my company.

I have to admit, this is something that I've considered more than once.  "Wadjet Eye Games" was not the best of choices.  It's hard to spell, hard to pronounce, and it has nothing to do with games.  It should have been obvious that the name was iffy when I was nominated for a Game Developer's Choice award in 2007 and the committee completely butchered the name at the award's ceremony.

So why did I give my company this name in the first place?

When I was a kid, I had a brief obsession with Egyptian myths.  I read as many as I could get my hands on, and in doing so I came across the symbol of the wadjet eye.  I thought it was the coolest looking thing ever, and I knew that if I ever needed a logo for anything I would use the wadjet eye.

Flash forward twenty years later.  It was October of 2006 and I wanted to announce my first game.  I was on the internet, fingers poised over a keyboard, the screen locked onto the domain registration page of ipowerweb.com.  In order to announce the game, I needed a website.  And in order to register a website, I needed a name for my company.  I had been thinking and wrecking my brain for several weeks, but nothing was coming.  I had to choose something and now. 

Then, it struck me.  I always knew that I would use the wadjet eye symbol as my company's logo, so why not just use that for the company name?  The decision made, I typed "wadjeteyegames.com" into the registration field, entered my credit card info, hit "confirm", and bam.

Four years later, marketing professionals are telling me that I should change the name.  I thought about it long and hard.  I even posted a thread on indiegamers.com about it, asking what other folks thought.  But, really, the point is moot. 

Would changing it now magically make me super successful?  Probably not.  I've already developed five games (soon to be six!) under the Wadjet Eye Games banner, so there's little point in changing it now. It would do me much more harm than good.  And honestly? I like the name.

So the name is here to stay! But if you could spread the word that it's spelled with a "J" and not a "G", my google searches would be eternally grateful.

-Dave

10 things I've learned from working in cafes:

As I've posted before, I've been doing the laptop cafe thing for awhile.  Here are a few little bits of wisdom I've picked up.  Use them wisely.

10 - It's impossible to sound masculine when ordering a latte.

9 - If you have to answer a call of nature, bring your laptop with you.  If you ask someone to watch it for you, they will always say yes before promptly forgetting about it.

8 - The girl smiling and cooing at her computer screen is talking to her boyfriend on skype.

7 - Get there before 9:30 AM if you want any hope of getting a table near an outlet.

6 - You can coast in a cafe all day on one cup of coffee, but it won't make you well-liked by the staff.

5 - People might look like they are doing important things on their laptops, but half of them are just updating their facebook status.

4 - Free wifi sounds like mana from heaven, but in a crowded cafe (with dozens of laptops) you might as well be on 300 baud dialup.

3 - The people you think are weird are thinking that you are just as weird.

2 - Nobody actually cares what you are doing on your laptop, no matter how interesting you think it is.

1 - Rainy days + warm cafe + sweet jazz music = best work environment ever.