Making Their Mark

I’m willing to bet you don’t have any “facial tissue” in your house. To most people, this product is called Kleenex, whether or not it’s made by Kimberly-Clark, the owners of the Kleenex brand. Similarly, until very recently, copy machines were not copy machines, they were Xerox machines. Just like all sneakers in the 1980s were Adidas, and all plastic containers were Tupperware. I even come from a place where all soda is Coke, even the orange kind.

In marketing terms, this is called becoming a household name, and few game companies have yet to hit that mark. But there have been a few whose success has propelled them as far into the stratosphere of ubiquity as to render them the gaming equivalent of Kleenex.

How did they get there, we wondered, and who is on their way up right now? To attempt an answer, we present Issue 119 of The Escapist.

Chase Murdey interviews Tim Schafer, the LucasArts alum whose Psychonauts became a cult hit; Dana Massey profiles the company behind the Championship Manager games; Pat Miller looks at Mac mavens Ambrosia; and Shannon Drake spends some time with the twisted minds behind Postal.