If you’ve been on this website’s homepage, or the About page, or looked at the footer, you might have seen the name Harry Elwell in a few places.
That’s me, I’m Harry, and that is my name.
There’s a very specific reason why I decided to include it all over this website and in my games, and in this blog post I’m going to explain all.
But first, let’s talk about what I used to do.
What game developers, including myself, usually do
Indie developers, have a bit of a habit of playing the role of a bigger studio.
We come up with a snappy name and logo, shove “Games”, “Studios”, or “Interactive” at the end of it, and then proceed to masquerade as one of the big boys.
While it’s great fun to come up with a studio name and branding, it also does us—as solo developers—a disservice. We are doing everything alone and, much like an artist signing their painting, we deserve to take credit for our work.
This wasn’t something I would have thought about in the past. As my previous blog post on past names and logos makes clear, I was a firm believer in picking a fun phrase and slapping the the word “Games” at the end if it.
This all changed when, a couole of months back, I stumbled across an old GDC talk that—simply put—blew my mind.
The GDC talk that changed everything for me
In 2019, renowned indie developers Zach Gage and Bennett Foddy, of Really Bad Chess and Getting Over It fame respectively, debuted a conference talk on a sensitive topic: Put your name on your game, a talk by Bennett Foddy and Zach Gage.
If you haven’t see this talk before, it really is worth your time. Do yourself a favour and watch the montage within the first 30 seconds. It sums up the issue with abstract naming perfectly.
After watching this talk, I suddenly realised: I am doing this alone and can absolutely, proudly put my name on my work. I should be taking credit for this, I don’t need to hide behind a made up brand name.
But equally, I wasn’t comfortable with the idea of committing fully to using my name as my social media username and website domain name. So I found a middle ground that worked for me.
What I settled on: Pseudonym + strapline
I decided that, if I were to find a pseudonym that I would use for all social handles, usernames, and website domains, I could then pair this with a strapline that credited myself by name.
That way I would get a degree of anonymity, while still putting my name on my work and presenting my thoughts as myself. An individual.
And honestly, that’s all there is to it.
A simple idea, but already I feel like I’m presenting a much more genuine version of myself, Harry. The human being that is making these games, or at least trying to.
If you haven’t already, go back and watch that GDC talk. Do yourself a favour and take credit for your hard work!
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