On codenames...
I'm getting ready to post a minor blog update on work activities, but I realized that I need to come up with a better way of describing the game I'm working on than "the unannounced Aspyr game that I'm working on." I talked to Glenda and she gave me the go-ahead to use a codename that I'd come up with - "Angus." It's an unofficial codename, and I don't think you'll see it listed on the Aspyr site. I'm not even sure yet if Aspyr is going to list our internal projects on their status page, but I need to refer to it somehow until it's announced.
The reason why Westlake used codenames originally was mainly one of practicality (someone from Westlake correct me if I'm wrong here). I'm not sure if the practice started before I joined or not, but the rationale behind it was that the company felt the need to say "we're alive and working on stuff!" even if the publishers hadn't announced the games in an official way yet. Westlake certainly couldn't legally let the cat out of the bag before the publisher, so the codenames were used instead. Everything else that came out of the process was more a side-effect of that than any planned intent, although I know we frequently were amused by some of the guesses and enjoyed the process. There were more than a few times when someone would guess the game outright very quickly, but had trouble connecting the codename to the project. We didn't really count those, since anyone can blanket-guess a popular game and have a fairly good chance of getting it eventually. :-)
Some of the few codenames I came up with were "Booty Call" and "Russell", mainly because I was assigned to those towards the end of my term at Westlake. I think the rationale behind Russell is fairly witty, and I don't think anyone's guessed it yet. For now, "Angus" continues the real-name trend started by "Russell".