The world of video games has always used and abused Anglicisms. That’s a fact. May be too much ? In any case, this is what the France Terme organization, under the direct supervision of the Ministry of Culture, has looked into. Officially, certain terms from the language of Shakespeare now have an intelligible equivalent of those speaking the language of Molière.
How do we say then?
A language, whatever it is, is evolutionary: it must be able to adapt to the time in which it is practiced in order to be able to prosper and endure in the future. The last century saw the birth of many fields and innovations for which the French language had not been prepared, such as video games. If the birth of the video game industry has an undeniable link with the Anglo-Saxon world, this is not the case for France. Over time, it has therefore become easier to borrow terms from the English language to talk about “video games”. Until now ?
The Ministry of Culture published in the Official Journal of May 29, thanks to the Commission for the Enrichment of the French Language, a set of several vocabulary words from the video game lexical field, ready to enter into service. This organization had notably proposed the term “e-mail”, instead of the Anglicism “e-mail”, to evoke electronic mail. The process therefore resulted in a listing of several words, referenced on the online platform, France Terme:
- casual gamer becomes “Occasional Player”
- hardcore gamer becomes “Hyperplayer”
- Skill Game becomes “Skill Game”
- Social Games becomes “Social Game” (online)
- retrogaming becomes “Retrogame”
- Game as Service becomes “Video Game on Demand”
- Cloud Gaming becomes “Cloud Video Game”
- Stream becomes “Live Players”
- Pro Gamer becomes “Professional Players”
- Esports becomes “Competition Video Game”
- Skin Betting/Gambling becomes “Virtual Object Exchanges”
- pay-to-win becomes “Pay to Win”
- In-Game Advertising becomes “In-Game Advertising”
- Free-to-Play becomes “Free Access Video Game”
- Early Access becomes “Early Access”
- Season Pass becomes “Season Pass”
- Downloadable Content (DLC) becomes “Additional Downloadable Content (CTA)”
- Matchmaking becomes “Player Pairing”
- Rigging becomes “Skeletonization”
- Hand tracking becomes “Hand Tracking”
While some of these new terms are not unfamiliar to you, or even already in use, others such as “player pairing” obviously seem doomed to oblivion. The English language is unique in that it allows for short abbreviations and has been part of players’ vocabulary for a long time. The fact remains that the initiative to make these words official offers an opportunity to seize them to bring them to life and make them evolve. Of course, everyone is free to use the term that suits them best. After all, the important thing is not so much the language used as the means of making oneself understood. We promise, we won’t talk about “Xbox Cloud Gaming” yet instead of Xbox Cloud Gaming.
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