I Think Gaming Needs a Renaming....

[Always_Remain]

(I am not trying to say Mass Effect or RPGs are bad, I enjoyed Mass Effect, but like watching TV, the time spent spent for it seems wasted.)

You have obviously never seen Doctor Who. Or Dexter. Or Buffy. Or House(Meh). Or any shows that aren't shit. I wouldn't consider them wastes of time. But that may just be my noisy, smelly opinion. Nasty little bugger.

OT: I like "Video Games" and "Gaming" and all of the terms we have now. If it's not broke, there's no need to fix it. Plus there isn't anything that great to replace them. Unless someone makes a really good not-word. Like Zillyhoo.

And as for being viewed as childish by people who don't participate in the medium, who cares? I for one find people who get worked up and invested in sports of any kind to be just as silly as gamers.(Although I will admit to enjoying baseball. Hypocritical, I know.) But it doesn't really matter because they love what they love just like we do.

 

[Twilight_guy]

If you rename the medium and people still bear it with the same distrust then it will retain its stigma through the new name. The only way to fix this is to remove the negative views of gaming altogether which is harder then a simple re-skin.

 

[ManWithHat]

tl;dr version of much of this thread:

"oh god, not this shit again"

I think the reason these threads come up is that we see a lot of flak hitting gaming as a medium when it doesn't deserve it or when other non-gaming media (i.e. movies) are involved in a similar situation and no one thinks anything of it. Example: The game Doom was blamed when the Columbine shooting happened. The kids had played Doom, so it must be the game's fault. Not their unstable personalities; it was the game. John Hinckley, Jr. shoots the president to impress Jodie Foster after watching Taxi Driver, people consider him a nut job. They blamed guns and crazy people like him for the assassination attempt, nothing about the movie he watched 15 times.
It's stuff like that that makes us feel like it's kinda unfair.

I mean, it is getting better. Video games are now legally considered a form of art(yay!), so things are improving. Any attempt or desire the change the name I find to be merely a wish for respect where it is due. I'm sure everyone here wants that. Hopefully, one day it won't matter what it is called because everyone thinks better of it than they do now. I hope it's soon because another name would be hard to come up with and Interactive Entertainment probably won't cut it.

 

[Hamish Durie]

I like the gerneral goal of this thread to improve gameing in the eyes of non gamers but until a easy to understand, easy to say, shorst and amusing name can be found this thread ain'y going nowhere fast.

 

[The_Blue_Rider]

How about staying with Video Games? We shouldnt need to change the name of our hobby to make us seem more mature. It will probably do the opposite, just making us look desperate.

 

[StormShaun]

I doubt it would help. Yes, there is a stigma associated with video games. I just finished writing up a 2000 word report on the issues gamers face in Australia, possibly the only time I've enjoyed that kinda work.

But changing the name won't really change the misconceptions people have over video games, and I think it comes across as us kind of defensive and desperate. It will be glorious when games are finally accepted as a legitimate medium, and we aren't all viewed as rapists in waiting, but I don't think this is the way to go about it.

*sigh* Australia, the country with crap internet, censored games, banned games and a annyoing govt that is pretty much against games no matter what, we need a guy in the Govt thats a gamer.

 

[Tax_Document]

"Wild Adventures."

 

[SammiYin]

It IS a toy...

what are you even doing on the escapist?

I apologise, I didn't realise gaming had to be super serious and manly and totally not a toy for people to enjoy it. My bad.

 

[ZeroMachine]

I'm a gamer and I am proud.

I play video games and I am proud.

I will call them video games and the people that love them as much as I do gamers until the day that I die.

Why the fuck should I care about this supposed "negative stigma" you speak of?

 

[Katana314]

This reminds me of the "graphic novel" thing for comics. It didn't do a whole lot, though the name is still used.

There ARE actually some games that prefer to be called an Interactive Story, so people have the right frame of mind going into them that the only button-mashing they'll be doing is to page through dialogue.

 

[SvenSirupSon]

This is same as some Atheits like Sam Harris want to adopt the name Bright(s) instead to escape the negative stuff, aint so easy.
"Gamer" is cool with me

 

[squid5580]

It IS a toy...

what are you even doing on the escapist?

saying such things on a gaming-lifestyle forum seems like trolling to me

toy   
[toi]
?noun
1.
an object, often a small representation of something familiar, as an animal or person, for children or others to play with; plaything.
2.
a thing or matter of little or no value or importance; a trifle.
3.
something that serves for or as if for diversion, rather than for serious pratical use.

read #3 very carefully!

 

[Adam Gadal]

First and foremost, I am gonna ask people please stop swearing. My intention was to make this as an intellectual conversation between gamers, not a thread where people curse at me every 10 words. I can understand you being compassionate about gaming, I am too. I'm also not saying this is something that HAS to be done, but it is an idea I have had that I wanted to get feedback on. Thanks for replying and letting me see your opinions though, it is appreciated.

Now for all those who are saying they don't want to care about people who don't understand the medium...I'll be honest that is kind of the main problem with video games and you are just perpetuating a stereotype everyone has with us. My parents when I was younger didn't want me to play video games because they thought they would turn me into a anti-social outcast that didn't want to associate with people. By saying, "I don't care about the people who don't understand video games," you are giving people who have similar views my parents did ground for their reasoning.

In other news, has anyone else noticed that there are times where video games are massively complained about for their content because 'they're games'? Almost anything the news or society has to say negatively about content in our video games they have no problem with if the exact same type of content is in a movie or a book. And again it is for the simple reason that the name of the medium has 'game' in it's name and perpetuates a view that this is something that is a toy for children. A couple of you have said that we don't really need a renaming, instead we just need something that can show everyone, gamers and non-gamers alike, exactly what it is this medium can do. I believe something like that can be done, trust me, but those who do it are most likely going to have to go to hell and back because of how much controversy what they could be making could bring up.

Now after reading most of the comments in this thread I guess the general view so far is that the name Video Games is just perfectly fine. Though I myself am still not convinced for a simple thing that happened a few months ago. I was talking to a friend of mine, who is an avid gamer who loves the medium, about the storyline of Assassin's Creed 2. I was telling him how the beginning levels where you play as Ezio with his family had so much emotional importance it was mind jarring (I'll explain it if you want me to, but I won't go into it now). One I was done talking he looked at me and said, "Adam, why are you looking so far into this? It's only a game." Now tell me, have you ever gotten a response like that when discussing stuff that has happened in film, or things you have read in books? I haven't and it's because people understand those medium can express deep emotion thoughts upon those who watch or read them. Video Games have yet to gain that reputation, and while there are countless reasons why, I believe that one of them is because of the name of our medium.

Again thanks to everyone who has posted so far, I do enjoy the feedback on this topic

 

[Cheesus333]

Reading: Respectable pasttime.

Watching films/movies: Respectable pasttime.

Gaming: Not widely accepted as such.

Obviously, there is no problem with the word itself. I don't think we need to change what we call our hobby/profession, but rather the connotations of the word 'gaming'. Instead of people thinking "sad" or "pathetic", we'd ideally like them to think the same thing that they might when someone says they read books or watch TV for enjoyment. Glossing it up with a superfluously-lettered name and making it harder to say won't make people think of it any differently.

 

[Heartcafe]

Immersive Virtual Adventures or IVAs for short (Pronounced: EYE-VAHS)
Sounds pretty and rolls on the tongue nicely I think (well the shortened version that is.)

 

[Littaly]

First, we need to make sure games are actually worthy of taking seriously, then we can start worrying about projecting that image. I want video games to be on the same artistic level as books and movies too, and one day they might be, but they're not there yet, not by a long shot.

 

[veloper]

"Game" fits perfectly until you start removing the GAMEPLAY, at which point the product becomes either a toy or show.

 

[Mechanix]

It IS a toy...

what are you even doing on the escapist?

They are toys, he isn't joking. A toy is an object that exists to provide entertainment. A video game does just that. That doesn't mean it can't be any of the other fancy things we call them, like "art" and "medium" and "piece of technology", but it is also a toy. And so what? "Toy" is just a title given to it, it doesn't mean anything.

 

[Grospoliner]

Electronic Interactive Entrainment. Everyone loves acronyms and there is no better more suitable one for the medium as EIE (pronounced eye)...

 

[jamesworkshop]

Maybe it might help if "Gamers" stopped pretending to be victimised, resorting to this kind of self-pity would shame even Hillary Clinton.

Gaming is doing fine, it's getting bigger and more relevant every year, games are becomming so ubiquitious we are now seeing the transition to a complete lack of dedicated gaming platforms/devices.

Trying to run away from videogames like this only make you look suspicious.