Let's think of a new name for gaming (I blame extra Credits for this!)

[BlackWaltz3]

Extra Credits made me think of something that I've long since put behind me: Does gaming need a new name?

I am a game designer ( 1 failed project, one arcade game finished but not published and a rather big project currently pending approval) who is mostly putting out content for the purpose entertainment, but occasionally threads into other more serious stuff. What I'm getting at is that sometimes the word "game" really doesn't fit the description.

So I want to ask the Escapist community to indulge me: If you were to call a game by any other name, what would it be?

I, for once, don't have a clue...

 

[oplinger]

A preconfigured modular imagination extension.

It's hard to not call them "Games"honestly. because you have objectives..goals...ways to win, just like a game.

 

[Simalacrum]

Interactive Entertainment seems like a pretty reasonable 'mature' sounding title.

 

[SnootyEnglishman]

It's going to be hard to not call them "games" because they just like Monopoly, D&D and others. There's rules, objectives and goals to complete and a way to win the way a game should be.

 

[Thunderhorse31]

Well, if "moving pictures" was simplified to "movies," despite the word sounding pretty stupid (when you think about it), maybe video games can do the same. Although, what words we should shorten or smash together, I haven't a clue either.

Veggies? lol

 

[FireFlower18]

Electronic Alter Ego.

We tend to make characters like ourselves, or what we want to be. On the other hand we can also make them rediculous just to make ourselves laugh.

 

[Kuchinawa212]

Electronic Gaming
I think that'll work as far as I'm conserned

 

[badgersprite]

I've recently become quite partial to the term Screened Media, which encompasses anything that can be shown on a TV screen. All we need to do is adapt that to video games.

Audience-Participation Screened Multimedia?

APSM.

There you go.

EDIT: Oh, no!! I thought of a way better one just now.

Viewer-Involved Experience. Or Viewer Involved Media. Just that word, involved. It sounds so welcoming.

 

[Worgen]

lets call it sex, no one thinks thats for little kids

 

[Lineoutt]

Well, if "moving pictures" was simplified to "movies," despite the word sounding pretty stupid (when you think about it), maybe video games can do the same. Although, what words we should shorten or smash together, I haven't a clue either.

Veggies? lol

Interactive Entertainment "Interenties"? that sounds ridiculous

 

[lacktheknack]

"Controlled Simulation"?

Really, games should be able to weather the storm of being known as "games". Sure, comics changed to "graphic novels", but who's fooled?

 

[Cameron Lowe]

Internitites. That's not that hard to say.

 

[Timbydude]

I like the name "Interactive Entertainment"; as soon as he mentioned that gaming needs another name in this week's episode, that the first thing that came to mind. It looks like I wasn't the only one either.

It could just be shortened down to "Int" or "Ints", honestly. It's perfectly usable in everyday conversation, and it doesn't carry with it the stigma that the word "game" has developed.

 

[CD-R]

Viewer Controlled Media. VCM?

 

[Loviathan]

Viewer Controlled Media. VCM?

I quite like that,
My suggestion would be IGM - Interactive Graphic Media.
And in the spirit of contracting it, 'Intergraph' (Which is probably already a word for something)

 

[PhoenixKing]

A substitute for the word game, I would have to say, would be the word voltrax. Just sayin', it sounds really cool, and it has the word volt in it. As well as an x!

 

[Altorin]

user-directed media.

 

[Sinclair Solutions]

I liked "interactive entertainment" It sounds very classy and businesslike and regal. Like calling movies "motion pictures."

 

[oplinger]

I liked "interactive entertainment" It sounds very classy and businesslike and regal. Like calling movies "motion pictures."

Some porn is technically interactive (yay for usage of DVD menus after every scene!) So..I don't quite like interactive entertainment so much...

Is it just me, or does it seem like this thread is trying to find some legalese version of the phrase "video game"?

I mean...what's the everyman gonna call them? Let's think of that!