Should Video Games Change their Names?

[Canadamus Prime]

It's a video.

It's a game.

Video-game.

Don't fix won't aint broke.

My thoughts exactly. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

Ah, corporate speak. Beating people at their own game, are we? Huh. Just put some derivative of the word 'synergy' in the name or description somewhere and it will make executives and marketers happy. They like that word.

Synergistic Leveraged Interactive Multimedia Entertainment.

 

[badgersprite]

Ah, corporate speak. Beating people at their own game, are we? Huh. Just put some derivative of the word 'synergy' in the name or description somewhere and it will make executives and marketers happy. They like that word.

Synergistic Leveraged Interactive Multimedia Entertainment.

Bwhahaha! SLIME! I love it. I think that's what I'm going to name my evil MegaCorp when I start planning to take over the world, only to routinely get beat up by a hero in colourful tights every single week.

 

[Wolfenbarg]

If they tried the name change thing before the absolute explosion that came around a decade ago then it might have been feasible. These days there are just too many people that know of them as video games for us to seriously see a change unless it becomes illegal to refer to them as such or some other incredibly arbitrary thing. If video games need to improve their self image, the name change will be an incredibly superficial one.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Changing the name for the sake of peoples stupidity, seriously?
If people are unable to grasp what video games are then they should clearly be looking at something else, I never had a problem comprehending what a comic book is (I just had to look at one to make the connection).

 

[Lem0nade Inlay]

It's a video.

It's a game.

Video-game.

Don't fix won't aint broke.

"Video" immediately brings to mind a VHS tape. And "game" immediately brings to mind Shoots and Ladders. So yea, it's pretty broken.

Interactive Entertainment or Interactive Narrative sound better.

Interactive Narrative?
That sounds so old fashioned. Something a politician might use to describe 3D movies or something.

 

[Traun]

Ah, corporate speak. Beating people at their own game, are we? Huh. Just put some derivative of the word 'synergy' in the name or description somewhere and it will make executives and marketers happy. They like that word.

Synergistic Leveraged Interactive Multimedia Entertainment.

Bwhahaha! SLIME! I love it. I think that's what I'm going to name my evil MegaCorp when I start planning to take over the world, only to routinely get beat up by a hero in colourful tights every single week.

The funny thing is that Saturday morning heroes rarely did anything to the evil organization. They just found the big bad guy in charge and kicked the living **** out of him - every week.

 

[thereverend7]

Not to sound old fashioned or anything but... anyway remember that line from romeo and juliet? "Whats in a name? A rose by any other name would smell just as sweet"

Likewise, do you think it's going to matter weather or not its called "video games" or "interactive entertainment" or anything else, video games have always and will always be judged by their merits, by their character. If someone's mad that a game is to violent, or preaching bad messages or whatever, they aren't going to go "Oh well at least it's called interactive entertainment, maybe this is more mature then I originally thought" they are going to get upset over the video game, or the interactive entertainment device, or whatever.

And they're probably going to use the term that most people have recognized for decades now. You can change it if you like.... im sticking to calling them what i've called them since I could speak.

This isn't me trying to shut you down or anything. this is just my viewpoint. I don't think a name change is what the video game industry needs... I think we need to change our games to be more widely acceptable, especially the mature ones (Just as R rated movies have become widely accepted as entertainment for age appropriate individuals) Its just hard to get around that stigma of "You" doing everything in a game, where as in a movie, your just watching it happen.

 

[Sacman]

Magic boxes... it makes sense to me...

 

[Balmong7]

So this was mentioned on one the Extra Credits a month or so ago (I don't entirely remember when), and what they said was that most mature comics did not get truly taken seriously until they were renamed "graphic novels".

Well, a lot of that was a group of people who were trying to differentiate what they were doing from the stereotypical comic book fare. If you're releasing an anthology of tragedies in Depression Era New York, then having your work lumped in with talking animal and super-hero comics is a drawback when shopping it around for publishers (see the story behind Will Eisner's Contract With God).

But if you're just going to publish a more expensive She-Hulk comic (which is exactly what DC & Marvel did the second the term "graphic novel" started gaining traction in the early 80s), then who the fuck are you trying to fool? These days, it's basically a marketing term to separate the monthly magazine from their more expensive book editions. In the end, the rising tide of quality books did more to gain the respect of the mainstream world than the name change; but the name change did allow you a moment to explain why a graphic novel was different in the nano-second it took the unwitting public to realize that this is a comic book (also see story behind Will Eisner's Contract With God).

If someone came along doing something truly different from what people think video games are, then it would be worth a name change. Otherwise, you're just a Trekkie who wants to be called a Trekker. Stick with the horse that brought you.

Video game describes exactly what's on the tin and 99% of the games released are exactly what people think of when you say video game. No need for a name change. Want respect, you have to earn it the hard way by creating much more intelligent offerings.

I understand what your saying and I agree with you, the reason a name change seems like a good idea for me is so that the media who doesn't understand video games will be able to differentiate the ones for adults and the ones for kids. This way we won't be getting into so many law suits all the time.

Not to sound old fashioned or anything but... anyway remember that line from romeo and juliet? "Whats in a name? A rose by any other name would smell just as sweet"

Likewise, do you think it's going to matter weather or not its called "video games" or "interactive entertainment" or anything else, video games have always and will always be judged by their merits, by their character. If someone's mad that a game is to violent, or preaching bad messages or whatever, they aren't going to go "Oh well at least it's called interactive entertainment, maybe this is more mature then I originally thought" they are going to get upset over the video game, or the interactive entertainment device, or whatever.

And they're probably going to use the term that most people have recognized for decades now. You can change it if you like.... im sticking to calling them what i've called them since I could speak.

This isn't me trying to shut you down or anything. this is just my viewpoint. I don't think a name change is what the video game industry needs... I think we need to change our games to be more widely acceptable, especially the mature ones (Just as R rated movies have become widely accepted as entertainment for age appropriate individuals) Its just hard to get around that stigma of "You" doing everything in a game, where as in a movie, your just watching it happen.

Pretty much the same thing I said above, I don't necessarily think it is a good idea, just that it might help deflect some unwanted attention. I mean if they start releasing grand theft auto as being interactive media, a parent may not let their kids buy it because "interactive media" is for adults and kid get video games.

And yes I really do see most of America as being this simple minded. The rest of the world doesn't care as much.

 

[Netrigan]

Changing names to be more "mature" would be a waste of time, it would just be a really pretentious snobby thing to do. Video Games is exactly what they are and what they always should be.

The whole graphic novel vs. comic thing makes me sigh too. Watchmen is my favourite comic and whenever I call it that I get a bunch of people going "OH NO IT IS A GRAPHIC NOVEL BECAUSE IT'S INTELLIGENT BLAHBLAH". What a bag of crap, they're called comics, they only came up with the other term to sound more sophisticated. Not to mention Watchmen was originally published in 12 issues, so technically it doesn't even fit the fans definition of Graphic Novel anyway (usually reffered to as a self contained larger comic).

Publishers, distributors, and retailers have pretty much defined it as this:

Comic books: comics found in the magazine section.
Graphic Novels: comics found in the book section.

They don't distinguish between an Richie Rich collection and Pulitzer Prize Winning Maus. Only between the $2.99 issue of Spider-Man on the magazine rack and the $19.99 Spider-Man collection in their Graphic Novel section. That's the only reason the term has stuck, because it defined the difference between two different products. One a periodical, the other a book.