Because I occasionally do strange things when boredom sets in, I found myself reading THIS lengthy GameSetWatch editorial – an editorial which is literally seething with nerd venom – a short while ago. It argues against a decision by the International Game Journalists Association, an organization that I’m sure only about 20 people know the existence of, to henceforth adopt “videogames” as the proper term for electronic entertainment; the GameSetWatch columnist, for whatever reason, prefers that their be a space between the words “video” and “game,” and defends his decision with the sort of fervor usually reserved for someone speaking out against the wrongful death sentence of an innocent family member. It’s a bit frightening. Here are the article’s concluding remarks:
“Why Not Call Them ‘Videogames’?
1. The term as it stands (with a space) is perfectly adequate and unambiguous in modern usage, describing games played through a dynamic visual medium.
2. ‘Videogame’ has no distinct meaning to differentiate itself from the already existing and most widely recognized form, ‘video game,’ so the change is arbitrary. Any arbitrary change against the standard introduces unnecessary confusion.
3. What are you trying to prove? The forced usage of the term ‘videogame,’ sans space, sounds like a sulkingly defensive attempt to make this particular entertainment medium transcend its ‘kiddie past’ and finally be accepted by the mainstream as a full-fledged, freestanding art form. The only problem is that video games, like any other creative human endeavor, are already a serious freestanding art form in league with movies, music, theater, and literature — and all this with the modest space in tact. You could call video games ‘poo on a stick’ and they’d be no less artistically distinctive or impressive (But please don’t, unless you want to start a fight with the “pooonastick” faction).
4. Video games have been called ‘video games’ since the early 1970s, and there’s no good reason to stop that trend.
So hit the space bar already.”
I’d say the real reason that videogames have yet to mature into a substantial art form is that, as is evidenced by the above quote, so much of their audience is obsessed by arbitrary minutiae and tradition, lacks common sense and has an abysmal sense of taste and humor (“pooonastick faction”?).
And, while I hate to participate in the intensely nerdy argument that I’m denouncing, the term “videogame” just has a better semantic flow than “video game.” There’s no pause; the words just naturally blend together as one. And, if we’re going to talk about videogames as art, then the term “videogame” more explicitly establishes videogames as their own entity. The space makes it seem as if they’re in the same category as board games and card games. That’s it. No embarrassingly overblown editorial needed.
