Renaming the Game: The Solution
Posted on : 07-11-2009 | By : Alex Shaw | In : Articles
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Written By: Alex Shaw
I’ve been running over Episode #128 of Digital Cowboys in my head all evening. In that show we talked with James Portnow about what we should re-brand the term game with. Today I watched the new Daniel Floyd video on Video Games and Facing Controversy (Which is excellent as usual), made in conjunction with Portnow, discussing how our industry needs to stop quailing in the face of criticism when we attempt anything controversial even in the pursuit of artistic merit. He stated that we need to drop the term game in the same way as comic books became graphic novels in the 80’s and gained respect with work like Watchmen and Maus.
But as we said in the show, all the new and suggested terms seem unwieldy or pretentious, smacking of desperation to be taken seriously or suggesting some incredible new medium when it’s really just the same games we’ve been playing for years but which have evolved far beyond Pong and Space Invaders. Spielberg’s Interactive Entertainment or “I.E.” springs to mind. Interactive movie is no good either as we immediately think of Metal Gear Solid, sporadic moments of control amid hours of cut scenes and that specific kind of experience, which excludes games like Braid or Grand Theft Auto IV.
So I got to thinking, what is the one thing that games have that stands them apart from all other media? Reading is passive, as is watching films or listening to music, so it’s the interactivity that’s the difference. I’d suggest we get rid of the modifier and simply call them what they are… an Interactive.
Wait ten seconds before you respond. Think hard. Set your mind thirty years into the future to some Demolition Man future where everybody is relatively content and what we now know as games would seem as primitive as Defender does to you now. Those people, when stepping into the heads of characters created by Hideo Kojima Junior, won’t just be playing games. Whatever you conceive that they will be doing, it’s unarguable that it will be interactive in the way that film, books and music will still not be, unless of course they are cross-branched into Interactives with the evolutions of Heavy Rain and Rock Band. It’s a word in common use today, but used in a new context, it’s one that describes in just four syllables exactly what you’re doing, the variations being entirely thematic.
Now in the real future of 2038, that word is unlikely to be the name for what we now call games, but my point is that it could be. I believe we do need re-branding because one of our biggest barriers to evolution of the medium is an inability to change general public perception of the term game. It is kind of like trying to give yourself a nickname in school, I grant you, but if we don’t think about it and discuss the possibilities then we’ll be living in the pixelated shadow of Pac-Man forever.
That does kind of work, but raises the question of, what are we then known as? Interactivers? Inties? There must be some dictionary word for things which interact with things which are.. interactive.. ? To late, need to sleep on it
i like it.
that podcast was brilliant as well, one of your best.
What about Intermedia as a possible name?
Intermedia was a concept used in the mid-sixties by Fluxus artist Dick Higgins to describe the ineffable, inter-disciplinary activities that occur between genres.
I like Intermedia, sounds catchy.
Well this topic has sparked about an hour of conversation between my wife and me, so I too will have to sleep on it.
My only thoughts at the moment is that the one thing most common everything interactive is an “Interface” not that it’s much help.
It’s hard to come up with a word that hasn’t been invented when it’s an actual goal of discussion. Things like “LOL” and “D’oh” and even the word “Movie” seem to have been accepted as common language without much effort or discussion at all.
I know a great marketing manager, I might have a chat with her next week about how things like this can be re-branded in the real world.
Someone who plays interactives would be an interactor (the “actor” part suggests you’re playing a part within the interactive, rather than just being a passive watcher or listener). I also like intermedia as a term to refer to the medium as a whole, and I suspect it would get shortened to “inters”.
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I really doubt a re-branding of of video games is even possible. Even if some how someone was able to do so within those of us who play games, would it change the views of those who are skeptical of games? Because the whole point of this is to convince the skeptics, not convince those of us who are already into games, right?
Let’s go back to Daniel Floyd’s example of comics and graphic novels. The Watchmen is referred to as a graphic novel by the majority of people, but the majority of people still call those types of books as comics, even comic readers still call them comic books. My guess is that a “graphic novel” is just a stand-alone story rather than an on-going story. But my point with this graphic novel/comic example is: it’s a bad example to compare with video games and how to improve the image of the medium. Comics are still called comics, still aren’t seen as sophisticated reading material, and the skeptics still view them as kids’ books.
Back to video games, if we want to change the view of those who are skeptical of video games, a re-branding would not be the right solution. It’s like proposing some magical cure to cancer patient, when in reality, that cancer patient will have to undergo tons of chemotherapy. If you want to change someone’s view on video games, the only real way to change their mind would be to go to each one of them, explain to them what video games are and aren’t, and then try to get them to play some games themselves. And even then, it wouldn’t be a guarantee that you can convince them that video games are more than just “kids’ toys”.
To sum up, not only do I think re-branding would be too hard to do, but it really would be pointless due to it not effecting the skeptic people. The only remedy to changing public perception of video games is time. After all the people who look down on video games either die out or grow old and irrelevant, and the new generations who grow with video games have taken up the majority of the population, that’s when the public perception of video games will change.
@Stafa Al-Hassani – Very true. But I feel that some people want acceptance right now. Not while waiting for old people to die. I’m not one of them, I couldn’t care less about what people think of me or what I do with my time and money. The only time it drives me mad is if a game is censored in my country.
Most of us gamers know where the medium is headed and how important it will become in our future for cultural and artistic expression (and even in education or public awareness).
I can see how it is frustrating seeing the potential of something so amazing but being tied down, shunned or pigeon-holed by old perceptions that don’t fit the medium any more.
You’re absolutely right though, time is going to prove what we all know about this new media. But persistence is the key, and based on how much money there is in video games, I don’t think persistence will be a problem. Developers and publishers standing up for their creations will certainly help the cause as well.
@ Stafa Al-Hassani. I think to an extent you are right. A re-branding wont be the be all end all solution, but i do think it will help. The term graphic novels does have the connotations of something more sophisticated than comics, and people relate ‘graphic novels’ with something different to comics.
What I’m trying to say is that we cant just change the name, we need to alter the medium itself. For example we don’t just start calling them Interactive’s. We start by calling games like “Heavy Rain”, and team Ico’s “The last Guardian” Interactive’s, and leave the term ‘game’ for the more game’y games.
If we call games which are truly respectable, which the sceptics cant deny are art “Interactive’s” but still give those sceptics the FPS’s and other games to dig their disapproving teeth into then they might be more willing to accept the term, and the brand.
Stafa Al-Hassani said much of what I thought when reading this.
I will also add that “Interactive” is far too long. “Motion Picture” was shortened to “Movie” and “Television” to “TV” or “Telly.” I think trying to replace “Game,” a single syllable word, with a four syllable word is doomed to failure, especially since people will have something to revert back to instead of shortening it to “Intie” or something similar.
hmm, I don’t like interactives but then I guess moving pictures were the same.
Part of the problem is that the word game is actually very generic. You play a game of football, monopoly DnD or Counter Strike. You play mind games or a game of intrigue, a drinking game. So many things that are fairly unalike are considered a game. So the fact that video games do not even have a name they can call their own just one shared across all leisure activities I think holds the medium back.