The Ministry of Culture is fed up with all these Anglicisms in the world of video games. New terms are recommended to bring a little French back to gaming and esports.
New workhorse of the General Delegation for the French language and the languages of France: video games. The organization of the Ministry of Culture fights against the Anglicisms that pollute our beautiful French language and in a recent publication in the Official Journal, new words have appeared.
We therefore discover definitions of terms very used in video games, such as early access or season pass but also new translations for words that everyone knows: retrogaming, esports, streaming, free-to-play, DLC…
A mistaken definition for streaming
Thus, from now on the French language recommends to call additional downloadable content a “CTA”to talk about “competitive video game” for esports (with gamers who are “professional gamers”, the correct term for that), from “cloud gaming” to cloud gaming, of “retrogaming” for retrogaming and “pay to win”.
But a definition has made the many streamers and players of the net react: the equivalent recommended by the government for streaming is… “live player”. The definition is given by the organ, with a variant (“player-host live”)
Streamer: player who broadcasts and comments his own part of a video game live on the web, while interacting with his community of spectators
A definition that seems to come straight out of the beginnings of Twitch, when the profession broke out. Since then, the platform has brought out hundreds of streamers of content as diverse as video games, politics, sports or music. Numerama recalls in passing that the definition given in 2015 by the commission for the enrichment of the French language was much more precise and should not have been abandoned:
refers to the broadcasting or reception via the Internet of audio and video content, according to a mode of transmission allowing continuous reading without downloading.
For you, what would be the French term for a streamer?
| FOREIGN TERM | DOMAIN/SUBDOMAIN | FRENCH EQUIVALENT |
|---|---|---|
|
cloud gaming. |
Audiovisual/Video game. |
cloud video game. |
|
downloadable content (DLC), downloaded content (DLC). |
Audiovisual/Video game. |
additional downloadable content (CTA), downloadable extension. |
|
early access, early pass. |
Audiovisual/Video game. |
early access. |
|
e-sports, pro-gaming, pro-gaming. |
Audiovisual/Video game. |
competitive video game. |
|
free-to-play (F2P). |
Audiovisual/Video game. |
video game in free access. |
|
game as a service (GaaS). |
Audiovisual/Video game. |
video game on demand. |
|
hand tracking. |
Audiovisual/Video game. |
hand tracking. |
|
in-game advertising (IGA). |
Audiovisual-Communication/Advertising. |
in-game advertising, in-game advertising. |
|
matchmaking. |
Audiovisual/Video game. |
player pairing. |
|
pay-to-win (to). |
Audiovisual/Video game. |
pay to win, loc.nm |
|
progamer, progamer. |
Audiovisual/Video game. |
player, professional player, -she. |
|
progaming, e-sports, progaming. |
Audiovisual/Video game. |
competitive video game. |
|
retrogaming, retrogaming. |
Audiovisual/Video game. |
retro video game, retro game, nm, retro video game, retro game. |
|
rigging. |
Audio-visual. |
skeletonization |
|
season pass. |
Audiovisual/Video game. |
seasonal pass. |
|
skill game. |
Audiovisual/Video game. |
skill video game, skill game. |
|
skin betting, skin gambling. |
Audiovisual/Video game. |
stock market of virtual objects. |
|
social game. |
Audiovisual/Video game. |
online social game, social game. |
|
stream. |
Audiovisual/Video game. |
player, facilitator, live player, player, live player. |
