The list of French equivalents to many terms related to gaming has just appeared in the Official Journal. Indeed, the General Delegation for the French language and the languages of France, an organization linked to the Ministry of Culture, had the mission of francizing all the Anglicisms that are legion in the world of video games and esports, starting with this term in particular. Thereby, France recommends talking about “competitive video games”, played by “professional players” and not pro-gamers. Nothing too surprising so far.
We also discover the “cloud video games” for cloud gaming ; better known, anticipated access for early access or “video game on demand” for GaaS; but also the pay to win (pay-to-win), retrogaming (retrogaming) or player pairing (matchmaking). As for the DLCs, the organization now asks to call them CTA or additional downloadable content.
A streamer is a gamer
But when it comes to the definition of “streamer”, there is a small problem. The commission translates it as “live player” (with a live player/host variant)suggesting that the ministry hasn’t watched Twitch in several years.
Player who broadcasts and comments live on the web his own part of a video game, while interacting with his community of spectators.
Indeed, the term is more than simplistic when we know the explosion of the platform and therefore of the profession of streamer (which is not exclusive to Twitch, of course), but also the considerable amount of diverse content that can be found there, beyond video games. Stars, Samuel Etienne (see image above), Nowtech, Jean Massiet are they live players?
As reminded Numerama, the definition is all the more surprising since the ministry had proposed another more realistic approach in 2015: “said of the broadcasting or reception via the Internet of audio and video content, according to a mode of transmission allowing continuous reading without downloading”, without providing a French equivalence at this time.
What do you think of this francization?
| 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. |