France Bans Gaming Words And Phrases For Bizarre Reason

There’s no doubt that the games industry is full of phrases that might be slightly confusing to anyone not involved in it. Sure, anyone can tell you what a gamer is, and you definitely come across a lot less people these days who are confused by the mere concept of us dang youngsters and our vidya games, but try asking anyone who doesn’t play video games what DLC stands for, and things begin to crumble.

It’s not overly surprising then that some people might believe more non-gamer-friendly alternatives could be helpful, as the French government decided this week. However, they’ve decided to execute this in one of the strangest ways possible. As reported by The Guardian, in a baffling move, French officials have ruled that all government workers can no longer use English gaming terms such as ‘Esports’, and must instead use newly created, slightly convoluted French translations. This is part of what The Guardian describes as a “centuries-long battle to preserve the purity” of the French language.

Esports is definitely being recognised way more often as an actual sport these days - take a look at the video below to see the comparison in training for both a pro-gamer and pro-footballer.

French news agency Agence France-Presse was told by the culture ministry that the games industry was full of borrowed English terms which could prove to be “a barrier to understanding” for people who aren’t gamers, which is why they decided to make a change. Experts apparently browsed video game magazines and websites to see if any French translations already existed.

Some of them work pretty well - ‘pro-gamer’ for example is ‘joueur professionnel’, which Google tells me literally means ‘professional player’. On the other hand though, we have the transformation of ‘Esports’ into ‘jeu video de competition’ (‘competitive video game’), and ‘streamer’ into ‘joueur-animateur en direct’ (‘live player-host’), which don’t exactly roll off the tongue. Again, these have all been translated by Google, so apologies for any mistakes. 

It’s all a little strange, but by the looks of things, it only officially impacts French government workers. So, you’re probably not going to get arrested if you go to France and shout “Esports” (but I take no responsibility for if you do).