The French government has announced that it will change various languages ​​related to games, such as Pro Gamer and Streamer, to French instead of English. Accordingly, pro gamers are called ‘Joueurs Professionnels’, which is an expression of people who play games professionally, and streamers are called ‘joueurs en direct’, which can be translated as a Live Player.
The French Ministry of Culture (Ministère de la Culture) announced on the 29th local time that many video game terms will be changed to French through the Academy Française, a French-specialized institution. The Academy Française is an accredited institution founded in 1635 that has been aimed at the development and maintenance of the French language for centuries.
In this announcement, in addition to the aforementioned pro gamers and streamers, various words such as social game, game service, cloud gaming, e-sports, pay-to-win, in-game advertisement, skin gambling, free to play, early access, season pass, DLC, etc. have been changed to French. announced
Most of the changed words are replaced by combinations of words with similar meanings in French, which are expressed with a similar number of letters to English. However, some such as e-sports, which is changed to ‘jeu vidéo de compétition’, which can be interpreted as the above-mentioned streamer or video game competition, are changed to express a single word expression as a meaning. Also, ‘Downloadable Content’, often called DLC, has been changed to ‘Contenus Téléchargeables Additionnels’ in French, so that CTA is used instead of the abbreviation of DLC.
The Ministry of Culture said the change was made so that as many French people as possible could understand the existing English expressions. Academy Française also said that it was to keep the pure and artistic part of the language (French).
Meanwhile, the French Ministry of Culture and Academy Française previously had Wi-Fi be expressed as ‘l’access sans fil à internet’, a French expression for similar reasons as this time. However, as expressions such as Wi-Fi are widely used in this movement, it is unclear whether the change in gaming terminology will have a significant effect.
