France bans gaming terms like 'streamer' and 'esports' in an effort to preserve language purity

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Government officials will now refer to streamer as "joueur-animateur en direct"

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France has officially banned gaming terms such as 'streamer' and 'esports'.

As reported by The Guardian, French officials have outlawed the use of popular English gaming terms like "streamer" and "pro-gamer" in an effort to retain the purity of the French language. From now on, government officials will have to use "joueur-animateur en direct" instead of "streamer" and "jeu video de competition" when referring to "esports".

Other terms given a French alternative include "cloud-gaming", which will now be referred to as "jeu video en nuage" and "pro-gamer" will be replaced with "joueur professionnel". The decision comes after the culture ministry informed the AFP (Agence France-Presse), a leading French news agency, that the video game sector was rife with English gaming terms and that these could act as "a barrier to understanding" for those who don't play games. 

The more traditional terms have now been issued in the government's official journal, making them mandatory for any government works, but it remains to be seen whether or not they will also be adopted by French media outlets and the wider French population. 

French is an undeniably beautiful language, and efforts to not have it filled with English gaming lingo is both understandable and admirable. But at the same time terms like "joueur-animateur en direct" don't exactly roll of the tongue - so we might not see them being adopted outside of official government communications.

Check out our guide to the best games of 2022 (so far) for all of this year's great games that you can't afford to miss. 

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Anne-Marie Ostler
Anne-Marie Ostler
Freelance Writer

Originally from Ireland, I moved to the UK in 2014 to pursue a Games Journalism and PR degree at Staffordshire University. Following that, I've freelanced for GamesMaster, Games TM, Official PlayStation Magazine and, more recently, Play and 12DOVE. My love of gaming sprang from successfully defeating that first Goomba in Super Mario Bros on the NES. These days, PlayStation is my jam. When not gaming or writing, I can usually be found scouring the internet for anything Tomb Raider related to add to my out of control memorabilia collection.

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