The French Ministry of Culture has just suggested a new list of terms. And this, in the hope of limiting the use of English words. Thus, according to the official French translation which is now proposed, a “streamer” would necessarily be “a video game player”.
In our neighbours, the French language enrichment commission looked into the vocabulary of video games in the Official Journal of May 29, 2022. Among the adaptations now fixed is the word “streamer”. Thus, in the French language, the term “streamer” now defines a “player” or a “player”. In order to reflect a little more accurately the whole practice of streaming, the commission proposes variants. For example “player-host” and “live player”, as well as their female equivalents. But this still represents a very limited panel of the realities covered by the term “streamer”.
A very targeted definition
According to the official definition, a streamer is a “player who broadcasts and comments live on the web his own part of a video game, while interacting with his community of spectators”. A definition which corresponds to the case of video game streaming directors, present on the Twitch or YouTube platforms… but which excludes other streamer profiles. For example, streamers who do cooking, music, sports, tech, talk, politics, interviews, etc. Even more paradoxically, even the Twitch platform, highlighted by this definition, offers a “Just Chatting / Discussion” section available to those who only want to chat. So, who do not necessarily want to play a video game.
A flashback
As a reminder, in 2015, the “experts in the French language enrichment system” seemed to have grasped all the specificities of the concept of streaming. She suggested the following translation “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“. In the future, the commission may update its proposal.
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