I also use to italicize them, but have now been otherwise trained...

Bring it back!

Posted by: ryan on November 15, 2007 09:54 AM

Alright, irregardless: laziness is the mother of invention... Of bad grammar!

Seriously, how difficult is it to hit Cmd-I or insert a formatting tag? And your statement: "...I have been thinking we ought to treat them the same was as films, TV shows, and books..." can be taken in so many different ways. It's almost a symbolic issue reflective of the grammar, n'est-pas?

Posted by: gamasutra podcast on November 15, 2007 10:53 AM

Yes, definitely. I'm pretty much in charge of style at our publishing company, so I had the luxury of implementing that rule a year or two ago. Once you start italicizing game titles, you'll realize just how right it feels. Go on, Jane, get comfy. You know you want to.

Posted by: tomservojr on November 15, 2007 10:56 AM

I'm all for treating game titles like, well, titles. If we go down that road, though, it raises a whole raft of style-guidey questions: We could say that The Orange Box is an anthology, and should be italicized. Does that mean that "Portal" and "Half-Life 2: Episode 2" should be in quotes? What about Flash-based games on a portal site? Are those the gaming equivalent of short stories (quoted) or full-fledged games (italicized)?

Mmm, grammar geeking is fun.

Posted by: joshlee on November 15, 2007 11:35 AM

Yes, italicized, definitely. As you are pointing out: Why should their titles be treated differently from novels or film?

Posted by: Jesper on November 15, 2007 11:37 AM

Yes, they should be italicized for the reason you cite. I do as much on my blog.

Posted by: dariusk on November 15, 2007 12:28 PM

you should jane
i'm gonna start doing it myself

Posted by: Paul on November 15, 2007 03:49 PM

Who doesn't italicize game titles? That just pure laziness. I know the Wired style guide calls for italics, as does every respectible game publication.

Posted by: ccharla on November 15, 2007 04:14 PM

I always italicize game names (and insist that writers do so on Play This Thing). Moreover, I also italicize and Use Initial Caps even for 'folk' games like, say Chess or Backgammon, since we treat anonymous works of fiction, like, say, Beowulf in the same fashion as modern works ascribable to individual authors. Chicago Manual says otherwise, but they hell with them.

Posted by: Greg Costikyan on November 15, 2007 06:33 PM

We definitely italicize game titles when we're writing pitches etc.

I'm realizing that I often fail to do so when I'm posting stuff online informally.

Posted by: Tim! on November 16, 2007 11:22 AM

In the web world I am practically a dinosaur, but I believe that book titles should be underlined, old school fashion like. If it's a different color than link text, then there shouldn't be any confusion on the part of the user.

Doesn't really answer the question regarding video games though. Is there a manual for online style? I'd love to know what the conventions are.

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Posted by: Pablo on February 24, 2008 09:15 AM