How do you spell Xbox?

Ever wondered?? Well if so, check out the International Game Journalist Association site and see their discussion of the use of videogame terminology.

Warning-Bitter Rant!(I found it useful, I've been suffering from angst about videogame terminology ever since the vicdeogame/computer game incident during my honors year, of yeah and having to write a fifty word footnote explaining the function of a 'smart bomb' in Defender. That really annoyed me! I've been writing about 'jump cuts' for years and no one evr blinked but talk to a civilian about a jump cut and they'll look at you like your some kind of jumped-up smartypants, however, they might know what a smartbomb was, or at least what Defender is.)Okay Spleen Vented!

On this topic, has anyone figured out what to call 'computer games', the library here at melbourne university rolls a dice (d4) to choose electronic game, digital game, computer game, or video game, makes finding things in the catalogues hard thats for sure. IGJA say they're videogames (one word), unless you are talking about a specific kind of platform, then refer to the platform. Thoughts anyone???

For an example of the problem of terminology see Chris Chester's Neither Glance nor Gaze but Glaze: Relating to Console Game Screens because Chester doesn't explain his use of terminology are we to assume his work does not apply to computer games? Its kind of the same problem I had with my supervisor back in the day, but doesn't console game sound awfully specific over something more general like videogame (common parlance) or computer game (reference to technology ), while console means console?... thoughts on that people??

Some discussion of the Issue
From Will Brooks' Jetman article: "Both Poole and Herz use the term 'video game' to cover arcade machines from Pong to Time Crisis, dedicated domestic consoles from the Atari VCS to PlayStation 2, and home or work computer-based software from Spacewar to Myst. However, there has historically been a generally-understood distinction between dedicated consoles which are largely designed to play games, barring the odd educational 'Computer Intro' cartridge, and home computers which can also play games but are primarily intended for programming. The former would more usually be described as 'video games', and the latter as 'computer games' the 1980s magazine Computer and Video Games, for instance, clearly saw them as two separate but related categories.

Technical Convergence: The distinction becomes more blurred as new consoles like the Play Station 2, Microsoft Xbox and Nintendo GameCube begin to offer internet access, and was arguably already problematised by the fact that most teenage owners of home computers like the Spectrum and Commodore 64 used their machines almost exclusively for playing games rather than learning BASIC. Of course, on a technological level every games machine from the 1970s arcade to the Nintendo Entertainment System is a computer; a huge Defender booth at the end of a pier is a computer game as opposed to a mechanical game, just as Super Mario Brothers on cartridge is a computer game rather than a board game. In a linguistic sense, the term 'video game' is all-encompassing, referring to the act of seeing rather than to any detail of hardware or technical specifications 'the OED defines it simply as a 'computer game played on a television screen'.

How To Cite Games Using MLA? Harvard?
Refractory: "Computer games followed by the name of the production company and year of release. Example: Phantasmagoria (Sierra On-Line, Inc., 1995)"

Sounds fine, I wonder is the production company the developer or the producer? Maybe references should include both. Thoughts??