In case you missed it, Jesper Juul’s new book is out: Half-Real: Video Games between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds.

I’m looking forward to getting a copy and catching up on Jesper’s good ideas. He always has a very interesting and informed point of view on games.

But even before I crack the book, I have the tiniest of bones to pick—he’s taken his considerable knowledge and insight and placed it firmly on the opposite side of a debate I’ve been engaged in for a while.

It’s “videogames” not “video games.”

Look, I’ve heard the arguments before. It’s motion pictures, right? Graphic novels? Interactive entertainment? Two words. Don't go shoving them together into neologisms.

Of course, that argument goes nowhere fast. It’s not tele vision, air craft, the Inter net or joy stick. There are plenty of times it just makes sense to glue two words together to make new one. (And someone can correct me if I am wrong, but I think that’s what the German’s do all the time.)

In the U.S., the habit it to write video games, as two words. In Europe, I usually see videogames. Newman's fine book is "Videogames" and he is a Brit. I like the single word because it helps clarify the world of videogames as a certain type of game, and not just a qualified class of games like puzzle games or word games. And even more to point, “videogames” Googles better. It’s easier to search for the single word term.

I’ve made this case on a number of occasions. In one significant example, I have been working with the International Game Journalists Association to establish a style guide. While it’s still in the works, I wrote the entry on videogames. And, yes, that style guide calls for the one-word variant.

This might seem like a trivial issue. And perhaps trival things just thrill me. But I think that a little international consistency would help. So I’ll keep sounding the horn. I just wish Jesper was with me on this one.