In recent years, I have noticed certain disturbing trends in the industry, the worst of which has to be the death of finesse.  In an age where time is money, it almost seems that the English language itself has become a casualty of ‘efficiency’ and has been supplanted by txtspk and just plain bad spelling.

Unfortunately, this seems to have been accepted as a fact of life, with even lead designers and producers tossing out barely-legible memos via email on the basis that ‘people know what I mean’ and woe betide the grammar-nazi who corrects them.  The trouble is that this same ‘it will do’ attitude leads to a laissez-faire attitude to communications with publishers and clients, which drags down the public image of the company.  I am not even referring to one small set of companies; I recently saw a full-page advertisement in an industry publication by a major UK PR company who managed to include any number of misspellings, Americanisms and bad grammar.  What does this mean for the industry, if even PR companies don’t proof-read before going to print?

To head off the inevitable, I will admit that the world is not going to stop turning if someone mixes up the words ‘stationary’ and ‘stationery’.  When you get an email that asks you to “please see my Note’s bellow”, most of us will just roll our eyes at the three glaring mistakes, while a few might sigh at the two less obvious mistakes.  The problem is that these are not the mistakes of ill-educated, but of those who take no pride in their English skills.  It has been said (and argued with at length) that a game designer’s most important skill is communication, something I would emphasise to all design students, but I can count on one hand the number of designers and former designers whose spelling does not make me flinch.

We have lost our love of words, we make do and move on.  Perhaps this is a sign of the times, leaving me as a solitary Narrative Designer trying to hold back the tide like Cnut sitting on the beach, but I think there is still time.  Games are not art (yet) and so maybe time is money, spell-checkers are too slow and I am a relic of a bygone age.

When all is said and done though, I would like to think not.

Update: As though I needed to sound any more cynical, I just got an email from a primary school teacher that looked like it was written by one of his pupils.  At least we can see where the trouble starts, if even our teachers fail at basic grammar and spelling.