New Term for Visual Novels? [split]

[PyTom]

One term I've seen used, especially in academic contexts, is "Digital Storytelling". I've used that on a few occasions myself.

I think it's fair to consider visual novels a form of digital storytelling, but there are many other forms of digital storytelling as well, including interactive fiction and games that include the story in gameplay. (For example, portal.)

So it's possible - probably preferable - to keep vn as the general term for our type of the game, while using "digital story" or "digital storytelling" as appropriate. (There are a lot of Ren'Py games that cross over the threshold where VN is no longer fully correct, but digital story easily applies.)

[2dt]

You haven't shown the logical connection between the unfitness of "multimedia" as a term and the commonality of it. Why would how common it is matter? Unless you're suggesting people wouldn't know what it means, which seems like a stretch since the default media player on Windows for 10+ years is called "Windows Media Player" (I'm pretty sure people can put "multi" and "media" together), it's been used in a news story written today, and is used on various university websites. I don't think the commonality of a term matters, but if it does, "multimedia" is clearly still in regular, prominent use.

In the two links you've provided, consider how "multimedia" is actually being used. It's not being used to describe a specific kind of product or idea. It's an all-inclusive way to refer to "a lot of different things, that may or may not be related to each other, but fall under a large umbrella category, so as to make it easy to refer to this large collection of things". We aren't using multimedia to describe any particular thing.

That allows multimedia novel to be an accurate term for what a visual novel could be qualified as, but not necessarily describing it in any meaningful kind of way. Consider the list you provided earlier:
•Multimedia Short Story
•Multimedia Novella
•Multimedia Novel
•Multimedia Verse / Poetry
•Multimedia Comic
•Multimedia Graphic Novel
•Games
•Film
All of them, with the exception of verse/poetry, could qualify as multimedia novels as well. Perhaps you could argue that short story and novella don't count because of length differentiation. But we don't call a 10-minute NaNoRenO visual novel a "visual short story", because really, what's the point of doing that?. But let's run with it anyway, which leaves us film, games, comic, and graphic novel (or not, since you scratched afterward), none of which capture what we consider visual novel.

This is contradictory: you assert that it's a given that something digital is comprised of different forms of media but then immediately concede that this is not true. Popular media such as literature, music, and art are regularly represented and consumed in isolation in digital form. (Deviant Art, imgur, iTunes, SoundCloud, BandCamp, short stories and novels in general.) Those examples are not edge cases and massively undermine the preceding assertion.Also, there's been a subtle change in the thing being discussed here: a digital product is not necessarily an artistic medium. Digital products may be artistic media, but they might also be things like calenders, GPS', non-artistic data, and so on.

I don't really see how this is contradictory. The idea is "unless it's specifically NOT multimedia, it can be assumed to be multimedia". Music, by itself, is not multimedia. Literature, by itself, is not multimedia. Games, apps, interactive software are multimedia, but we already know that, hence it's not necessary to describe them as multimedia.

These points together say two different things: a.) the term is very accurate. b.) The term isn't accurate enough. Which is it? Also, back up these points. Why would a movie with subtitles be considered for a visual novel? This doesn't happen now, so why would changing the name cause this? I recognise you're saying a movie with subtitles could be considered a "multimedia novel", not a "visual novel", but those are, in the context of this discussion at least, different names for exactly the same thing. The thing we now call a "visual novel" doesn't change by giving it a more accurate name and there's currently no confusion between visual novels and movies with subtitles. The hidden assertion here is that the only difference between visual novels and movies is subtitles. Further, "multimedia" is not synonymous with "movie", a point demonstrated by the different media discussed and displayed on the sites I linked above as well as by the definitions I shared in my previous post.

Of course it's clear to us what a multimedia novel is because we're coining the term for this purpose. The problem is the definition is too widely open to different interpretations, as illustrated above.

In the definitions of "multimedia" you've provided in your links, none of them preclude a movie from being considered multimedia. Some of them even include "movies" as a potential facet of multimedia. "Novel", in links you've provided, is described as prose narrative of considerable length and depth, not necessarily that it has to be written.

So say we decide to use multimedia novel, and it catches on. Becomes the next big wave of entertainment. Then someone makes a successful movie that douchebag marketing executive decided to call it "a radical take on multimedia novel". The media starts quoting it as a multimedia novel. Many other marketing firms decide to cash in on this "movie as a multimedia novel" fad.

If we go strictly by the definitions you've provided, do we have any grounds to dispute this? If we say yes it can be considered a multimedia novel, then we've expanded the definition beyond what we consider a visual novel today. If we say no, even though technically it's fair game, we've altered the definitions upon which we based the term.

The point about intuitiveness sounds like a criticism, but I don't see one. Is there a typo? Did you mean "would get the wrong image"? If that's the case, then yes, I do think the people I know would find "multimedia novel" more meaningful than "visual novel" or "touch novel", mostly because both those terms are misleading. Length, as I've also said in my previous post, can be mitigated with the interchangeable use of "media" with "multimedia" (as can be seen with "Windows Media Player") in development and fan communities, as well as the use of its acronym which is similarly short.

I probably should've said "AT BEST, they wouldn't get the wrong image". If I said I was playing an action game, you wouldn't get the wrong image, but really that's not saying much. I want us to try and coin a term "First Person Shooter", where even if they didn't know exactly what it was, they could infer that it was a game, presumably played in the first person, whose game mechanic probably involves guns or some from of projectiles. And they'd be pretty darn close.

It's true that, if misused, "multimedia _______" serves no real purpose. I can string together all sorts of nonsense by prefixing it with "multimedia", such as "multimedia fries", "multimedia aeroplane", "multimedia sleep" and so on, which aren't particularly useful for discussing our medium. That's a problem that exists on a term by term basis, and a criticism that applies to one pairing does not necessarily apply to all of them. Furthermore, one shouldn't be obligated to defend terms they've never suggested. "Multimedia novel" is still a sensible and coherent term, even if "multimedia fries" and "multimedia game" are not. The whole reason I didn't prefix "multimedia" to "game" and "film" in my post above is that I was aware of the redundancy and thus never proposed them. "Multimedia user interface", aside from being something I didn't advocate, isn't even a medium. These are mostly strawman positions. While two of the terms you mentioned I did suggest, merely repeating them doesn't constitute an argument against them.

You've completely twisted what I said. Adding multimedia to "fries" and "aeroplane" doesn't make any sense because those things don't exist. (LOL can you imagine multimedia fries!?) A multimedia game, a multimedia website, those things DO exist. My point was that we don't prefix those with multimedia because it doesn't make a useful difference. "I'm playing a game", could mean any kind of game. "I'm playing a multimedia game", means some kind of computer based game, but that still doesn't really describe what kind of game it is. Multimedia novel, in my eyes, suffers the same problem. It now refers to some kind of electronically consumed prose narrative of considerable length, that may or may not incorporate audio, video, and static images.

I think the key difference between our trains of thought is that you interpret multimedia novel as checklist of things that a visual novel has, whereas I'm interpreting it as "something that could be a lot of things". And really, you make excellent points, but as noted by other commenters in this thread, it just doesn't feel like a comfortable term to use. Personally, ThisIsNoName closely captures the "feeling" of the term "multimedia".

I don't really know if I can describe my view any better than above.

multimedia novel -- [some term we haven't thought of yet] -- visual novel.

The relationship between these three, in my mind, is analogous to:

Action game with projectile weapons -- First person shooter -- real-life war game.

The first is a broad category. The second is what I think we should be aiming for. The third assumes all first person shooter games are like Call of Duty LOL.

The second point made is that people will know it's software and I actually agree with this since people are familiar with touch devices, though it's only logically connected to the previous point if you mean "touch" as in interfacing with touch devices. The third point is a totally disconnected assertion that anything that is software is based in multimedia. Software is not inherently multimedia, as it clearly demonstrated by numerous text-only applications. I've argued this point above regarding the term, "digital product" — "software" does not imply the presence of any artistic medium such as music, images, video, or literature. Besides, using "touch" because it connotes "software" and then using the connotation of software because it connotes "multimedia" represents an absurd level of indirection even if it were logically sound. The mention of "multimedia" here highlights how much more fitting it is to directly say "multimedia" rather than imply it through a disconnected chain of logic.

I argue that software can be divided into two realms: interactive (applications, games, etc..) and non-interactive (server-side, OS, kernel, etc...). Most of the interactive ones are multimedia. The few that aren't, we often call "command line" or something. Of course, "touch" as a software concept does not necessarily denote artistry. "Touch novel", however, clearly doesn't mean non-interactive, and clearly doesn't mean Excel spreadsheet. Touch, on its own, doesn't mean shit. Touch novel, married together, creates an entirely new concept, one that I think can't really be confused in a sensible way once established. We don't confuse "toilet paper" with "newspapers near a toilet" or "research paper on toilets". It's the pliable napkins we wipe our asses with. I feel like touch novel, if established, can't really be mixed up in a sensible way. Then again I've been wrong before.

[Tempus]

It's too time consuming to unpack all this. So I'll just say, "you're wrong" and make some additional points:

• "Multimedia" is clearly defined.
• Saying something is a "given" and then listing exceptions where it doesn't apply means it isn't a given. It's a given that water is wet. If there were cases where it weren't, then it wouldn't be a given, it would be something that may or may not be true on a case by case basis.
• The name of a medium cannot be expected to serve as a replacement for its definition, nor give an impression which can fully substitute for its definition. There's an asymmetry here where criticisms that apply to "multimedia" don't (or only selectively) apply to "touch." The former term is being treated as though it must fully define the medium by name alone to someone totally unfamiliar with the medium, whereas the latter barely needs to correlate with the definition provided people understand what it means once they're already familiar with it. "Multimedia" is both more accurate and intuitive than "touch" and "visual", but it is no substitute for a full definition, any more than "film", "game" or "novel" are for their respective mediums.
• There's clearly a difference between short stories and novels; any experienced writer will tell you that the length constraints of a short story compared to a novel necessitate a different approach. It's not just a squished novel. It's the difference between 32x32 sprites and 512x1080 sprites. It requires different skills, some of which may not be appropriate for (or common in) longer works and vice versa. This could honestly have been answered by a trivial amount of research, as with the commonality of "multimedia."
• None of the terms in the example taxonomy I shared except "multimedia novel" were ever suggested as a replacement for "visual novel."
• If nothing is prefixed to "novel" it would be an already existing medium. The text in visual novels in the majority of cases already fits the definition of a novel. Since they're accompanied by various media to aid in story telling it makes sense to prefix "multimedia" to both note the presence of such media and distinguish it from the novel. That is why it's useful. It's not all-powerful and the words that comprise it can't prevent someone obtuse, such as your hypothetical marketer, from misusing it. I've also already made the argument that player choice isn't the distinguishing factor of a visual novel, nor interaction.

I don't have time to fully unpack everything.

[Lesleigh63]

I personally like 'story-based game'. The term 'visual novel' really confused me when I first came across it. I thought it was the same as a 'graphic novel' until I saw a VN referred to as a game. I'll flow with 'digital storytelling', not 100% fussed on 'multimedia novel' and don't like 'touch novel' [sounds like a touch screen ebook to me].

[Laniessa]

Woah, those are long posts.

Um, personal preference to 'Digital Storytelling', actually. It's quite factual, and if people were referring to more action-packed interactive stories, they would just call them games. I guess the two issues that it's almost all-encompassing and that the acronym is DS, something I'd get caught up on, but I think it's alright? There's more specific terms for all of them, and I quite like how it detaches itself from the idea that it's a novel, and that it's more a method to tell stories.

(Aaaaand I wouldn't have to feel excluded since I'm not making a visual novel, but an RPG instead.)

The issue I had with 'touch novel' is that, well, when someone (2dt?) mentioned 'what comes to your mind?', I sort of mind-blanked, and then thought of a really cheap-looking app. For me, 'touch' doesn't have modern connotations? I don't think of sleek design, the future, or anything like that. So the phrase put together not only doesn't make sense to me, it doesn't really have a pretty look for VNs in my mind. (We're still calling it that for now, right?)

[Broodelin]

Um, personal preference to 'Digital Storytelling', actually.

Same here. It just makes sense to me personally and doesn't have the antiquated connotations of "touch novel" or the stigma/preconceptions that "visual novel" has.

[Greeny]

Seems like we might have a winner! I'm going to throw in twelve more votes for "Digital Storytelling".

[PyTom]

I'll note that "Digital Storytelling" is a term that includes more than just visual novels. Visual novels are one form of digital storytelling, but there are many others - for example, I think it's quite valid to talk about digital storytelling in games like portal and half-life, to use some well-accepted examples.

[Sailerius]

Aren't ebooks digital storytelling? And streaming movies, too?

EDIT: So that I'm not just being purely contrarian here, I personally feel that "kinetic novel" is the most accurate descriptor for the genre.

[ThisIsNoName]

Aren't ebooks digital storytelling? And streaming movies, too?

The difference is that the story isn't told through the digital medium, it just utilizes it. There were both books and movies before computers existed, but the type of storytelling Half-life and Portal use ise entirely dependent on being digital. Even tabletop RPGs, which is the closest analogue equivolent to video games, would miss out on some of the story.

[Sailerius]

Aren't ebooks digital storytelling? And streaming movies, too?

The difference is that the story isn't told through the digital medium, it just utilizes it. There were both books and movies before computers existed, but the type of storytelling Half-life and Portal use ise entirely dependent on being digital. Even tabletop RPGs, which is the closest analogue equivolent to video games, would miss out on some of the story.

Yes, but there are plenty of forms of "digital storytelling" that aren't visual novels. Hypertext fiction. Twitter fiction. Text adventures. Interactive webcomics. I even saw a choose-your-own-adventure story done with Youtube videos before.

There's no point in deciding on a new term for visual novels that refers to them even less specifically than the term we already have.

I participated in a research seminar on forms of interactive media a few years ago and, interestingly enough, visual novels were called ebooks, which is actually a classification I'm kind of okay with. Although a distinction should probably be made for ones that have decision-making versus purely linear ones. Ebook games, maybe?

EDIT: Amending and expanding this post in response to PyTom's post below.

The term "visual novel" has so much traction now that I find it very unlikely that anything new is going to take root at this point and so it's kind of a moot point. I think that if a different term were to be adopted, it would be an existing one, or a form of an existing one. Calling them ebooks isn't exactly inaccurate, especially as multimedia and decision-driven ebooks have started to become prominent on the mobile scene. There are already several works there that have gained quite some popularity that we would probably call visual novels.

I think a benefit of the term is that the public at large is already familiar with it and that there's a booming market for ebooks. A stigma that visual novels have to overcome that comes with calling them games (even though they are, but that's not a discussion I want to have now) is that most people don't consider themselves "gamers" and visual novels tend to be more geared toward a casual market, one that doesn't self-identify as gamers. Not to mention, if there's already a growing market of people making things that are essentially visual novels and they're calling them ebooks, we could all stand to benefit from a consolidation of terminology.

[Cith]

I participated in a research seminar on forms of interactive media a few years ago and, interestingly enough, visual novels were called ebooks, which is actually a classification I'm kind of okay with. Although a distinction should probably be made for ones that have decision-making versus purely linear ones. Ebook games, maybe?

Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books are classified as gamebooks (even though I like to reserve that title for those books which need dice and have stats.) So maybe something along those lines?

I'm okay with this classification aswell, although many people won't be.

[PyTom]

I have a request for this thread:

When proposing a new term, don't just put the name out there, please also add an explanation of why the new term is so much better than "visual novel" that it justifies the large amount of effort required to switch terms. To actually get people to switch will require a massive amount of buy-in from people inside our community, in related communities, and in the larger world. At this point, we're getting dozens of rival terms - but none of them are getting any buy-in, outside of the creator.

This thread could stay alive forever with people throwing out suggestions that fail to attain a significant level of interest. So I ask that people only post new terms if they think there's a very good chance they'll be adopted - and if your term fails to gain traction, please try and understand why before posting again. Basically, I think the chance that this thread is going to achieve a change in term is pretty small, and I don't want it turning into a poll or forum game.

[Obscura]

I think I've heard PyTom mention the term "gamebooks" which, according to the Wikipedia, describes several visual novels pretty well.

PROs: This is an actual existing term with a history.

Zach Weiner of SMBC did a Kickstarter for his gamebook last year, Trial of the Clone:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/we ... book-by-za

CONs: It's probably as well-known as the term "visual novel". Which is to say...not very well known. Or at least known by an entirely different crowd of people than the ones who are VN fans.

My completely and overly optimistic preference would be to keep using gamebooks, or digital gamebooks.

If another term is needed, possibly:
- gamenovels
- digital game novels
- visual gamebook
- graphic gamebook
- visual gamenovels

or some better combination of game, novel, book, or visual, possibly preceded by the word "digital" or "electronic."

Realistically however, I guess neither VN nor gamebook is going to catch on unless somebody makes an extremely popular one.

Note:

Personally, I'm ok with the term VN, but I almost never use it unless I'm already talking to a VN-playing audience. Just from my experience as somebody making an extremely niche game in an extremely niche category (6-7 percent of the visual novel playing population at most), the majority of the players interested in my game have never played a visual novel, and don't know what they are. I mentioned this in an old thread, but I personally had no idea what visual novels were until 3 years ago, and I've been playing video games longer than most of LSF members have been alive. E-gads.

For me to expand my game's potential audience, I had to go WAY, WAAAAY outside the traditional crowd of VN players and call it something other than a VN. I still don't and can't rely on having people look up "Gay Visual Novel" to find my game. If I had called my project a gay visual novel (instead of gay dating sim, which I realize is technically incorrect), I think my Kickstarter would have tanked. (Yaoi or Bara VN probably would have worked better, but it's also not considered a "true" Yaoi or Bara game, just based on art-style alone.)

For those of us in an extremely niche category, it's like having the worst of all worlds to call our project a VN, especially if it's got a style fairly divorced from Japanese VNs and appeals to a small demographic. So I call it whatever I think players will be looking for. In other words "Visual Novel" is a perfectly fine term if you've got Japanese-style art and are appealing to a VN playing audience. Otherwise...urgh. Major marketing challenge.

[2dt]

I have two problems with digital storytelling: one, it's kind of a mouthful (yeah I don't like long names). Two, it sounds more like we're describing a topic/hobby rather than a single product. "I worked on my visual novel this weekend" vs "I worked on my digital storytelling this weekend", "Come check out my digital storytelling". "... a kickstarter for our digital storytelling project".

For gamebook, the Wikipedia page makes it sound like a dying thing. Of course, there's no shame in reviving an old term, but it seems like an essential element of gamebooks are "choosing your adventure", which may not be representative of all visual novels.

What about flow novel? It's a weird term for sure, but when I think about visual novels, it's not so much like reading pages as much as it is like watching the words and graphics flow through space to make the story seem... alive. There's a certain flow/pacing to visual novels that I don't think I've seen in any other modern-day medium, unlike a book/comic, and certainly unlike a movie, but something a bit in between. It's certainly a unique, never before used term too, which could pose an advantage.