To italicise or not to italicise?

Throughout this past year, I've been cooking up some reviews for my website that is currently under reconstruction. Right now I've got about 13 that are ready to go. That may not seem like much, but they're pretty long.

Anyway, my question is this: Is it absolutely necessary to italicise the names of video games when included in a paragraph? I mean, I know it's proper, and the same thing applies to not only video games, but any kind of title. But is it a must? I know it seems like a frivolous thing to be worried about, but it's been bugging the hell out of me for a long time. I was hoping maybe MarkRyan could help me out on this one, but any help from anyone would be great.

Italicise them.

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Originally Posted by Rich

Italicise them.

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I'd like a second opinion.

Kill yourself.

It is proper to italicize or underline the title of any major work, including books, movies, software, etc. (video games, yes). However, most game publications do not do either. IGN used to but we've recently stopped (which I think is stupid). GameSpot doesn't. 1up doesn't. GamePro doesn't.

I personally think that writing feels more professional with proper formatting, but it's not necessary (I guess). It's funny that you brought this up, 'cause I was just arguing yesterday at work that we should return to using italics for game titles.

Underlining is basically dead, though you see some oldschool scholars and researchers still using it. Italicizing titles and words for emphasis and even some foreign words that have not quite become part of common speech is not a complete necessity. I mean you can dictate your own style rules for your publication. So don't sweat it.

ssb

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Originally Posted by ssbomberman

Italicizing titles and words for emphasis and even some foreign words that have not quite become part of common speech is not a complete necessity. I mean you can dictate your own style rules for your publication. So don't sweat it.

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He's not asking about italicizing words for emphasis, he's asking about italicizing game titles (as in, "I want to talk about Zone of the Enders").

Well, I may go ahead and do the italics thing, since it does tend to make writings look a little more.........official? If I do that, though, I'm gonna have to go and put italics tags in front of every damn game title/series/etc. I guess that's the main reason I'm not interested in the italics thing.

Anyway, thanks for the thoughts guys.

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Originally Posted by Glitch 2.0

Well, I may go ahead and do the italics thing, since it does tend to make writings look a little more.........official? If I do that, though, I'm gonna have to go and put italics tags in front of every damn game title/series/etc. I guess that's the main reason I'm not interested in the italics thing.

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Just type up whatever as usual without italics, then when you're done do a find replace for "Game Title" and "<I>Game Title</I>".

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Originally Posted by MarkRyan

He's not asking about italicizing words for emphasis, he's asking about italicizing game titles (as in, "I want to talk about Zone of the Enders").

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Dood, I said titles as well. I was just pointing out that style is dictated largely by what style guide you choose to follow, so you could always make your own, like bolding game titles in your story, or linking them and making a style for that in the CSS, so you won't have to do everyone individually...

ssb