I’ve been reading some stuff lately and I’ve begun to wonder about the formatting of titles. In at least MLA citations the titles of books are italicized, and short stories are in quotation marks. There are also conventions for musical albums and songs and poems. So what exactly is the rational for games. Should it be Half-Life? I would say so. However, when we get to non-digital games it gets a bit trickier at least in my mind. What about Monopoly? probably. What about Chutes and Ladders? It is in the public domain, isn’t it? Chess certainly doesn’t seem right. Nor does baseball. But what about Madden 2008? There seems to be some sort of rule or guideline but I’m not sure what it is.
Interestingly, at least whoever last edited the Wikipedia enty for Snakes and Ladders makes some sort of distinction when it states
The most widely known edition of Chutes and Ladders in the USA is Chutes and Ladders…
Of course it is wikipedia so it could just be some random formatting problem. If intentional, however, it seems to be making a distinction between a general version of the game and a maker’s specific version.
Is there a hard and fast rule or are we out there on our own?