Topic: Why do y'all bold the names of games when mentioning them?

It just confuses me. There's nothing wrong or harmful about it but I still don't really see any reason to do it. It doesn't link any more information on the game or anything, the name of the game is just bolded now. Why? Also sidenote, why do Nintendo Life articles have names of games become links to completely empty pages on their site?

I bold them because I have a really bad tendency to write huge walls of text and sometimes it is a bit hard to read about the game I am talking about sometimes, and I do not know how to properly link game titles as well. Sometimes the formatting doesn't work correctly for me, unfortunately, so I bold the game names when I talk about them in lengthy comments I make.

However, I did improperly use bolding when I mentioned Nintendo Directs in a comment I made on another site on how physical game events are dying and the rise of streaming gaming events, and I intended to highlight it as an important point and I was not trying to blame or say Directs were bad, but someone responded and assumed I was trying to talk bad about them. I felt pretty stupid when that got pointed out and deleted the comment out of embarrassment but if I am being honest, I should have owned up to what I said and kept it on there. I should be really careful with how I bold something sometimes.

Just to make them easier to see. The site is about games, so if you're talking about a particular game, bolding can help people decide whether to read what you wrote or not. I really appreciate people who do this, especially in the 'what am I playing this weekend' articles.

As for Nintendo Life, I don't think any of the game pages are empty? They just link all games to the game page by default so people can read related articles or reviews if there are any. Sometimes there is a little bit of info, sometimes a lot but it is always a fine starting point if you want to learn more about the game.

tbh, in some types of articles comment sections I think a couple people started bolding names and others decided it looked nice so grew the trend; that's how I started doing it.

How do you actually bold text on the site?

@Mana_Knight You put an asterisk symbol * at the start and end of a word or text, which should put the text in bold. There is a forum they made a few years ago that shows how to format stuff, which I think does a better explanation than me, but I can't remember the name of the forum.

Most of the common things are listed here:

https://www.nintendolife.com/forums/help/tips_for_formatting_...

Note that there are multiple ways to do bold and the easier asterix way is a couple messages down.

@FishyS Thanks!

If it makes you feel better, I never take the time to bold names of games or really do much to improve the readability of my posts.

Most of the time I won’t even tag or quote the people I’m replying to!

_{I’m that lazy.}

@FishyS @Pastellioli Thanks :0)

It’s a bold way of talking for sure.

@MarkSeteth72 Quite often, forum posts are based around listing games. But for those of us passionate folks, we like to elaborate on our lists with commentary. So to make it easier reading for those that might not want all the waffle, I bold my games to give them the attention and recognition they deserve.

@gcunit True! I am super passionate about a ton of games that I go on rambling about them so I need to bold the game titles to make them easier to read lol.

Ah, I see, that makes sense. I will start bolding titles of games in my forum posts.
The one that comes to mind is this article on Yars Rising where it links to a time extension page on Yars' Revenge. I suppose there is a bit of information on Yars' Revenge such as links to two articles and a list of systems it was on.
https://www.nintendolife.com/features/this-isnt-just-yars-its...

@MarkSeteth72
Don’t feel obligated to use bold font for titles. I usually do it on the “What Are You Playing this Weekend” article every Saturday, so peeps can skip my blathering and just scan easily to see the games I’m playing, if they want. It’s good for name-dropping titles when you have news to share in forum posts, too.

I typically bold game titles for easier reading and have done this for years. I don't often write longer posts these days, but I'm sure more than one set of eyes appreciates it when skimming or scanning forum posts and comment sections. XD It's something I appreciate in turn as well when reading through some comment sections; I often only read the first few or ignore them entirely, but there are some areas of the site I like to fully read or at least scan when I'm able. Such as the weekly "What Games Are You Playing This Weekend?" thread.

I've gotten lazier about this, but I sometimes also italicize movie and book titles for similar reasons.

I would usually italicise titles rather than make them bold (bolden them?).

Well, to highlight what games I'm talking about or playing.

To make them stand out when people are skimming the comments.

@Tyranexx I'm looking at you!

Never thought about it in an active sense when writing here, but in a book I'm writing I italicise every game to make it stand out. There's tons of pages and it's been a pain :sweatsmile:

As some users say though, it works best when there's text walls, and since I don't write many of those nowadays it's fine to not do it.

To be honest, I don't think I ever bold the titles of games. I usually just type out posts as I'm writing them, and making the game titles bold never comes to mind.

Don't think I ever done it to movies in the movie thread either.