... i got shit for using "Shmup" in another forum. Guess you just can't please everyone ](https://www.pcenginefans.com/forum/Smileys/default/eusa_wall.gif "Hitting head on wall")
First, there is no other forum. Second, this is all initiation hazing...we gotta see how thick a skin you got.
I like my pew pew games.
Personally, I prefer the "shmup" designation, but will respect the preference of the forum. It avoids confusion with light gun games also generally being called shooters, and the "up" in shmup to me works also to signify the typical upwards vertical scrolling of most games of its type. Plus, it just sounds cool to me - like "snes" instead of "S.N.E.S." as purists would have you say.
I don't mean this in a negative way, but you must be young. No one called light gun games shooters bitd and the genre naming has only become disputed by recent generations. Just like how more and more people are trying to use "RPG" to describe digicomics, war sims, adventure games and misc games never considered RPGs before.
Also, "shmups" are not usually vertical. 
Whenever the shmup discussion comes up, I always ask shmup-users the same question. Do you call beat 'em ups "bmups"?
No because we called them "brawlers".
To be honest, growing up I don't remember ever classifying games by genres or types or anything. Sonic was Sonic, Mario was Mario, they weren't platformers, they were different. I'm more against these definitive online creeds that declare how we have to say a word (the correct pronunciation of "gif" for instance) or what term we use to classify a genre. There is no right answer. I'm in my mid-30s; I grew up with games. We called light gun games shooters because all you did was shoot a gun. There is literally nothing else you do. In "shooters" by your definition, you fly around, collect power ups, avoid enemies, and shoot. Seems limiting to classify the genre as "shooters" similar to how the blanket RPG term is often inaccurate at classifying quest-based games. But if that's how you like to identify those games, all the power to you. At the end of the day it's all just semantics.
Comrade, we can use "shooter" "shooting" or "shoot-em-up" as the general term for a large genre/category.
Then, when we need precision, we can make distinctions between sub-genres.
It is totally helpful and logical to do this.
Any confusion or messiness is the result of an author not being clear about defining his/her definitions.
For example, if I start a post here asking about the "Worst Vertical Shoot-em-ups" on the PCE only, well, most folks would understand exactly what I want.
HOWEVER, there is always room for confusion, so it wouldn't hurt if I included a definition/example of what I consider a vert/hori shooter.
For example: do I want folks to include Galaga 88' and Space Invaders? They are not *scrolling* verticular shewties, but they are "vertiginous shooties"...
