Videogame Culture

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    "Videogame community? What's next, 'the necromancy community'?"

    —Jack Thompson

    The game behind the games. Like any other medium, gamers have a culture all their own, replete with jargon and its own brand of social maneuvering. Be warned: The stuff in here will inescapably ruin your eyesight, twist your spine, and keep America from winning the war, as it documents scarily obsessive gamer jargon that barely resembles English.

    See also:

    • Fan Work
    • Video Game Creators
      • Video Game Companies
    • Video Game Tactical Index

    Tropes

    • Abandonware
      A piece of commercial software that's not for sale anymore.
    • AI Breaker
      Using a particular aspect of the computer's AI to "cheat" at a game.
    • After Action Report
      A type of Fan Fiction for strategy games that involves a blow-by-blow description of a campaign.
    • Allegedly Free Game
      Although advertised as "free", the game actually has restrictions that you need to pay to override.
    • Alt-Itis
      A malady that causes a player to compulsively create alternate accounts for a game.
    • American Kirby Is Hardcore
      When a Japanese game gets to America, the packaging and ads have to look Darker and Edgier or just angrier.
    • The Anime of the Game
      When a popular game is adapted into an anime.
    • Ascended Glitch
      When a glitch or bug is enjoyed so much it gets treated as a legitimate gameplay element.
    • Attract Mode
      The display a game shows when nobody is playing.
    • Awesome: Video Game Bosses
      Squeeeeeeee!
    • Awesome: Video Game Levels
      You know that part, where you have to jump that bit, and then ride that thing, and oh man, it's awesome!
    • Beta Test
      The video game testing process.
    • Button Mashing
      Don't know which button to press? Completely new to a Fighting Game? Mash the keys and pray!
    • Capcom Sequel Stagnation
      Publishers with an annoying tendency to release one game, and then release it again several times with minor changes before any wholesale Sequel ever comes along.
    • Catharsis Factor
      We kill stuff in video games to let off stress!
    • Challenge Gamer
      A gamer who focuses entirely on improving his skills in a game to the point of insanity, and often showing off about it.
    • Character Tiers
      Where fans argue about which characters are the best in a competitive game.
    • Check Point Starvation
      There are long periods of time between checkpoints or save points.
    • Cherry Tapping
      Purposely using weak attacks to bring down a powerful opponent, often for humiliation's sake.
    • Video Game Cheats
    • Complacent Gaming Syndrome
      The phenomenon where players stick to the settings or characters they are used to no matter what.
    • Console Wars
      The competition between electronics companies to increase their video game market share.
    • Copy Protection
      Ways of ensuring you own the game you're playing.
    • Country Switch
      Where the same game is released in different locations, and programmed to act differently depending on where it's being played.
    • Cross Player
      A person whose online avatar is of the opposite gender.
    • Daddy System
      A situation in which both a "next-gen" console and its predecessor are both still being made, sold, and developed for concurrently.
    • Damn You, Muscle Memory!
      Where you're used to playing with a particular control scheme, then start another game that uses one that's almost the same, and you keep getting killed because you're pressing the wrong button.
    • Default Setting Syndrome
      The game offers a wide variety of modes, options, and characters, but none of that matters because everyone's too lazy to use anything other than the defaults.
    • Demoscene
      A computer art subculture which specializes in producing demos, which are audiovisual presentations that are run in real-time on a computer or other platform.
    • The Dev Team Thinks of Everything
      Games which try and predict absolutely everything the user will try.
    • Digital Distribution
      Selling (or giving away) games entirely as Downloadable Content.
    • Disappointing Last Level
      Where a game suddenly has a huge dip in playability and rise in frustration as you near the end.
    • Downloadable Content
      Game data that is downloaded into the game that wasn't there originally.
    • Dueling Games
      A list of games that are considered imitations of each other.
    • Dummied Out
      Data, levels, characters etc. that are still in the game code but are normally inaccessible.
    • 8.8
      The stir created in the video game community when a high-profile game receives an unexpectedly high or low score from a major reviewer.
    • Emulation
      Running an emulator, which is a program that can play games on a platform or PC designed for other platforms.
    • Expansion Pack
      Extra material produced for an existing game, either by the game's original production company or by a third party.
    • E3
      Electronic Entertainment Expo, a major gaming event held in California every year.
    • Fake Balance
      When concepts are used which, on paper, make a game apper to be balanced, but in reality, it is not.
    • Fake Difficulty
      When developers use things like Luck-Based Mission and Trial and Error Gameplay to create the illusion of a challenge. Or, when it IS challenging, but for the wrong reasons.
    • Fake Longevity
      Things that pad out a game's length so they can brag about having "100 hours of gameplay!"
    • Fake Skill
      The player equivalent of Fake Difficulty.
    • Fan Remake
      A (generally freeware) game created by fans of the original game, which attempts to recreate the original game experience.
    • Fan Sequel
      Where the fan community creates a sequel to a work when the original creators won't.
    • Fan Translation
      The translation of games that only appeared in other languages (almost always Japanese) into the player's native language (almost always English).
    • Fanon
      The set of theories based on that material which, while they generally seem to be the "obvious" or "only" interpretation of canonical fact, are not actually part of the Canon.
    • Feelies
      Replicas of video game items or other relevant props that come packaged with a game.
    • Freemium
      You can pay to upgrade your Free account to a Premium account with more perks.
    • Four Point Scale
      A derisive term for the (supposed) inability of professional game reviewers to give any game a score under 6.0, even if they're nominally using a ten-point scale.
    • Gaiden Game
      A game that's part of a series but not a main entry: a side story or Perspective Flip.
    • Game Breaker
      Using some natural feature of a game in an unnatural way, resulting in a huge advantage or benefit.
    • Game Breaking Bug
      A bug that seriously cripples or destroys the ability to continue with a game.
    • Game Cola
      A website devoted to observing video games in a clever and humorous light.
    • GameFAQs
      One of the largest video game FAQ, cheat, and walkthrough websites in existence.
    • Game Genie
      A cheating peripheral most prominent in the 1980s and 1990s.
    • Game Mod
      Alterations to a game that were not made by the game's license holder.
      • Game Maker
        A software "toolkit" that usually contains a pre-designed framework for a particular type of game, allowing that game to be made more easily by fans.
    • Game Music
      Video game soundtracks.
    • Game Over
      HAHA U R DEAD!
    • Gameplay Derailment
      When a bug or feature is found after a game is released which seriously changes the way it is played by a large segment of players.
    • Gameplay Roulette
      A franchise where every game falls into a different gameplay genre.
    • Game Shark
      A console cheat device most prominent around the turn of the millenium.
    • Gamer Chick
      The lone female in a male gaming clan, who's often portrayed as tomboyish, confrontational, and self-aware of her gender, and often can whup the other gamers' asses.
    • Gaming Clan
      A team of people that play multiplayer games together.
    • Giant Bomb
      A Review, industry news site with an open-source gaming wiki.
    • GIRL
      Guy In Real Life
    • God Modders
      Relative newcomers to a game who nevertheless act as if they know everything about it, and often rely on cheats or exploits to win.
    • God Mode
      Cheat-based invincibility.
    • The Golden Age of Video Games
      The period from the appearance of Space Invaders in 1978 through The Great Video Game Crash of 1983.
    • Good Bad Bugs
      A bug in a video game which ends up being fun or useful.
    • Good Bad Translation
      A translation which is So Bad It's Good, and ends up being so popular that better-made remakes will refuse to correct it.
    • "Grand Theft Auto" Effect
      The seemingly endless repeats of songs heard in a video game makes a song distracting in other environments because of the association with said video game.
    • The Great Player-Versus-Player Debate
      Whether it's better to allow players to attack each other anywhere, only in certain areas, or not at all.
    • The Great Video Game Crash of 1983
      A sad day in history.
    • Hit and Run Tactics
      Defeating a strong but slow enemy by repeatedly moving away and throwing weak long-range attacks at him.
    • Hollywood Game Design
      Where TV and movies do not do the research when they depict video games being made.
    • Import Gaming
      The trials and tribulations of getting a game meant to be played in one country to be played elsewhere.
    • Indie Game
      A game developed without the backing of a major publisher.
    • It's Easy, So It Sucks
      I miss all that Fake Difficulty, dangit!
    • It's Hard, So It Sucks
      RAWWWWWWRRRR!! Games are supposed to be fun, and frustration isn't fun!
    • It's Short, So It Sucks
      Any game less than 100 hours can't be worth the money I paid for it!
    • It Gets Better
      Games that start out very slow, with lots of Exposition.
    • Just One More Level
      The game is quite addictive. Really, really addictive.
    • Killer App
      A game that's so good it's a reason to buy the system it's on.
    • Lady Not-Appearing-In-This-Game
      Shoehorning a sexy woman in a commercial to trick players into buying the game ie assuming most gamers are sexually frustrated.
    • Leeroy Jenkins
      An inexperienced gamer who has no patience for complex plans and prefers to rush in and kill something, generally screwing up the plan entirely.
    • Loot Drama
      An item that's so rare, powerful, and unique that gamers will do horrible things to get it.
    • Lord British Postulate
      If it exists as a living creature in an MMORPG, someone, somewhere, will try to kill it.
    • Machinima
      Movies made with images from game engines.
    • Machinomics
      Like Machinima, above, but of static images instead of movies, in a Web Comic format.
    • Macrogame
      Some part of a game that carries over between multiple playthroughs or multiple players.
    • Madden Curse
      Whoever appears on the cover of the latest edition of the Madden NFL series will either not be up to snuff in the upcoming NFL season, or will suffer a major injury and be sidelined for a year.
    • Manual Misprint
      The game manual is wrong. Hilarity ensues.
    • Marth Debuted in Smash Bros
      Where a character's crossover appearance in a game will be exported before the character's actual original appearance, confusing people as to where he/she actually originated.
    • Master Console
      A means to issue commands or change game settings, which can ostensibly allow cheating.
    • Media Watchdog
      A government-appointed body whose job it is to field complaints about media and censure or penalize the creators if deemed necessary.
      • Banned in China
        If a repressive government doesn't like it, it's gonna get banned.
      • Moral Guardians
        Groups of people who want to protect children from being exposed to some level of sex, violence, etc.
    • Metagame
      With competitive games, the collection of strategies in common use; how everyone else is playing.
    • Microtransactions
      You can spend real-world money for individual pieces of in-game content.
    • Mission Pack Sequel
      A sequel that's really just extra levels or content for the original game.
    • Most Annoying Sound
      If Baby Mario doesn't stop crying right now there is going to be some major child abuse going on.
    • Most Wonderful Sound
      DADADA-DAAA-DA-DA-DADADAAAAAH!
    • Most Gamers Are Male
      Bring on the Fan Service.
    • Most Writers Are Male
      Er... ditto?
    • Multi Platform
      A game is developed for release on multiple gaming platforms.
    • Munchkin
      A player who plays the game to "win" at any cost, even if that isn't the point of the game.
    • Murder Simulators
      The allegation that (for example) because games feature killing, they are the cause of increased homicide amongst video game players.
    • Nerf
      A change to a game that weakens a particular item, ability, or tactic.
    • Non-Linear Sequel
      Although called a sequel, the second game may not share much with the first other than shared setting and references.
    • Noob
      A novice at a particular game, usually with negative connotations.
    • Noob Bridge
      A point in a game where a unique and unusual aspect of the controls is necessary, frequently leaving inobservant gamers stuck.
    • No Scope
      The act of shooting a Sniper Rifle or other scoped weapon without a scope. Requires considerable skill in some games.
    • Obvious Beta
      A rushed piece of software that is full of bugs.
      • Perpetual Beta
        A piece of software receiving regular support that remains full of bugs.
    • Oddball in the Series
      One game in the series which is the "odd man out" for whatever reason.
    • Old Man Murray
      A vastly influential critical video game website.
    • Open Roleplaying Decay
      As MMORPGs get more players, the game eventually mutates into something the original members don't like.
    • Pause Scumming
      Abusing the pause button by pausing at a specific time or pausing repeatedly.
    • PC vs. Console
      Similar to the Console Wars, this is the never-ending fight between PC gamers and console gamers.
    • Pick Up Group
      Where an MMORPG player broadcasts a request for other gamers to join him and form a party to go adventuring.
    • Pinball Spinoff
      When a company creates a pinball game based on a successful franchise.
    • Player-Generated Economy
      Where games have a trading system that the players develop.
    • Player Killing
      The act of killing another player's avatar in a multiplayer game, generally used in cooperative games to denote "unnecessary" kills.
    • Player Preferred Pattern
      In a game with many ways to play, most players may still decide on the same specific paradigm.
    • Player Tic
      You keep doing things in video games even when they aren't necessary.
    • Play Every Day
      Some games would rather you play a few minutes today, tomorrow, and the next day than ten hours right now.
    • Polygon Ceiling
      When a series goes from 2D to 3D, it often has issues.
    • Polished Port
      When a game is ported from one platform to another, things go wonderfully right.
    • Porting Disaster
      When a game is ported from one platform to another, things go horribly wrong.
    • The Problem with Licensed Games
      Games based on existing licensed properties suck.
    • Product Facelift
      When an older system is revamped into something physically smoother and sleeker to boost sales.
    • Quicksand Box
      An Wide Open Sandbox game that fails to give you any indication about what to do next.
    • Rage Quit
      When you're about to lose, you just quit the game in anger rather than actually see the Game Over screen.
    • Rainbow Pimp Gear
      When players equip their characters with gear solely based on stat bonuses without consideration to how it will look on them.
    • Rated "M" for Money
      Developers include blood, guts and sexual content to target the hardcore gaming market.
    • Reformulated Game
      When a game changes radically between its various versions.
    • Region Coding
      The assignment of a number representing a geographic region to a DVD or console.
    • Remade for the Export
      Where a game that was never released in a specific region is remade or ported to a new system specifically to be localized.
    • Replay Value
      A measure of how fun a game is after you've beaten it.
    • Retro Gaming
      An interest in playing older video games.
    • Revenue Enhancing Devices
      Design features that seem solely designed to ensure increased profit for the manufacturer without adding any value for the consumer.
    • Reviews Are the Gospel
      Video gamers tend to place more stock in professional reviews of works than fans of any other medium.
    • Rule of Fun
      It doesn't have to make sense, as long as it's fun.
    • Ryona
      Fetish videos about defeating or beating up female characters in fighting and survival games.
    • Save Scumming
      Save the game often, and if you do something wrong, just reload the save.
    • Scrappy Mechanic
      A gameplay mechanic in an otherwise fun/enjoyable game that generates a sizable Hatedom.
    • Script Breaking
      Doing something which is technically allowed but messes up the assumed order of events, often resulting in an Unwinnable game.
    • Scrub
      A player of a competitive videogame who adamantly believes that his or her "house rules" should apply to everyone to promote his or her view of "fair play". Most of the said "house rules" are things he or she makes up on the spot and his or her view of "fair play" is "as long as I win 95% of the time".
    • Self-Imposed Challenge
      A playthrough of a game wherein the player plays under an restriction not required by the game itself in an attempt to increase the difficulty and replay value.
    • Sequel Displacement
      Where one sequel ends up being considered where a series "begins" and earlier games tend to be ignored or forgotten.
    • Sequelphobic
      A subculture that is so jaded by Sequelitis and Capcom Sequel Stagnation that its members are predisposed to dislike any product that is a sequel, regardless of its actual value.
    • Sequence Breaking
      Where you can do things in a different order than intended, skipping past "required" events or items.
    • Shovelware
      Software that's so low-quality, you'll wonder how (and why) it was released at all.
    • Sidetracked by the Gold Saucer
      A mini-game or secondary quest that's so addicting and fun, you forget about the main game.
    • "Stop Having Fun!" Guys
      An expert player who always plays to win and can't understand why anyone would play the game to have, you know, fun.
    • Spawn Camping
      A tactic common to "Stop Having Fun" guys whereby the player hangs around spawn points killing players as they have just reentered the game.
    • Spiritual Successor
      A type of sequel that is not part of the same world or story as its predecessor, but is nonetheless considered to be a successor because of shared creators or themes.
    • Strategy Guide
      A printed guide stuffed full of information on a game and purty pictures.
    • Succession Game
      A form of multiplayer gameplay where, instead of competing against one another, the players take turns controlling a single faction.
    • Super Title 64 Advance
      The title of a game that indicates what system it's released for.
    • That One Boss
      Dear God, how the heck do I beat this guy?!?
    • That One Level
      Oh God, with the lava and the Spikes of Doom and the Medusa heads and AHHHH!
    • That One Player
      Someone who's so skilled at a game that whenever anyone plays with or against him it's no longer any fun.
    • That One Sidequest
      Yeah, there's that great sword... but seriously, less than zero seconds on a Chocobo race?
    • The Tetris Effect
      The game draws you in so much, you begin see its elements in Real Life.
    • Tournament Play
      Professional video game players in national or international competitions for real money.
    • Translation Style Choices
      The various ways that companies can choose to approach the finicky business of localization.
    • Treasure Hunter
      A player who's more interested in the monetary value of items than their actual impact on gameplay.
    • Try Everything
      EXTRA! Frustrated gamer throws up hands, just tries using every single inventory item and skill to continue!
    • The Unexpected
      A strange or unknown character makes an appearance in a video game adaptation of a franchise.
    • Urban Legend of Zelda
      A video game rumor that seems almost plausible and just won't die.
    • Vaporware
      Computer or video game software or hardware that's constantly hyped but never seems to actually be released.
    • Video Game 3D Leap
      When a Video Game series makes the leap from sprite graphics to Polygonal Graphics.
    • Video Game Caring Potential
      The game presents characters in such a way to make you care about them past their utility in the gameplay.
    • Video Game Cruelty Potential
      The potential a video game has for the player to do awful, horrible things to enemies or even friendly and neutral NPCs.
    • Videogame Demake
      A game is voluntarily remade to look and play like it comes from an older generation.
    • Video Game Perversity Potential
      The tendency of some players to use a game's editing tools to create porn.
    • Video Game Movies
      An index page of all of the video game movies with their own pages.
    • Walkthrough
      A document that shows how to play through a game and win.
    • Weekend Warriors
      Part time gamers.
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