List of video game slang

Since the beginning of video games, video game players have developed a list of slang terms. This list will describe them.

Note that this article is for terms that have definitions exclusive to the gaming community. Terms like "plot," and "protagonist/antagonist," that mean the same thing in literature, will not be included here.

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1337: Pronounced "Leet," means "elite," and is used to describe a player or object (such as a game) that is of high quality. When applied to a player, it means he or she has skill; when applied to a game, it usually means the game is fun. The numbers represent the letters they look like (1 is L, 3 is E, and 7 is T).

A
A Game: A somewhat enjoyable game, but by no means a game that will become a classic.

AA Game: Pronounced "Double A Game" or "Double A Title," A very good game. It will usually sell very well.

AAA Game: Pronounced "Triple A Game" or "Triple A Title," means an exceptional game that will likely be in the running for Game of the Year.

Action Command: In RPGs with turn-based battles, an action command is the generic term for when perform a function with the controller to increase the damage the character inflicts on enemies, or reduce the damage done when the enemies attack the character.

Action game: A genre of gaming that revolves around action. Specifically, the player must think actively and usually invovles AI-Controlled enemies.

Action/Adventure: A game that puts an equal emphasis on the story and gameplay.

Adventure game: A game that revolves around the story, rather than the gameplay. A famous example is Myst.

Adult Game: A game intended for adults, usually involves nudity.

AI: Stands for Artificial Intelligence, means the NPCs and creatures in the game react in a believable and/or challenging way. It is sometimes said that AI is one of the most difficult aspects of a game to program correctly. This rumor is evidenced by the fact that many games are released each year that fall short due to AI Problems.

Alpha: A stage in game development where the game is playable, but has many glitches.

Analog Stick: a joystick-like object on the controller that is used for a variety of purposes, but usually for the purpose of movement (see D-Stick), and controlling the camera (see C-Stick). It is also called a thumbstick, since it is usually operated with the player's thumbs.

AO-rating: An ESRB rating that stands for Adults Only, applied to games with either explicit sexual depictions (such as characters actually engaging in sexual activity) or exceptional blood and gore (as is the case with Thrill Kill). The AO rating was brought to mainstream attention by the Hot Coffee Mod. The AO rating is very tabooed in the video game industry, so much so that many major retailers refuse to sell games of this rating, often leading to either the developers redesigning the game or the publishers releasing the game over the Internet, where there is no censorship.

B

B Game: a semi-good game. "B" is a worse rating than A, but better than C, D, and F.

Beastiary: A list of AI-controlled characters in the game that are animalistic. Beastiaries often describe the animals' strengths, weaknesses, stats (in an RPG), etc.

Beat 'em up game: A genre that involves melee with many enemies. Unlike the similar hack 'n' slash (see below), beat 'em ups usually involve unarmed combat.

Beta: A stage in the game that has fewer glitches than the Alpha stage, but is still not ready for release.

Bit: A now obsolete method of estimating a console's power. For example, the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) was an 8-bit console. It is now rendered obsolete due to manufacturers' misuse of the term. However, old consoles are sometimes still described this way.

Boss: A major enemy in the game, usually one whose death is required to progress in the game.

Bot: An NPC that takes the place of a player character in a multiplayer match.

Bug: A glitch

C
C-Stick: Usually on the right of the controller, it is an analog stick used to control the camera.

C Game: A mediocre game that only a select few will enjoy, and even fewer will fall in love with.

camera: Where the player sees the game world through they're television screen or computer monitor. It is located on the fourth wall.

Casual Game: A game that is designed to appeal to the mass audience.

Cel Shading: A style of graphics that emphasizes bright colors. It is often referred to as "cartoony graphics," because of its resemblence to cartoons

Cell: An area in a game world that a character can explore without being interrupted by a load.

Character: Either the main character (see below) an AI-controlled object.

Cheat: A method that makes the game easier. Cheats are subdivided into many subcatagories, including hacks (also spelled hax), glitches, and code cheats. Normally, only code cheats are sanctioned by the developer and thus are the only ones players may use without fear of repercussion.

code: the programming that makes a game run.

Console: A computer-like device that is designed primarily to play video games. They usually hook up to a television to act as the camera, though the Vectrex came with its own screen. Portable game systems are not considered consoles.

Controller: A device that is used to manipulate the game. Traditionally, a controller features a D-Pad, start and select buttons, miscellaneous buttons (usually on the right side of the controller), and, more recently, analog sticks. Some controllers, however, differ from this norm, such as the Wii Remote.

cutscene, a part of the game where interaction is usually impossible (with Resident Evil 4 being a notable exception) and the main goal is to watch, a la a movie. Cutscenes are usually done for the purpose of forwarding the story.

Combo: When a player presses multiple buttons on the controller in quick succession, resulting in the main character performing a special move unique to that combination. Said move is referred to as a combo move.
coop: Also spelled Co-op, means a mode of multiplayer where everyone is on the same side, battling the AI.

Core Gamer: A gamer (see below) who is serious about his or her hobby, but not as serious as a hardcore gamer (see below).

Crash: When software stops working. It can be either a game (game crash), the console (system crash), or an online server (server crash).
D
D-Pad: Stands for "Direction Pad." It takes the form of a plus (and therefore is sometimes referred to as the "plus control pad) to make the directions of up, down, left, and right more obvious. The D-pad is almost always used to control the movement of the character.

D-Stick: Usually on the left of the controller, it is used in place of the D-Pad for more precise movement control.

D Game: A bad game.
Death: When a character (see above) in the game looses all of its health, and "dies."

Designer: A person who decides what goes into a game, and passes said decision onto the programmers.

Develop: To make a game.

Developer: A team of programmers, designers, and other occupations make a game.

Ditch: To abandon a game (usually an online game) suddenly and without notice.

Driving Game: A game genre where the player operates a vehicle.

E
E3: Stands for Electronics Entertainment Expo, the biggest convention in the video game industry, where every major publisher and developer present their biggest titles for the fiscal year.

E-Rating: A rating by the ESRB that stands for "Everyone." Despite the name, the rating does not apply to everyone, but rather just people ages six and up. Games of this rating usually contain slapstick violence and comic mischief.

E10+ rating: Read "E ten and up," is an ESRB rating emphasizing that it is good for "everyone ages ten and up." Games of this rating tend to feature slightly more violent portrayals than an E rating, but still nothing parents should be paranoid about. Usually, the worst language a parent should worry about in this game is curse word substitutes like "crap."

Easter Egg: An object in the game that is irrelevant to the main part of the game. Easter eggs usually make references to pop culture, other games, or things about the developers (for example, the first easter egg was found in the Atari 2600 game Adventure, and featured his name in a special room, allegedly done to fight the fact that Atari did not give developers credit for their work).

EC-Rating: A rating that stands for "Early Childhood," meaning it is appropriate for anyone old enough to play it. These games usually feature no violence or sex, and usually involve small children's characters like Mickey Mouse or Woody Woodpecker.

Engine: The core programming of a game.

ESRB: Stands for Entertainment Software Rating Board. It is a group of individuals who review a game's content and assign ratings to the game, a la the movie industry, so that people (specifically parents) will know what they are buying without having to research the game.

F
F Game: An absolutely horrible game. Games of this calibur will likely be in the running for "Worst Game of the Year" and may even be considered one of the worst of all time.

Fighting game: A game that revolves around combat. A heavy emphasis is put on combos. This genre was popularized by Street Fighter II.

Final Boss: The final enemy in the game, often the main antagonist. Killing the final boss often leads to the end of the game.

First Person: A phrase used to describe a game where the camera is situated in the main character's eyes, creating the illusion that it is the player in the game, rather than the main character.

Frag: To through an explosive (usually a frag grenade, hence the name) at a character. This is popular in online shooters.

Free-for-all: A mode of multiplayer where there are many players, and it is every player for himself.

G
Game Over: When the main character has been depleted of its health and all of its lives.

Gameplay: What the player does in the game, as well as how well the game is programmed (i.e. how few glitches there are). Gameplay is largely regarded as the most important factor of a game.

Gamer: A person who plays video games.

Gib: a piece of debodied human flesh lieing around in the game for the purpose of providing gore.

God Game: A game where the player is a diety, and controls the game world. There is usually no game over, but the game can become so disorganized that it is rendered unplayable.
God Mode: A popular cheat that gives the character unlimited health. Other things may be optional, but infinite health is what makes the cheat known as "God Mode."

Gold: A game that is in its final form. Going Gold is the act of mass producing a game so that it may be released.

Graphics: A measure of how good the game looks. In the past, console manufacturers used to use graphical power as their primary marketing tool.

Grind: To perform mindlessly repetitive tasks in order to level up or proceed in the game.

H
Hack: An unsolicited mod. The discovery of the usage of a hack usually leads to the user being banned from the game and/or prosecuted.

Hack 'n' Slasher: A genre of games that involves the use of a bladed object, such as a sword or knife, to kill many enemies. Early hack 'n' slashers had just one move, but recent ones put an emphasis on combos to increase damage done or attack multiple enemies.

Hardcore Gamers: A gamer who take his or her gaming very seriously, almost to the point where they alienate their social lives.

Head to Head: A one-on-one battle.

Headshot: When a character lands a direct blow to the head. It can be either a bullet (in a shooter) or a melee strike. In shooters, headshots do more damage and often result in a one-hit kill (see below).

Health: A measure (often numerical) of how close a person is to dieing.

Hot Coffee: An infamous hack in the video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas that depicted explicit sexual activity between two characters in the game.

HP: Can stand for Hit Points, Heart Points, or Health Points." It is a numerical measure of the health a character has, used almost exclusively in RPGs.

HUD: Stands for Heads-up Display, an object on the screen that features meters and gauges to give information relevant to the character.

K
Kill: To deplete a character of all his or her health.

L
Lag: A drop in framerate that occurs when the technology is pushed to its limits. On consoles, this is a rare occurance offline because most games on that console are designed to fit the console's specs, but online games often receive lag, especially if the player is using dial-up.

Lagger: A gamer who engages in lagging.

Lagging: The act of deliberately inducing lag into an online game as a method of cheating. Lagging is popular because it is difficult to prove that the lag is deliberate or honest.

leaderboard: An online display of players, listed in order of most successful at that game to the least successful, often going from top down.

Life: A number of times a character (usually the main one) can die without a game over occuring. When a character dies, its number of lives is reduced by one, and when it reaches zero, the next death results in a game over. Lives are especially prevelent in platformers.

Lock-on: To focus the main character on a certain object, so that all attacks are directed toward it, effectively removing the need to aim, and the main character circles around it.

M
M-Rating: An ESRB rating that stands for "Mature." The ESRB recommends these games only to people aged seventeen and above, as these games tend to feature explicit blood and gore and violent kills.

Main Character: The character in the game that the player controls directly via the controller.

Maze game: A game that has the main character going through a maze.

Memory card: A peripheral that is used to save game data, as opposed to a hard drive. Memory cards often resemble flash drives.

MMO]: Stands for Massive Multiplayer Online, and results in an online game where any number of player characters can be in a single cell.
Mod: Short for modification, it is a change in the game's programming, usually by a third entity.

Mode: A section of the game that's gameplay is different from the rest of the game.

Multiplayer: A type of gameplay that has multiple players.

Music game: A game that revolves around music. A subgenre is the rhythm game, which requires the character to manipulate the controller to sync with the beat of the music.

N
Noob: Also spelled N00b and nub, a term used to describe an unskillful person, or perhaps a person who is disliked in general.

NPC: Stands for Non-Player Character, a character in the game that is AI-controlled.
O
own: Also spelled pwn, means to defeat an enemy (whether AI or human) very badly and decisively, often inducing embarrassment.

P
Patch: A program that is released the game's developers, often through the Internet, to modify a game's code. This is often done to remove glitches.

Pet: A creature, found in the game's beastiary, who is programmed to aid a character in battle. The character can be either an enemy or ally to the main character.

Platform Game: Often called a Platformer, a genre of games that revolves around jumping (usually onto platforms, hence the name), climbing, and other actions that relate to physical exercise.

Player: The person who operates the controller.

Publisher: A company that mass produces a gold game from a developer and ships the copies to retailers for sell.

Pure: A game that has only one genre, with absolutely no traces of other genres. Examples of pure titles include Tetris and Super Mario Bros.

Puzzle Game: A game that focuses primarily on the player solving puzzles. Many other genres include puzzles, but are not considered puzzle games. True puzzle games usually have no main character (with Dr. Mario) being a notable exception, and almost never have a plot. Famous examples of pure puzzle games include Tetris, Polarium, and Lumines.

Q
Quest: A goal in the game.

R
Racer: A form of driving game where the vehicles are racing one another.

Real-time: A type of gameplay where the action unfolds without pause or interruption, contrast turn-based below.

Real-time Strategy: Often shortened to RTS, a game where the player must think think strategically, but the characters still attack nonetheless unless the game is paused. This is opposed to a turn-based strategy (see below), where players can think more passively.

Release: To publish a game.

RP: Stands for "Rating Pending," the automatic rating of any game that has not yet been submitted to the ESRB for an actual rating. Games with this rating can have any content, no matter how mild or extreme; however, games are rarely sold with this rating.

RPG: Stands for "Role-Playing Game," a genre of games that features statistical attributes and skills, leveling up (usually via experience points), and HP.
S
Sandbox: Describes a game where the player may explore the game world freely, with little to no consequences. This style of gameplay was popularized by Grand Theft Auto III.

Save: To store one's game data, such as items gained and their point in the game's plot, onto either a hard drive or memory card.

Shoot 'em ups: Similar to beat 'em ups, the main character has a firearm which it must use to kill many enemies. Famous examples of shoot 'em ups include Space Invaders, Defender, and Contra.

Shooter: A genre of games that emphasizes the use of firearms as a main weapon. Most shooters do not have a lock-on feature, and aiming must be done manually.

Sim: Short for Simulation, a game that attempts to reenact an actual event in a realistic manner (in other words, the game attempts to simulate the real-life experience, hence the name).

Sports game: A game that attempts to replicate an established sport. Subgenres include Football games, baseball games, etc.

T
T-Rating: An ESRB rating that stands for "Teen." Games of this rating usually feature violence and intense combat, but no blood. Because of the thin line between T- and M-ratings (blood is almost literally the sole difference), some people question the validity of the ratings system.

Team multiplayer: A multiplayer mode where multiple players are put onto two or more teams, and fight the opposing team(s). This is not to be confused with coop, where every player is on the same team and is fighting against AI controlled bots. In Team mode, the enemies are also players.

Text Adventure: An adventure game that has little to no graphics, and instead tells the player what is going on via words, while the player types in commands. For example, the computer may say "You see a door," so the player may type in "Go through door," and the computer will spit out "You're in the courtyard." These games were popular in the past on old computers due to the lack of graphical power in them, but have since become obsolete.

Title: A game.

Third-person: Used to describe a game where the camera is located away from the character, and usually shows the main character.

Turn-based: A system of gameplay where the players may think passively about their next move, and have an infinite amount of time to decide, contrast real-time above.

Turn-based Strategy: A game that requires the player to think strategically in order to proceed in the game. Unlike a real-time strategy, the gameplay is turn-based (hence the name), allowing the player to think more passively. Examples of Turn-based Strategy games include Civilization IV and the Advance Wars series.

X
XP: Short for experience points, or Xperience Points.

See Also
Video game culture

List of video game genres

History of Video Games

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