Trickshotting

Trickshotting is a term that has come to describe the activity of a certain subculture of video gamers. Primarily, trickshotting is prevalent in Modern Warfare 2, of the Call of Duty series. Trickshotting involves purposefully performing actions before killing someone in game in order to show off one's gaming prowess, embarrass opponents, and add overall style to a kill. Specifically, players strive to perform trickshots for the last kill in a Search and Destroy (an MW2 gamemode) because their point of view is then displayed for all the players in said game to see in the Round Winning Killcam. In Modern Warfare 2, Trickshots are almost always performed with the Intervention Sniper Rifle.
History
Trickshotting was made famous by the Modern Warfare 2 based video game clan, FaZe. However, the act of trickshotting developed naturally when Infinity Ward and other developers of Modern Warfare 2 included the Game/Round Winning Killcam as part of different game types. Players often attempted to embarrass opponent players by killing them in difficult ways such as spinning around first, dubbed a "360". When individual players such as "Zerkaa" began recording impressive killcams and posting on sites such as YouTube, the Modern Warfare community began to follow suit. Although originally trickshotting consisted of long range throwing knife kills, long range no scopes, and kills in which a player turned 360 degrees before killing his opponent, the community of MW2 trickshotters began developing new "trickshots" typically consisting of a combination of spinning, ,reloading their weapon, switching to a secondary weapon, taking out equiptment, and exploiting graphical glitches of the game before killing an opponent.
Methods
In addition to new trickshots, methods for maximizing the opportunity for hitting trickshots were soon developed. In the Search and Destroy game mode, players are only alloted one life per round. To maxmize their chances of surviving until there is only one player alive on the opposing team, players began using the "One Man Army" perk which allowing them to play with any type of gun and switch to an Intervention at their convenience (usually when there is only one player left on the opposing team). In addition, players began using stun grenades - players are alloted 2 stun grenades which blind and slow an enemy thrown within their vicinity - in order to stop enemies giving them a better opportunity to hit a trickshot. Aspiring trickshotters most often ensure that they only play with players they are familiar with to ensure that everyone on their team has the same goal, and that a randomly assigned teammate does not kill the last player on the other team.
Effects of a Growing Community
Eventually, the community grew large enough to the point where sometimes trickshotters would get into lobbies with other trickshotters by chance. When this occurred, often players would "set- up" for one another, allowing their opponent to attempt trickshots on them. However, at other times, players take advantage of the fact that they knew they opponents were attempting to trickshot them by standing on high structures where the opposing trickshotters cannot easily trickshot them. The pressures of satisfying the trickshotting community and their audiences has caused some distinguished trickshotters to resort to asking friends or opposing players to wait to be last alive and stand on the ground to allow them to attempt trickshots (known as "setting up" shots). As the community grows it becomes easier to produce content, as many find opposing players that they do not even know "setting up" for them.

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