Video Gamer Terms

Video Gamer Terms is part 2 of the glossary and includes these unique terms for gamerz: Easter Egg, Final Boss and MMORPG.

Video Gamer Terms: D - E

• D-Pad: term for direction pad that displays as a + sign referring to right, left, up and down directions. Required to control movement of the game. If you want to C, you need the D.
• Death: the end of a game character and possibly a game ender.
• Ditch: you are outta there and have left the video game behind.
• Dual Shock: Playstation controller that had the dual analogue sticks and the rumble feature, This design and video gamer terms are still used today for the Sony Playstation 3.
  
• E3: abbreviation for Electronics Entertainment Expo, the largest video game convention.
  Look for new titles released here.
• E10+ rating: term for game titles for ages ten and up. Generally not overly violent in action or language.
• Easter Egg: video gamers terms for signature of the creator or developer of the game title and not central to the game action.
• EC-Rating: term for Early Childhood rating and suitable for all ages often featuring cartoon characters.
• ESRB: abbreviation for Entertainment Software Rating Board, a panel who reviews and rates video game titles.
  

Video Gamer Terms: F – G

• Faceplant: death or defeat when playing online multiplayer video games.
• Fan Boy: a rabid fan of a particular console or game that is unable to consider any other point of view. There is no reasoning with a fan boy.
• Farming: gamer term describing the practice of killing weak monsters or enemies in large numbers in a bid to gain easy experience and money.
• Final Boss: a gamers’ mortal enemy who in most cases, must be destroyed to win the game. 
• Free-for-all: group of gamers whose loyalty is not to the team, but to win on their own.
• Game Over: the bad guys/gals are gone and the win is yours.
• Game play: a decisive factor of the game title involving player action and reliable programming. High marks for action and programming=excellent game play.
• Gamers or Gamerz: terms used at gamerisms referring to video game players.
• Gamer Tag: is a screen name used online that is unique to identify the gamer when online.
• Gold: game title near completion.
• Going Gold: jargon for next step in the video game production, the release.
• Grind: jargon for boring recurring movements with the goal of continuing the game.
  

Video Gamer Terms: H - L

• Hack: gamer who attempts to control the game by illegal procedures resulting in a game ban or prosecution. Boos all round.
• Hard Drive: While used by PC gamers for years, it was not until the original Xbox that a hard drive was seen as a good way for consoles to save data.
• Head to Head: video game player vs. the challenging video game player.
• Headshot: occurs when a character receives a hit/bullet/strike to the head.
• Health: calculation of the possible death of a game character.
• HP: jargon for health points, hit points or heart points referring to the calculation of the game character’s health.
• Instance: A specific occurrence of an area in a game that is designed to be used by more than one group of people. This can relate to an entire server in some cases.
• Kill: the antagonist is done.
• Leaderboard: tally of top video gamerz listed in order of success.
• Lock-on: act of centering the main character on a certain item, thereby redirecting all attacks to that specific item.
  

Video Gamer Terms: M - N

• MMORPG=Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game: a role-playing=RPG game played online where sometimes millions of gamers are interacting at the same time.  Examples of these games are World of Warcraft and Diablo series.
• M-Rating: refers to mature video game player over 17. Game title is sure to include violent kills and language.
• Main Character: controlled by the gamer.
• Maze Game: term for a game that involves a maze puzzle.
• Memory card: similar to a flash drive to allow video game players to save game data.
• Mini Boss: in many older games and some newer ones, the rule was that before you would face an end of level boss, you would be required to beat a mini boss.  Generally, the mini boss segment occurs about half way through the level or just before the end of level boss.
• Mode: term for a portion of the game play that differs from other portions.
• Motion Controls: Nintendo Wii changed the way that many people viewed video games with the introduction of motion controls. Upon the arrival into the main stream, this phrase quickly became part of the video gamer terms..
  
• Multiplayer: group video game play.
• Noob, N00b or nub: jargon for a new or low-level video game player.
• NPC: abbreviation for Non-Player Character and is AI-controlled.
  

Video Gamer Terms: P - R

• Platform: The system on which a game is played. Example, Atari, Nintendo, Xbox.
• PSP: PlayStation Portable is a handheld gaming console made by Sony.
• PVP: Player-versus-player
• Puzzle Game: games that are mentally challenging or test the motor skills typically fall into this category.  Tetris is one of the most played for this genre.
• Real-time: term for non-stop action game play.
• Real-time Strategy or RTS: game that requires strategic calculations by the video game player.
• Regen Rate: The rate at which monsters or enemy characters respawn.
• Regenerative Health: many modern video games have done away with health power ups and instead have opted for a system where if your character does not take any damage, their health will regenerate.
• Release: the game title is published and ready for sale.
• RP: abbreviation for rating, pending and awaiting the ESRB determination.
• RPG=Role Playing Game: game in which gamers build statistics, collect items and use strategy to complete quests or defeat enemies.
  

Video Gamer Terms: S - Z

• Sandbox: video gamer terms for game titles that are a ‘free for all’ for gamerz to explore.
• Save: to capture game data onto a hard drive or memory card.
• SIM=Simulation Game: a game where gamerz build in a virtual world.  A video game player can build, play and complete quests with everything from building an amusement park to building an army to attack another gamer in the simulation.
• T-Rating: term for teen rating. These game titles generally display violence and combat.
• Text Adventure: one of the earliest forms of video games that displayed few graphics. You would read a story on the screen and type in the command of what you thought you should do. Do I hear a sigh of relief from gamers worldwide that we have moved beyond this stage?
• W00t: expression of excitement or joy. Translated as 'We Owned Other Team' for a win.
• XP: abbreviation for experience points, thus an established gamer.

From video gamer terms, there is the Video Games Genre Intro
OR
Video Games Quiz
Video Game Genres Quiz
OR
Online VideoGame Guide