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Three generations have grown up with video games since home consoles with swappable game cartridges were first released in the mid-1970s. These systems brought versions of popular arcade games, such as Space Invaders and Pac-Man, into people’s living rooms.
At about the same time, tabletop fantasy role-playing games, such as Dungeons & Dragons, made their appearance. This fantasy genre would also lead to the development of card-based games, such as Magic: The Gathering and Pokémon.
At the turn of the millennium, simulation games such as The Sims and Animal Crossing became popular. And about twenty years ago, massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), such as EverQuest and World of Warcraft, made their debut. These were followed by a dizzying array of other online franchises, such as Minecraft, Roblox, and the family of battle royale games.
As with any significant cultural development, gaming and gaming culture has had an impact on the vocabulary of English. Many terms that started out as gamer slang are now firmly entrenched in the speech of Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z. Some of these words or phrases have even reached the pinnacle of respectability: They can now be found in the dictionary.
Secrets and hacks
A well-known example is Easter egg, referring to some hidden message, feature, or function that can be found within a game.
One of the first Easter eggs dates from 1980, when it was inserted into the game Adventure by Warren Robinett, a programmer employed by Atari. To prevent poaching by their competitors, Atari didn’t credit its game developers, and this policy annoyed him. He coded the message “Created by Warren Robinett” to appear when players moved their on-screen character to a specific location.
Robinett’s subversive action would become well known in the gaming community. Ironically, it was soon exploited by the game developers themselves: They encouraged programmers to add hidden content for players to find. The term caught on and its meaning, when used in non-gaming contexts, has also broadened: It can refer to anything that is undocumented, disguised, or unexpected (as in “The movie included Easter eggs for fans of the franchise”).
Closely related to the idea of hidden secrets is the cheat code—a series of actions within a game that unlocks certain abilities or features. And like Easter egg, this term broke out of its original context to be applied more broadly (as in “A cheat code for retirement planning”).
Something old, something newbie
Some gaming terms that have achieved popularity have earlier origins than is commonly realized.
One might, for example, refer to speedrunning through a supermarket to quickly pick up needed items. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) attests the verbal form as first appearing in print in 1999. The noun form, however, was being used as early as 1921 in connection with driving or piloting a vehicle at high speed.
In other cases, gaming terms have popularized words that had fallen out of common usage or are responsible for creating new senses for these words. Some of these terms existed in English centuries before modern technology.
A good example is lore, in the sense of something that is learned or taught, like plant lore or folklore. This sense of the word has been a card-carrying member of the language since the days of Middle English, with examples dating back eight hundred years. However, it had largely fallen out of common usage until the worldbuilding aspect of gaming culture gave it a new lease on life.
Similarly, the idea of a quest—a search or a pursuit—first appeared in print nearly seven hundred years ago. What is new is the idea of a side quest: a secondary task that a gamer might undertake to explore or to gain experience. This term first appeared in print in 1978 and now refers to any deviation from a primary activity.
And consider the case of newbie, applied to novices learning a new game or strategy. The term predates video games and may be a variant of “new boy.” The editors of the OED found an example of newbie dating from 1970; in that instance, the term referred to replacement soldiers.
Newbie is interesting because it doesn’t seem to have the strong negative connotations of variants that came along later, such as newb, noob, or n00b.
Fleeting fame?
Some gaming terms are popular for only a brief period. One of these may be pwn, meaning to utterly dominate one’s opponent. It is thought to have originated as a touch-typing error for the transitive verb “own,” as in “The chess master owned his opponent for the entire match.”
The meaning of pwn has also broadened a bit and can also refer to taking over a computer system or network. But after enjoying some currency during the first decade of the 2000s, it has largely dropped out of the vernacular of non-gamers.
There are, of course, many gaming terms that still haven’t broken through into broader usage. Opinions might differ, but these could include words and phrases such as final boss, hit points, non-player character, and respawning.
It remains to be seen whether any of these terms develop main character energy, level up, and unlock the achievement of being enshrined in dictionaries of English.
