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Videogames: What They Is?



I'm going to briefly mention and, in doing so, undersell the crap out of Tia Baheri's the Toast article "Your Ability to Can Even" about internet language and linguistic evolution in a world dominated by technology. It's fascinating and well-written and supports/explains linguistic development in online communities. The reasons I mention it are several; it's a good read, it pertains to subjects that interest me, and it got me thinking.

Since the dawn of the videogame, there have been two very divided camps in a culture war that revolves around them and their effect on us medically and emotionally and spiritually, et cetera. As a result of the conjecture-based conflict, my parents refused to allow video game consoles into our house. I did get to experience early console games at my cousins' and friends' houses: the early nineties saw the explosion of the video game due to Nintendo's success with Super Mario Bros. for the NES, the later release of the SuperNES, and Sega's response in the form of the Genesis console, which launched the widespread fame of Sonic the Hedgehog. I tried it all. And once I had a taste, I couldn't get enough. I was always the last kid to fall asleep at sleep overs, because I would spend all night taking advantage of the ability to play Ninja Turtles. 

Get it, Leo.

The release of the revolutionary Nintendo 64 basically solidified the video game as a long-lasting and valuable market. Eventually, my uncle took note both of my desire to play video games and their growing prevalence in the American market, and bought me a PlayStation for Christmas one fateful winter day in 1999. Life. Changed. Forever. Ape Escape, Cool Boarders 3, MLB '98, Need for Speed, I devoured these games. I lived them. My parents were strict about my play time, as well my adherence to the ESRB rating system. 
(I had to beg for a T-for-Teen game before I became a teenager. M-Rated games didn't exist for me. Tell that to my 16-year-old brother who's probably third-prestige in Call of Duty right now. Yeah. #NotBitterAtAll)

But despite (or maybe because of) the negative stigma against them due to brain-rotting or homicide-inspiring content (looking at you, Grand Theft Auto), video games flourished and thrived in America and throughout the world. The most recent count claims that over 100 million Wii consoles have been sold worldwide since its release in 2006. Video games are now so pervasive that subcultures have been formed based on games, or consoles, or both. If a modern version of The Breakfast Club were to be made, it would have to include "the gamer" as an archetypal character. And then they would have to decide what type of gamer he or she is. PC or console? RPG or RTS?


And this brings me at full speed toward what I had intended to be this post's point: this culture has its own language. Let me ask you this: What's your KD in any given FPS? Did you only pwn the enemy players in an MMORPG because your character or weapon was broken, or were they just newbs? Have you ever KS'd a teammate on your smurf account, but it was NP because AP GP OP = GG? (Only thing worse than AP GP is AP TP GP. Whoo.) There are probably millions of people in the world that can read and understand what I just wrote. Think about that.

Because of the widespread play of video games in the world, game and console developers took the logical next step in game play: let everyone play together. It is becoming more and more rare for a developer to create a game that doesn't have aspects that require internet access. In fact, 3 of the top 5 highest selling video games of all time are games that include online play or online interaction between players (the other two are Tetris and Super Mario Bros., so, stiff competition). This has led to massive player interaction, and the development of communities both online and IRL (in real life). And when people group up, amazing things happen. We develop a means of communication that is intelligible among other members of the community and optimized for maximum content communicated per time spent communicating. Acronyms and abbreviations dominate this linguistic landscape, because the need for split-second decision-making requires that words be pared down to their smallest intelligible iterations. 

I love this idea. Video games have become so important and valuable to our culture that the gaming community has its own language with different dialects based on the games played. How far will this go? As global video game sales surpass those of films and books, how will our IRL culture respond? How will our language change when everyone on Earth is playing online games?

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