Ugh, n00b without skins!
Skins don’t prove if you’re pro or not.
Don’t worry if you have not understood a single word. The whole team of EssayShark has not got a clue at first either. This a fragment of a dialogue between two gamers.
Massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG) are becoming more popular than ever. Every game has its community, fans, and, of course, jargon or slang. What’s the role of the gaming jargon? It was initially used to enhance the reaction of the team on the gaming situation. The response rate directly influences the victory or defeat of the whole team. It’s especially important during gaming championships and tournaments. In addition to this, gaming slang is used to save time. Members of the team don’t have much time to communicate during the game. Therefore, the gaming slang allows informing your team about something vital in a short form.
Gaming slang can be global and local. The global jargon includes the vocabulary used in all games regardless of the country and the language of the gamer. Thus, many multiplayer games use the word “noob” or “n00b” which states for an inexperienced player, a newbie. When someone writes you the abbreviation “AFK”, he means that he is away from the keyboard. “BG” stands for a boring game without fascinating military operations or tactics. When someone invites you to join a party, don’t dress up. A party is a group of players united to complete a mission, find an artifact or resources. Donators are gamers who invest not only their time but also money in gaming. As a rule, they purchase special objects (skins, for example) to update the character. However, gamers tend to use local slang in daily life. In other words, they use the jargon of a precise gaming community.
Gaming jargon allows teenagers feeling like they were members of a secret society adults don’t know about. Moreover, it became an elementary method of communication, and they are on the same wave with their peers. If slang didn’t exist, they would need to use standard English. But don’t think that only teens play computer games. According to the research, the average age of a gamer has shifted to 36 years. Moreover, they include both females and males.
Gaming jargon is a quite complicated linguistic mystery. First of all, it’s changing too fast and it’s hard or almost impossible to register them somewhere. The words that were used 10 years ago by the gamers have little or no value today. It’s connected with the rapid development of technologies. Old devices and services are replaced by new tendencies. The same happens with words. Second of all, gaming slang is a combination of IT and digital specialists, the youth, and gamers. Thus, there are many factors influencing the appearance of neologisms.
All these differences brought a lot of changes to the language. Both verbal and non-verbal communications are being altered by the appearance of new words. In the fast-changing modern world where time is money people started using time-saving online abbreviations, letter homophones, clipping and other linguistic methods of simplifying words. Scientists believe that this tendency will lead to the future degradation of the language. We can’t say that only the gaming jargon has a negative impact on the language. It brought some interesting phrases to our lives. However, there is a general tendency for simplifying the language we speak. We became so lazy that have no time to type “Ok” or “Good” and replace it for “k”. As if that moment of typing “O” could have changed something.
Average words and phrases which mean something different to gamers
We prepared several examples to show how the same phrase or word can have various connotations.
When you hear the phrase “Easter Eggs”, you think about the holiday, painting eggs, and a family dinner. For gamers, this phrase has another meaning. It stands for some hidden features, levels or flashbacks in the game that a game finds and unlocks.
The word “boss” makes somebody irritated or maybe scared. For gamers, a boss is the main enemy in the computer game. Farming has nothing to do with growing plants. It means that you gather various resources and items to progress in the game.
