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A Comprehensive Guide to Gaming Acronyms and Abbreviations
Decode the short forms used in game chat, menus and patch notes, from FPS, RPG and NPC to DLC, RNG and AFK, grouped by where you are likely to see them.
How Games Run
Gaming Vocabulary
Terms, slang, acronyms and mechanics explained.
10 Essential Gaming Terms You Need to Know
A newcomer-friendly walk through ten everyday terms of play, including respawn, grinding, loot, aggro and checkpoints, with plain examples of each.
10 Essential Terms Every Gamer Should Know
Learn the community side of gaming vocabulary: meta, nerf, buff, smurf, tilt, carry and more, plus how slang spreads between players, streams and forums.
Mastering the Art of Game Mechanics: A Glossary of Terms
A glossary of the building blocks designers use, including hit points, cooldowns, resources, crafting loops and progression, and how they combine into a game.
What Buffs, Nerfs and Patches Mean
Understand the language of changing a game after release: what patches, hotfixes, buffs, nerfs and reworks are, and why players react strongly to them.
What the Meta Means in Games
Learn what the meta is in games, why dominant strategies appear and shift, how tier lists describe them, and how to use the idea without being ruled by it.
Related topics
More in how games run
Performance and Lag Frame rate, resolution, GPUs and why games feel smooth or not. Hardware and Upgrades Parts, upkeep, upgrades and controllers. Inside the Machine What each part of a gaming computer does while you play. Online Play and Networking How games talk over a network and why connections feel the way they do.