Date: February 3rd, 2026 8:18 PM
Author: cowgod
I made a thread on this and everyone ignored it
first of all, digital has been GREAT for making the "hobby" more accessible. PC gamers figured this out ages ago. There have definitely been times where I went into a gamestop, and was just like, "you know what? fuck this. never again." Just because of the phenotypes.
Second there is all sorts of weird vernacular
Gameplay: This is not a word.
Going Gold: Obsolete ceremony. It referred to pressing physical discs, which barely matters anymore, yet it’s still announced like a rite of passage. Day-one patches immediately invalidate it. Corporate nostalgia masquerading as legitimacy.
AAA: Borrowed from credit ratings, not culture. Or maybe they just started saying AAA because they wanted high scores idk.
Mechanics: Trotted out when “gameplay” has been said too many times, not when anything mechanical is actually being discussed.
Engine: Way overused bc gamers don't understand Engineering. When someone says “the engine does X,” they usually mean “some gameplay system we bolted on in blueprints/Lua/C#.” They aren’t Engineers, they don’t know where the engine boundary actually is, and they use the word because it sounds hard, adult, and infrastructural.
Calling games “Titles”: The most revealing tell. They can’t say game because “gaming” sounds unserious, so they reach for a sterile catalog term. Books have titles, but no one calls them “Titles.” Films have titles, but no one says “I watched three Titles last night.” It’s linguistic shame; trying to sound adult by sanding off the word that actually names the thing.
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5824371&forum_id=2).#49644964)