Chris Kruse
Professor Schmidt
Nov 14 2005
It Only Stays With In the Video Gaming Realm
I am a computer gaming fanatic. I have become so absorbed into online computer
games that they have changed my language. What I mean by changing my language is
that the games have caused me to speak in different terms, acronyms, and abbreviations.
To keep things simple, I will explain one of the games I play. The game I play most often
is called Counter-Strike. This game is an online FPS or first person shooter. The term
first person shooter describes the type of game. It is self explanatory. You play your
character in the game through the first person point of view, and you go around shooting
other players. The way that I communicate with my online gaming buddies is through
chatting in the game and also using a voice communication proggie called Ventrilo. Often
times when I communicate to my online gamming buddies I use the word proggie. The
word proggie refers to a software program. But anyways, this program allows us, online,
gaming fanatics to log on and communicate through our microphones. We communicate
back and forth and call each other by our gaming aliases or the names we use when we
are playing our Counter-Strike characters. My online gaming alias is Regenz0rz which is
derived from regeneration and then I added a z0rz on the end to spice it up. The z0rz does
not really have a true meaning to it, other than me trying to be unique with my online
gaming name. Everyone in the gaming society tries to do something interesting like
change their name to stand out. The language is unique and different and at times I ask
why I feel the need to communicate with these other individuals. Also, I wonder why I
only do this form of communication with these online gamers and no one else.
While I am playing the game you will hear me ramble off words like noobie,
scrub, pwnd, leet, haxor, and many others. All of these words have their own meanings.
Noobie is the expression that the gamers use when referring to a player who is new to the
game. Scrub defines a player who is not very good at the game. The other words have
their own meanings as well, but I will not bore you with all of the definitions. The point
that I want to make clear is that I use these terms as part of an acceptance to the gaming
community. After playing this game for a couple of years I thrive off of this language. It
has become so common that I use it every time I communicate with these other gamers.
For instance, I will log onto Ventrilo and tell my clan members that we should scrim. A
clan is like a group of gamers that come together and form a team to compete against
other online gamers. When I ask them if they want to scrim it means I am asking them if
they want to formulate a scrimmage where five gamers get together and compete against
five other gamers. This allows one clan to compete against another. The reasons we use
this language is to establish a role in this gaming world. Everyone wants to be known
whether it be through their clan, or self promotion. It is very competitive and gamers use
these words as a form of trash talk to put the other gamers down and boost their own selfesteem. I feel that I use it to become more accepted into the Counter-Strike gaming
environment everyone in this game knows what it means when I say “lo3” instead of
actually saying “live on three restarts.” Before our matches or scrimmages we tell the
other gamers to lo3 when all of our clan members are ready. The reason I talk like this is
because it is like a learned language. When I was a baby I would mimic my parents and
others that I was around. The same goes for this gaming community I mimic the others to
fit in.
The reason that I use this language with my online friends is because this
community has developed their own language, and it is acceptable within the realm. If I
were to tell my girlfriend that she was leet she would give me a weird look and think I
was crazy. But if I were to tell my online gaming friend this he would understand that I
was telling him that he is awesome. In the real world most people do not use this form of
communication unless they have experienced this game before. Others will have a hard
time understanding this language and also I feel that it is not socially acceptable. Every
time my good friend, Brent calls my house to see what I am up to I just tell him that I am
hanging out and watching TV. I never mention that I have been tied up playing a
computer game for hours on end. The reason I do not tell him this is because most people
in our society look down upon this. One time I told one of my lady friends that I enjoy
playing computer games and that is what I usually do for entertainment. I never heard the
end of it after she kept calling me a dork and a nerd. If I were to call my friend a leet
haxor he wouldn’t understand that I was giving him a compliment and he would question
me. Then I would have to go into the whole spiel about my video gaming addiction. I
know he would not care it’s just that I feel what happens in the video gaming realm
should stay in the video gaming realm.
I have been an online computer gamer for years. I feel accepted into this world or
realm as I like to call it. The reason I have become accepted is because I use this form of
language that all of these gamers have developed and we can bond with this language in a
unique way. Whether I use it to trash talk another online gamer or to pep up one of my
clan members, I would never use these terms when speaking to my real life friends. Not
only might they not understand this communication but I fear that they will look down
upon me for this language. I feel that it is only acceptable when I am communicating with
my online friends.