The verb "to release" used improperly by gaming editors

This has been going on for a couple of months I'd say; a very recent phenomenon. I haven't seen anyone here at Giant Bomb do it; it happens mostly on Kotaku (that I've noticed, at least) and IGN. Basically, when talking about a game and its release date, the editor will say such things as:

"The game releases at the end of the year." (simple form indicative present)

"The game will release at the end of the year." (simple form indicative future)

"The game will be releasing at the end of the year." (compound form future continuous)

Not only are they using verb tenses suggesting that the game itself is performing the action of releasing something by being the subject, but the sentence is also missing a core component: the object of the verb (that is, the game is releasing what exactly?). Anyone with half a brain will know that a game does not "release", but is being released. The past participle is required. The game does not perform the action of releasing something. Something or someone is performing the action of releasing the game. As far as I know, Skynet does not yet exist.

Needless to say, this is driving me fucking BATSHIT and English isn't even my mother tongue. Has anyone else noticed this? Here's the article which has prompted me to post this topic. Last paragraph.

Video games have gained sentience. I don't go to many game sites besides this one so I haven't noticed this phenomenon.

@AuthenticM: Video game journalists tend to be utter shit at the whole grasping the English language thing.

Maybe it's due to lower standards because they work on the Internet, or they're just dumb people. Not sure on that one.

I only notice when people use then when it should be than. I like coke more then pepsi, for example. I don't care about any other mistakes, just this one.

@CaLe said:

I only notice when people use then when it should be than. I like coke more then pepsi, for example. I don't care about any other mistakes, just this one.

Who are you talking to who doesn't know the difference between those two entirely different words? That is a pretty obvious mistake for an english speaker.

@Emperor_Jimmu said:

@CaLe said:

I only notice when people use then when it should be than. I like coke more then pepsi, for example. I don't care about any other mistakes, just this one.

Who are you talking to who doesn't know the difference between those two entirely different words? That is a pretty obvious mistake for an english speaker.

This is an extremely common mistake on the internet. Like people who don't know how to spell "definitely" and type something like "defiantly" or people who type "your" when it should be "you're".

So, I should wonder who you're talking to that you've never encountered this mistake.

Is it better than writers using the verb drop to sound hip to all the kids? Some of those sites do not have a copy editor on staff.

@Emperor_Jimmu said:

@CaLe said:

I only notice when people use then when it should be than. I like coke more then pepsi, for example. I don't care about any other mistakes, just this one.

Who are you talking to who doesn't know the difference between those two entirely different words? That is a pretty obvious mistake for an english speaker.

I find it hard to believe you've never seen this. I believe it is mostly perpetrated by Americans as their pronunciation of then and than is quite similar, so it's not that they confuse the words, they just spell it wrong.

I dont know much about the english language, but your not fooling me. Some one, here has some time made the mistake of spelling some thing wrong.

Wow, talk about a minor issue. It's not even worth this crappy thread, to be honest.

If this is actually driving you 'fucking batshit', I don't think the journalists are the ones with the problem. Get over it. It's not that big of a deal.

Effect / Affect. Then / Than. A lot / Alot. Paid / Payed.

Some people on this site use the term 'Meta game' like it means 'another layer' and that drives me fucking nuts.

I do not think these are mistakes similar in nature to the misspell of "than" or "your". This phenomenon is very recent, frequent, and happens to be in the same line of work (video game editorialism). I think those editors are deliberately using those words by thinking that it is correct to do so. But they are wrong. Right?

@Benny said:

Some people on this site use the term 'Meta game' like it means 'another layer' and that drives me fucking nuts.

Yes, this is something that has been plaguing Giant Bomb for quite some time, I admit.

AuthenticM will be releasing from Grammar Nazi school at the end of there graduation.

Maybe they just think it looks cool to do it that way? Modern English is littered with intentional mistakes. It used to bother me a lot, then I figured I had to get over it.

@Benny said:

Some people on this site use the term 'Meta game' like it means 'another layer' and that drives me fucking nuts.

What is it supposed to mean?

@CaLe said:

@Benny said:

Some people on this site use the term 'Meta game' like it means 'another layer' and that drives me fucking nuts.

What is it supposed to mean?

A "meta-game" would be a video game about people playing video games. Like Game Room, to an extent.

@CaLe said:

@Benny said:

Some people on this site use the term 'Meta game' like it means 'another layer' and that drives me fucking nuts.

What is it supposed to mean?

I was just wondering that. I am inclined to go with meta meaning "denoting something higher or second-order kind", although I have never used the term meta for anything. I am interested to read an explanation for its use.

Eh, it doesn't really bother me at all. However, I can understand a small bit of frustration when you see this in a professional environment.

@Contrarian: @AuthenticM said:

@CaLe said:

@Benny said:

Some people on this site use the term 'Meta game' like it means 'another layer' and that drives me fucking nuts.

What is it supposed to mean?

A "meta-game" would be a video game about people playing video games. Like Game Room, to an extent.

The 'Metagame' is the style of play that emerges in competitive games that isn't considered the most effective strategy to win, but is the most effective strategy to beat other players.

(Just an example, I know nothing about Starcraft) But, spamming zerglings might be the highest damage opening of all strategies in the game, but players all know how to counter that, thus, playing the most damaging opening will in fact not be the most effective way to beat other players. The Metagame is all of the strategies that emerge from this kind of mindset. One overpowered build emerges, everyone counters it, everyone counters everyone's counter builds. Metagame.

edit: More information & examples http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metagaming

@Benny said:

@Contrarian: @AuthenticM said:

@CaLe said:

@Benny said:

Some people on this site use the term 'Meta game' like it means 'another layer' and that drives me fucking nuts.

What is it supposed to mean?

A "meta-game" would be a video game about people playing video games. Like Game Room, to an extent.

The 'Metagame' is the style of play that emerges in competitive games that isn't considered the most effective strategy to win, but is the most effective strategy to beat other players.

(Just an example, I know nothing about Starcraft) But, spamming zerglings might be the highest damage opening of all strategies in the game, but players all know how to counter that, thus, playing the most damaging opening will in fact not be the most effective way to beat other players. The Metagame is all of the strategies that emerge from this kind of mindset. One overpowered build emerges, everyone counters it, everyone counters everyone's counter builds. Metagame.

That's not a meta game. It's just a elaborate strategy.

@AuthenticM said:

@CaLe said:

@Benny said:

Some people on this site use the term 'Meta game' like it means 'another layer' and that drives me fucking nuts.

What is it supposed to mean?

A "meta-game" would be a video game about people playing video games. Like Game Room, to an extent.

OK, but when Brad refers to the meta game of Starcraft I know exactly what he means, even if that word is not being used correctly. The term serves its purpose. I should have asked if there is a more accurate term for this. I can't think of any other word that sums it up so easily.

Yeah, small stuff like this doesn't really bother me.

My two cents:

Who gives a fucking shit.

@CaLe: Brad does use it right, just Ryan sometimes says metagame when talking about the F2P layer or persistent leveling in games, doesn't really apply to those.

@CaLe said:

@AuthenticM said:

@CaLe said:

@Benny said:

Some people on this site use the term 'Meta game' like it means 'another layer' and that drives me fucking nuts.

What is it supposed to mean?

A "meta-game" would be a video game about people playing video games. Like Game Room, to an extent.

OK, but when Brad refers to the meta game of Starcraft I know exactly what he means, even if that word is not being used correctly. The term serves its purpose. I should have asked if there is a more accurate term for this. I can't think of any other word that sums it up so easily.

Yeah, I also know what he means because he's always using it in that same way. But that does not mean it is the correct usage of the word "meta". I'm pretty sure it's not. What brad is referring to is just an elaborate strategy.

It's the same thing with the way nerds on the Internet have morphed the term "meme". The way it is used on the net is as a simple synonym of the expression "inside joke". So a meme, in the "It's over 9000" sense, is just an "inside" (Internet inside joke).

@AuthenticM: I haven't noticed it, but this is probably because 1) english is my native tongue 2) I'm American 3) Americans are lazy as hell. And dumb.

@AuthenticM: It's better explained here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metagaming You're right though, even in that article it's described as "a broad term."

@kmdrkul said:

My two cents:

Who gives a fucking shit.

Pretty much this.

@AuthenticM said:

@Benny said:

@Contrarian: @AuthenticM said:

@CaLe said:

@Benny said:

Some people on this site use the term 'Meta game' like it means 'another layer' and that drives me fucking nuts.

What is it supposed to mean?

A "meta-game" would be a video game about people playing video games. Like Game Room, to an extent.

The 'Metagame' is the style of play that emerges in competitive games that isn't considered the most effective strategy to win, but is the most effective strategy to beat other players.

(Just an example, I know nothing about Starcraft) But, spamming zerglings might be the highest damage opening of all strategies in the game, but players all know how to counter that, thus, playing the most damaging opening will in fact not be the most effective way to beat other players. The Metagame is all of the strategies that emerge from this kind of mindset. One overpowered build emerges, everyone counters it, everyone counters everyone's counter builds. Metagame.

That's not a meta game. It's just a elaborate strategy.

It's just an elaborate strategy.

@Benny said:

Some people on this site use the term 'Meta game' like it means 'another layer' and that drives me fucking nuts.

This site? Try the whole internet. This just in; words can be adapted to mean different things over time. Unless you are a person who has never used a single form of slang in your entire life, this should not bother you.

@AuthenticM said:

@CaLe said:

@AuthenticM said:

@CaLe said:

@Benny said:

Some people on this site use the term 'Meta game' like it means 'another layer' and that drives me fucking nuts.

What is it supposed to mean?

A "meta-game" would be a video game about people playing video games. Like Game Room, to an extent.

OK, but when Brad refers to the meta game of Starcraft I know exactly what he means, even if that word is not being used correctly. The term serves its purpose. I should have asked if there is a more accurate term for this. I can't think of any other word that sums it up so easily.

Yeah, I also know what he means because he's always using it in that same way. But that does not mean it is the correct usage of the word "meta". I'm pretty sure it's not. What brad is referring to is just an elaborate strategy.

It's the same thing with the way nerds on the Internet have morphed the term "meme". The way it is used on the net is as a simple synonym of the expression "inside joke". So a meme, in the "It's over 9000" sense, is just an "inside" (Internet inside joke).

Regardless of the literal definition produced by combining "meta" with "game", that is the way people use it, and so it has become its meaning. That's how language operates. It's not a math.

@Benny said:

@AuthenticM: It's better explained here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metagaming You're right though, even in that article it's described as "a broad term."

Yeah, that's the thing: frequent and at large misusage of a word will force a change in its definition. To my knowledge, people have been misusing the word "meta" in the same way as "meme", and now their definition has been morphed. It's not a new phenomenon though; ignorance has been modifying languages ever since their inception.

@PrivateIronTFU: XD. Yeah, that's a typo on my part. I know the difference between "an" and "a".

The only thing that grinds my gears is when people say 'I could care less' when they mean 'I couldn't care less'. And that's really just developed from people not thinking about what they're trying to say.

Wait... wouldn't it be the same problem as movie people saying, " the movie will be coming out this summer" or "the movie will be out this summer" or "the movie is out this summer?"

I don't disagree with you that it's weird thing to say, if you think about it, but it's not really that big of a "problem."

It's just a way of simplifying the sentence. Other languages do it, because it's implied that you know what it means. To an outsider looking in, it may look weird, but to the native English speaker, unless you're a grammar nazi, we know what it means. We know that the game isn't itself doing the releasing, but as I said before, it's just implied that we know who's doing the releasing. I'll use Japanese as an example where they imply the future tense, because in Japanese there's only the present and past tense.

I think it's just because as you said, English isn't your mother tongue and I'm going to assume that you learned it at a later age that this seems odd to you. I can't exactly speak for all native speakers of any language, but I feel like as a native speaker, I know what sounds right and that might not necessarily be correct grammatically, however, if it gets the point across that's fine. I think with the way writers nowadays write, they do it how they speak and they write to who's reading. As long as they punctuate correctly, spell correctly, and follow just the basics of writing then all should be good.

The grammatical rules that you have problems with are the more complex rules, that I can say that maybe 80% or even 90% of English speakers don't even pay attention to. I'm sure that some speakers in your own native language do the same thing and ignore the more "correct" way of speaking or even writing just the get the point across.

@mrpandaman said:

Wait... wouldn't it be the same problem as movie people saying, " the movie will be coming out this summer" or "the movie will be out this summer" or "the movie is out this summer?"

No. In your example, the movie is the thing that will come out, as it should be. The movie is not making something coming out. It's not the same thing as what I'm talking about.

@Toxeia said:

Americans are lazy as hell. And dumb.

That really sums it up, unfortunately.

As somewhat of a minor grammar nazi myself, this is a non-issue.

@AuthenticM

@Gaff said:

Effect / Affect. Then / Than. A lot / Alot. Paid / Payed.

I have made all these mistakes and many other dumb ones, and will probably continue to do so in the future. Because I'm writing fast and really...

@laserbolts said:

@kmdrkul said:

My two cents:

Who gives a fucking shit.

Pretty much this.

Although I guess I can see how to an English as a second language type person could find these sorts of things confusing, as they're probably putting more thought into the act of understanding what's being said or written than someone who has spoken it their entire life, to whom the understanding might come more naturally, I guess. (ok I properly used a their instead of there and also a properly used a they're in there (I hope)..., and got in a proper use of than (again I hope).

@believer258: How is this a non-issue? The object is being switched for the subject. This is more than a typo or semantics; the structure of the sentence is changed such that its entire meaning is different. I may not be a native English speaker, but goddamn, this seems like a fucking crazy thing to accept as being a non-issue.

@AuthenticM said:

@believer258: How is this a non-issue? The object is being switched for the subject. This is more than a typo or semantics; the structure of the sentence is changed such that its entire meaning is different. I may not be a native English speaker, but goddamn, this seems like a fucking crazy thing to accept as being a non-issue.

I assure you, it is. Simply because any native person who reads it knows exactly what it means. There is nothing ambiguous here.

@AuthenticM said:

@believer258: How is this a non-issue? The object is being switched for the subject. This is more than a typo or semantics; the structure of the sentence is changed such that its entire meaning is different. I may not be a native English speaker, but goddamn, this seems like a fucking crazy thing to accept as being a non-issue.

Did you watch that video? I did not place it here because it looks pretty. It better explains my point than I ever could.

@AuthenticM said:

@mrpandaman said:

Wait... wouldn't it be the same problem as movie people saying, " the movie will be coming out this summer" or "the movie will be out this summer" or "the movie is out this summer?"

No. In your example, the movie is the thing that will come out, as it should be. The movie is not making something coming out. It's not the same thing as what I'm talking about.

Okay. So that's the thing, releases/ is out, will release/ will be out, will be releasing/ will be coming out, they all mean the same thing. You can argue that they don't and you will be right, but at the same time I am right as well. It is the same the thing and it's not at the same time. We don't make that distinction, not because as English speakers we're dumb (well not all of us are dumb), but because we don't care, it gets the point across, and it means pretty much the same thing.

@CaLe said:

@AuthenticM said:

@believer258: How is this a non-issue? The object is being switched for the subject. This is more than a typo or semantics; the structure of the sentence is changed such that its entire meaning is different. I may not be a native English speaker, but goddamn, this seems like a fucking crazy thing to accept as being a non-issue.

I assure you, it is. Simply because any native person who reads it knows exactly what it means. There is nothing ambiguous here.

I wouldn't say it's just native people, though. Pretty much anyone who has an understandable grasp of the English language could understand what "this game releases this fall" means. Hell, for that matter, I would say that it isn't wrong at all. It's perfectly fine.

Does this mean that people shouldn't practice basic grammar like using the correct forms of "you're" and "your"? No! But this problem you've come up with is hardly the same as a basic grammar problem.

Im just gonna say it...this is a kinda stupid nitpick to get your panties in a bunch about

@believer258 said:

As somewhat of a minor grammar nazi myself, this is a non-issue.

@AuthenticM

This is fucking beautiful. And very well sums up my own personal philosophy regarding language.

I for one don't care.

@believer258 said:

As somewhat of a minor grammar nazi myself, this is a non-issue.

@AuthenticM

This is fucking beautiful. And very well sums up my own personal philosophy regarding language.

@pyromagnestir said:

@believer258 said:

As somewhat of a minor grammar nazi myself, this is a non-issue.

@AuthenticM

This is fucking beautiful. And very well sums up my own personal philosophy regarding language.

Stephen Fry - providing the voice of reason yet again.

Does it fucking matter as long as you understand the basic meaning of the sentence?