Which video game buzzword or term to you hate most?

Emergent.

Emergent gameplay.

Emergent AI.

Emergent world.

Which also reminds me of Cliffy B and his GeoW "Emergence Day".

any of the many permutations of 'social.'

I, too, dislike Polish people in my video games.

No single word really comes to mind. The only thing I find annoying is when they have been talking about next gen games and acting like it's some revolution in game design when it's just another shooter or more of the same of another genre. They have not shown anything but more of the same with some half step improvement in graphics from console now to not as good as PC for the last several years.

• Rougelike; Because I have no real connection or experience with said "Rogue", this term means absolutely nothing to me. And since it's been so beaten to death lately in regards to a lot of games, I find myself resenting the term itself. I almost wish they came up with an actual genre word.
• Realistic; Come on, we're not there yet and even though we are closer, we're far from realistic.
• Drivatar; What?
• Levolution; WHAT?
• Innovative; When in tandem with a completely "one more time" franchise installment presentation.

I could probably think of more, but I am getting way too tired. Also, a personal one of mine which is neither a buzzword or term, but a language thing. When game journalists/writers say;

• "It's one of those games where.."

Personally, I dislike when they say that the game has very "visceral" gameplay. I mean, that word doesn't really mean anything.

Yeah, fuck CDProjekt.

Also, how are "Digital Dowload," "Ludonarrative Dissonance," "MMORPG," "Franchise," and "Micro-transaction," buzzwords? Those are all just words used to describe completely valid and real concepts and things. Just because a word or phrase gets used a lot doesn't mean it's a buzzword.

Digital download. How such an obviously redundant pairing became so popular I'll never know.

I'm gonna go with "The Cloud" mostly because its a pretty god damn useless term. I mean saying "our game uses the cloud" now raises more questions than it answers.

I hate '' killer app '' with passion.

"The Cloud" of this list. "Digital future" is currently my least favorite phrase in the world, though.

@zeighty: The poll is for videogame buzzwords and terms. I would consider those to be "terms".

-Immersion

-Realistic AI (especially if mentioned in relation to how they can apply the new processing power)

other then tripple A, the words are just filler to me, and i really dont pay attention, some of them aren't even buzzwords in my opinion. and i have never heard the words Ludonarrative Dissonance, i actually had to look it up.

i hate the terms casual/hardcore gamer.
look i love games i buy and play a lot of them, im somewhat decent at them, i know a fair bit about them.
so im a hardcore gamer but i just especially hate that particular term. i just like games.

Triple A is a real dumb dumb term that is used in so many different ways I can't even tell you what it actually means. Ive heard people say that it refers to the budget and Ive also heard people say it refers to the critical expectations of a game. Its a weird dumb nebulous term that needs to die.

Sexism ;O

Cinematic Experience

Yeah, I went "the cloud" too, simply because it seems very much like this generation's blast processing: a meaningless buzzword.

Others I can't stand anymore are "digital future" and "innovation," simply because the former seems like the acid trip of a bunch of rabid technophiles and the latter because it's been nothing but an empty promise for the past decade.

It's gotta be the "insert word"-em-up, although I think this was pointed out on Digitister back in the '90s. Shoot 'em up and beat 'em up don't bother me (since these have been firmly established for decades, but I've also seen publications use terms like "stealth 'em up", and well...

'STEALTH' IS NOT A VERB!!!

'The cloud' is a close second, but that's an issue with tech circles in general rather than just gaming. Those dumb Microsoft ads notwithstanding ("Cloud is... editing photos I guess"), it's just a pointlessly romantic spin on what is essentially a bunch of hard drives connected to the internet.

Though I wish people would start saying "information Superhighway" again. I miss that, I really do.

microtransaction causes me grief not because of the misuse of the word but because of the misuse of the concept.

@nigglenummy: Why would you hate terms like MMORPG, Digital Download, or Franchise? They're straight-forward and accurate. They serve their purpose very neatly without any fluff.

@evilnights: I have never heard anyone use the term "Stealth-em-up"

@zeighty: Because digital download is the most ridiculous thing ever. You know, it's a digital download, unlike those physical downloads. I am constantly downloading things in real life. Earlier I downloaded some bread into my toaster, it worked out pretty great for me.

@demoskinos: http://www.officialplaystationmagazine.co.uk/2012/02/22/metal-gear-solid-5-announced-kojima-and-big-boss-want-you-for-their-latest-stealth-em-up/

And I'm absolutely certain I heard it before that, too.

Cinematic experience, mostly for what it has turned games into- movies, thus losing what they are supposed to be.

@evilnights: Okay well apparently Im wrong and holy fuck that is really dumb.

"epic"

"visceral"

"brutal"

"cinematic experience"

"realistic"

fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you

Gamer

@deegee said:

I think it's as opposed to analogue downloads. You know, like buying records on vinyl.

CONFESSION: I used to say 'download' when copying files to a floppy disk. Someone set me straight.

WAIT I SAID "THE CLOUD" BUT I FORGOT ABOUT (BLACKED OUT) "EPIC."

"EPIC" IS THE FUCKING WORST.

Analog download.

MMORPG, there's no quicker way of turning me off your video game if you say this. Also I dislike hearing 'immerse' and 'experience'.

Emergent gameplay has been gaining traction. I'll tell you what's emerging, my bloody fist that's what, Mister.

Yeah, I agree, but there was a time a few years ago where MMORPG was kinda in the state Roguelike is in now, when people used that term to describe just about everything that had support for more than 2 players and text chat. Haven't seen much of that recently though.

I went for "the cloud" because it's used all to often to make something mundane sound interesting and mysterious when it's just anything involving the internet it seems. Online gaming, storage, processing, photo editing (really MS?) is all powered by "the cloud". It feels like it needs a tm after it.

I hate thinking of games as IPs. Makes it sounds way to business like to me.

"Epic"

"Gamer"

"Experience."

Damned Poles. They have no business making games!

"Experience" is pretty aweful, so cinematic experience it is.
Also stuff like "never seen before" or "immersive"

Since when is "Polish" a buzzword? I don't get that

"eSports" is the first thing that came to my mind. I agree with all of the above, too.

I went with The Cloud, although I agree with others that Roguelike is one of the most misused terms out there today. It feels like it now refers to any game with perma-death. All the other elements like randomly generated environments, turn-based RPG gameplay, simplistic graphics, and great difficulty seem to have been dropped. A lot of games have had perma-death over the years. Having that one element doesn't make your game like Rogue.

"Entitled."

It seems like anytime bad word of mouth starts, journalists & corporations start slinging out the entitled label. I'm kinda surprised that it didn't happen when the Xbox One still had that 24 hour DRM.

Also... TV, TV, TV, TV, TV, TV, TV

I've always hated triple A because it really doesn't mean anything.

Cloud is a close second now since everyone is just using it in reference to their online stuff that HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH CLOUD COMPUTING!

What's shacknews?

Hardcore

yep

AAA by far.

Whether or not I dislike any of these terms is totally reliant on if they're accurate. If a game actually is designed to be an immersive or emergent experience, then sure whatever it's just a descriptor like any other. But yeah, pretty much all of these are horrible when they're being spoken by a PR guy who doesn't actually understand what he's talking about.

"Epic" is the worst when it's being used as a synonym for "cool".

It's a website...about video games. For future reference Google is effective an effective means to getting a more timely answer.

Anyway fuck the term digital download for reasons stated previously in this thread.