Explanation of common game terms: AFK, GG, tilted

When players try to communicate with each other via chat, they will often come up with quick, short-typed terms to make it easier for everyone to understand. This has been around since the early days of the Internet, but in the gaming world, we have a ton of different terms.

Below is an explanation of the common gaming terms used by gamers around the world. Hopefully it will make it easier for you to understand as well as prove that you are not a fuzzy chicken gamer.

GLHF

This word means “good luck, have fun”. It is often said at the beginning of a match to wish the opposing team good luck. This is a sportsmanship and tells the other team that it will be a fun game, even a highly competitive one.

Salty

This is a common word with a negative connotation. It is used to react to something happening in the game. Even in the Oxford English dictionary, it is described as “an angry and short-tempered person”. A person can become salty or behave salty if suddenly unreasonably dead or ‘squeezed’ by teammates.

Throw

According to traditional sports, when a boxer “throw a fight” or a team “throw a game”, they intentionally lose to the opponent. This word also means the same thing in the game world, but it can also mean that the team accidentally loses an advantage and lets the opponent come back.

Tilted

It’s a bit like “salty”. The tilted gamer feels angry or sometimes annoyed by something happening in the game. That inadvertently (or intentionally) made them play worse than usual. Or they feel that their teammates are so bored that they have no motivation to continue playing.

Many cases of tilting lead to a “throw” game, meaning they intentionally let their opponent win. Players are tilted to blame their teammates for playing poorly and choose to “punish” their teammates by intentionally losing the match.

Feed

Feed is for the opponent to eat while the team gets no benefit in return. It looks like ‘throw’ however the Feed may not be intentional. Low-level gamers can accidentally “feed” the opposing team when they are constantly being killed. In many games, dying continuously will help the slightly better team to dominate and win the game.

GG

Means “good game”. This term is often said after a game to show that he is not angry or upset with the outcome of the game. The winning team will type “GG” to acknowledge it was a challenging match as well as to acknowledge the skill and effort of the losing team. The losing team also typed GG to show that they weren’t salty about the defeat.

In Dota 2 and StarCraft, “GG” is also used to concede defeat and a way to surrender a match.

GGWP

Means “good game, well played”. Similar to “GG” but it is more polite and fun.

GGEZ

It means “good game easy” and it is the opposite of GGWP. Instead of sporting respect for the opponent, the winning team will say “GGEZ” to indicate that the opposing team is too weak. It is often used interchangeably with “EZClap”, another word that means the opponent has no door. To put it bluntly, this is the sentence we often use to “crow” when we win a match (whether the win is overwhelming or not).

This is considered a troll and Blizzard no longer allows it in Overwatch. If you type “GGEZ” in chat, another saying will appear. The sentence goes like this: “It’s past my bedtime. Please don’t tell my mommy” or “Well played, I salute you!”

AFK

AFK means “away from keyboard”. Literally, it means not present on the keyboard, but later also used by console gamers. AFK means the player is not there, similar to the word hang.

They can either accidentally leave the game or notify teammates that they are not present for some reason. This information can tell others that the AFK typer’s in-game character is not moving, so can be attacked. Depending on the situation, the player going AFK is also a way to throw the game.

POG

“Pog” means shock or surprise, usually when the player is impressed. The origin of the POG, POGChamp, and Poggers memes alludes to the Twitch emote of Street Fighter gamer Ryan “Gootecks” Guitierrez. He showed a shocked expression on a show he participated in.

Kappa

Is Josh DeSeno’s Twitch emote from the Justin.tv era, nicknamed “kappa” (creature of Japanese legend) by him. It is now used more than 2 million times per day on Twitch. The famous smirk or sarcastic smile has gradually become a term in the gaming world.

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