Abbot doesn’t attempt to create clear categories for words like beat, finish, and complete. Doing so would impose standard modes of thinking on something that should vary person to person. Though shared vocabulary might allow game players to converse without confusion (“wait, did you do everything in GTA IV or just finish the story ?”) it diminishes the actual conversation. That dialogue is culturally significant within the gaming community and allows people to delve into each others’ personalities and attitudes toward games.

“What do we say when we’re done?” had received over 50 comments at the time I wrote this entry. I, of course, was one of those comments:

Reader Steve was the only person to attribute the language to differences in regional lexicons, like “soda” versus “pop”.

Many felt it was a part of some ingrained cultural learned through the years. “My understanding of my use of video gaming jargon is that it is derived from the magazines I read when I was younger,” writes catfishmaw. Atty Finch assumed that it was “something I picked up from my friends early as a kid.”

One of the most interesting responses attached emotional impact to the chosen language:

If you assign video games a position of foremost importance in your life, as a lot of younger gamers unsaddled with ‘grown-up responsibility’ are wont to do, it’s only rational that you’d want to use terms to describe your activity that are infused with the emotional content you feel when you’re engaged. Words like “finished” and “completed” lack the visceral punch that “beat” and “defeated” carry.

Additionally, Lil Zanzig wrote that beat is used by “a lot more from the type of people who wear their XBox Live accomplishments as badges of honor,” who invest emotionally in gaming as an activity.

Thompson Plyler‘s distinction between hardcore and casual gamer language recieved some opposition in the comments. [authors note: I dislike the terms hardcore, casual and even gamer.] Librarian Jess (who agreed with me and is therefore awesome) felt that ascribing certain terms to light-use game players demeans their experience and favorites more regular game players.

Plenty of commenters also threw words like ‘completed’ and ‘mastered’ into the mix, even further complicated the situation.

In a conflicted manner, Julian explains that he feels analyzing the language that players use is a fruitless activity, but goes on to make some interesting observations about how language might change depend upon the individual’s relation to the community:

I’m sure some people, especially people who didn’t spend the bulk of their leisure time playing video games during the crucial formative years for language, do use the terms based on their root meanings and the connotations. They’re drawing from a general vocabulary to describe their interactions with games. For me, the “beat” I use when talking about games is different than other senses of “beat.” It’s part of a specialized gaming-related vocabulary doesn’t necessarily correlate to general-use terms.

Specialized gaming-related vocabulary is picked up through interaction with the game-playing community whereas general use terms might be used by people with no need of a specialized lexicon. This is an interesting question that’s not really explored in the comments of Abbot’s blog post because his is a specialized blog. A more involved survey rather than a explorative musing is necessary to understand these differences.

Is a real survey worth while? Perhaps. It could certainly provide some interesting insights, but I doubt it would get to the root of the issue. What is at stake in this conversation? Though I would prefer not, I can imagine a time in which ‘beat vs. finished’ will errupt into the art argument [an argument I don't find useful]. Already in the comments (and even in my perceptions) language is used to describe kinds of game and ‘finished’ was often used with a high-brow activity associated with other media forms. Regardless of the outcome it’s discourse worth monitoring.