5 Gaming Acronyms You Should Know
The more complex and varied anything becomes, the more that shortcuts and clearly defined language is needed to stop everyone being permanently confused. The problem is, when a new player jumps in to the scene, they can be met by a wall of acronyms that can be difficult to understand.
Below are some common acronyms that you can find from all kinds of gaming and exactly what they mean in different situations.
FPS
Starting out with a somewhat tricky one, FPS can apply to two different things in gaming. The first is a specific type of game, the first-person shooter, which accounts for some of the biggest franchises in the world. Call of Duty and Apex Legends fall under this category.
The other is a technical term that applies to almost every day in the world, frames-per-second, which is just used as a measure for how smooth the graphics in a game are running.
RTS
Another game category, although much different to an FPS, RTS stands for real-time strategy. It applies to any strategy game that isn’t turn-based, and includes classics like the Age of Empires and Starcraft, and usually includes base building and carefully timed strategies as well as expert-level micromanaging.
Oddly enough, the counterpart to the RTS, turn-based strategy, never seemed to get an acronym.
RTP
An acronym for a completely different kind of gaming, RTP applies to online casino games like slots or roulette, and stands for return to player, or what the average winnings are that a player can get on a game.
For more exact information, casino MrQ provides a ‘How is RTP calculated?‘ guide that goes into the mathematics behind it as it’s a complicated subject, but essentially a 95% RTP would mean that on average, a player could expect to get 95% of their wagers back.
MOBA
The MOBA, or multiplayer online battle area, is a class of game that’s a lot more recent than the others, with a much more narrow set of games. The genre is defined by games like DotA 2 and League of Legends, and generally features a team of players working to take over a map with high levels of coordination.
Players will each control a character who has special abilities and fills a certain role in the game. With rosters of dozens of combinations, these can be intense games to play with tons of information to learn.
DOT
A term linked to both MOBA games as well as RPGs of all types, DOT stands for damage over time. Compared to direct damage, where all of the damage is applied at once, DOT is applied over a number of seconds. It usually takes the form of poison, fire or ice damage, and is often combined with other abilities to form chains of damage.
You’ll absolutely find more of these acronyms the more you play, and many are only applied to one particular game or a handful, so keep your eyes peeled for any that you find.
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