There are many game related abbreviations and terms, that have a special meaning for gamers or are used often in context of computer games. Here is a selection of some of them:
Here is a list of abbreviations, that have a special meaning in the gaming context. Some may have other meanings in relation to other topics, but here the meaning is to be considered explicitly for computer games related meanings.
| Abbreviation | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 1on1 | One player against one other player, usually used in context of games which allow for more than one participant in a match. |
| AoE | Age of Empires 1 or later titles from that series or also Area of Effect |
| BA | Balanced Annihilation |
| BAR | Beyond All Reason |
| BOTF | Birth of the Federation |
| CoD | Call of Duty |
| CS | Counter-Strike and also one of it's map/game types, the hostage scenario |
| CS:GO | Counter-Strike Global Offensive |
| CSS | Counter-Strike Source, sometimes also the Cascaded Style Sheet |
| CTF | Capture the Flag |
| CVAR | Console Variable |
| CoH | Company of Heroes |
| Coop | Also known as Cooperative, Co-Op or CoOp, meaning cooperative play of sorts. |
| DE | Demolition, a Counter-Strike map/game type |
| Devs | Developers, usually referring to entire Development Studios and their employees. |
| DK | Dungeon Keeper |
| DLC | Downloadable Content |
| DOM | Domination, a mode offered by Nexuiz, Unreal Tournament 2004 and Toxikk |
| EF | Elite Force, usually used for Star Trek: Voyager Elite Force but may also reference Star Trek: Elite Force II |
| EF1 | Star Trek: Voyager Elite Force |
| EF2 | Star Trek: Elite Force II |
| F2P | Free to Play, at least the base game is not charged any money for. |
| FA | Forged Alliance, a stand-alone expansion for Supreme Commander |
| FAF | Forged Alliance Forever, a replacement lobby system for Forged Alliance, incl. a modded version with new units and game interface. |
| FFA | Free for All, Deathmatch |
| FO | Fleet Ops |
| FoW | Fog of War |
| FPS | First Person Shooter, Frames Per Second |
| FW | Firewall |
| GC | Ground Control |
| HotS | Heart of the Swarm or Heroes of the Storm |
| IP | Shortform for Internet Protocol, but usually refers to the IP address of a server or client. |
| IPX | Internetwork Packet Exchange, one of the predecessors of TCP/IP, which was used mostly during the 1990 years. |
| KA | Klingon Academy |
| LAN | Local Area Network, usually the network at home or work. In the gaming community it may also refer to a LAN party. |
| Mod | Short for modification. |
| MOHAA | Medal of Honor - Allied Assault |
| MOTD | Message of the Day |
| NAT | Network Address Translation, a technique that allows multiple computers with different IPv4 addresses to share on IPv4 address on the internet while working behind a router. This also makes port forwarding a necessity in certain situations. |
| LMS | Last Man Standing |
| NFS | Need for Speed (game series) |
| NPC | Non-playable Character |
| ONS | Onslaught, a game mode offered by Nexuiz and Unreal Tournament 2004 |
| P2P | Peer to Peer |
| PA | Planetary Annihilation |
| PvP | Player vs. Player, in Starcraft context it may also mean Protoss vs. Protoss |
| PvT | Protoss vs. Terran |
| PvZ | Protoss vs. Zerg |
| RTS | Real Time Strategy |
| RoN | Rise of Nations |
| SC | Starcraft |
| SC2 | Starcraft 2 |
| SHC | Stronghold Crusader |
| SOF2 | Soldier of Fortune II: Double Helix |
| SuCom | Supreme Commander |
| SupCom | Supreme Commander |
| TA | Total Annihilation |
| TBS | Turn Based Strategy |
| TCP | Transmission Control Protocol, the most common protocol used on the internet. Reliable, but not as fast as UDP. |
| TDM | Team Deathmatch |
| TPS | Third Person Shooter |
| TvP | Terran vs. Protoss |
| TvT | Terran vs. Terran |
| TvZ | Terran vs. Zerg |
| UDP | User Datagram Protocol, a very commonly used network protocol which does not use the concept of a connection, which makes it very fast but not reliable. |
| UT | Unreal Tournament |
| UT2003 | Unreal Tournament 2003 |
| UT2K3 | Unreal Tournament 2003 |
| UT2004 | Unreal Tournament 2004 |
| UT2K4 | Unreal Tournament 2004 |
| UT3 | Unreal Tournament 3 |
| UT99 | Unreal Tournament |
| UT4 | Unreal Tournament 4 |
| V-Sync | Also known as Vsync, meaning Vertical Sync. |
| WAN | Wide Area Network, in difference to LAN sometimes used for Internet play. |
| XCOM | Also used as X-COM, refers to X-Com UFO Defense and its predecessors |
| ZvP | Zerg vs. Protoss |
| ZvT | Zerg vs. Terran |
| ZvZ | Zerg vs. Zerg |