From the rules of the arena to the rules of the game.

Editor’s note: This article href=”https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/pztQNKiggw2HpsPS4LdrGw”> “Touch Music” from the micro-channel public number , Author: Wang So so.

The “IQ Cup” is a water friend competition organized by a group of retired players from the “StarCraft 2” project. In the IQ Cup, veteran players often quit the game too quickly and forget to play “GG” at a disadvantage. At this time, the barrage will start to enjoy Ledi refresh screen: “Quality is good.”

Although the party who admits to lose plays “GG” first and then quits the game is the old tradition of “StarCraft” players. However, no audience will really criticize these old players who occasionally forget to play “GG”, it is they who have supported the not-so-grown “interstellar” community in China.

Yes, not just “interstellar”, although it still has many fans, all real-time strategy games are not as popular as before. To make matters worse, on October 16th, “StarCraft 2” officially announced that it will no longer produce new additional paid content, and will only carry out “season updates” and “balance adjustments” when necessary. This is not good news for “interstellar” players. It means that 10 years after the official launch, “StarCraft 2” may have played “GG”.

Three protagonists from different races in “StarCraft II”

In the 20 years of the “StarCraft” series, “GG” has gradually become a universal symbol in multiplayer competitive video games. Whether they think it is reasonable or not, everyone is accustomed to it and accepts it as indispensable in multiplayer competitive games.Less part. In this process of continuous spread and change, “GG” has been given many different connotations. Sometimes GG is a joke about IQ in the IQ Cup, sometimes it is sincere admiration, or at other times, GG is just another form of mockery or even abuse.

Can we learn more about this symbol that exists around us like breathing?

Origin: Convention and custom

“GG” is generally regarded as the abbreviation of “Good Game”, which first appeared in the “Local-area Network Multiplayer Game” (Local-area Network Multiplayer Game) in the 1990s, especially many board and card games. At that time, it was in the early days of the Internet era. “Good Game” was used to express admiration for game opponents, and it was not clearly linked to victory or defeat.

At that time, playing “GG” against a losing opponent at the end of a 1v1 online game was considered a demeanor. Just as the two sides squatted down and bowed to each other before and after a kendo competition, “playing GG” became a game etiquette.

“Red Alert 2” is one of the representative games in the LAN game period

But even during this period, controversy over “GG” has emerged. The earliest controversy surrounding the act of “playing GG” that can be found on the Internet came from an Internet chess forum “Internet Chess Club” in 1999. There, many forum members expressed their dissatisfaction with the opponents playing “Good Game” or “GG” when they won.

In their opinion, perhaps the opponent is indeed expressing encouragement and appreciation for the defeated self, but from the perspective of the losing side, this is tantamount to humiliation. A comment from the forum at the time was quite sharp: “Some people will be even more angry because of the good manners of the opponent when they win. I admit that I am also one of them. This seems a little unreasonable, but it is like many games losing Like a chess player, the last word I don’t want to hear is “Good Game”. I played a terrible game, I lost my queen by mistake, and you said to me, “Good game”. Okay. Well, thank you for letting me know what a good game this game is for you.”

Today’s electronic chess has also been upgraded.

As the early forum comments emphasized, the line between “playing GG” as a courtesy and humiliation is rather blurred. In the early online game matches, the winner’s “GG” would be regarded as a satire by the loser, and if the winner played the similar word “GGEZ” (Good Game Easy), it would be a naked mockery of the opponent. These two different usages are still widely used in online game player matches, and have formed a customary rule: the loser’s “GG” is to recognize the opponent’s strength, and the winner’s “GG” is against the opponent. Ridicule.

But the “GG” story is far from over. The emergence of “StarCraft” and professional e-sports has changed “playing GG” from a pure etiquette to a formal rule.

Formalization: Rules of the Rivers and Lakes

In 1997, in order to cooperate with the release of “Diablo” and allow WAN players to enter LAN games, Blizzard set up a special game battle platform “Battle.net“. In 1998, Blizzard epoch real-time strategy game “StarCraft” is released. Multiplayer battle is certainly one of the most important elements in real-time strategy games, and Battle.net provides “interstellar” players with a direct access to the Internet for battle. In addition, the upgraded Battle.net provides a ladder system that can count player data and random match levels close to players.

Thousands of players were freed from the geographical restrictions of one LAN, one city, one township, one school overnight, and played against strange opponents randomly matched through the Internet in the ladder system. They also brought the game etiquette formed in the LAN (Local-area Network) game era to StarCraft, and gradually formed a formula: both sides often start with “gl hf” (Good luck, have fun) or “gg, gl “(Good game, good luck) greet each other, when the game has been divided, the loser will play “gg” (Good Game) or “ggwp” (Good game, well play) to express their surrender.

“StarCraft” became one of the most popular games at the time

It should be pointed out that “playing GG” is just a courtesy statement, and does not directly mean that the game is a failure. In “StarCraft”, only one party will quit the game or destroy all buildings before it will be judged by the system. Therefore, after the losing team concedes defeat by playing “GG”, they need to quit the game before the game is over.

This has led to the emergence of “fraudulent surrender”. Some players will play “GG” regularly to admit defeat after losing, but will not quit the game. If the opponent relaxes due to this, or leaves the computer to pour water, the opponent who has not quit the game will seize the opportunity to counterattack and lose the game instead. In the early years of the “interstellar” player forum, there were complaints about the opponents of “swindling” almost every day. However, the existence and phenomenon of “Fraud” shows that a series of “rules of the river” represented by “playing GG equals surrender” has been widely recognized and followed in daily games.

Similarly, the existence of “failure to surrender” also shows that this set of “rules of the rivers and lakes” does not actually have compulsory force, but a tacit understanding and a custom formed between players. Go againstIts players will only be criticized morally, and there will be no more serious consequences.

Formalization: Rules of the Field

“StarCraft” achieved sales of about 1.5 million in its first year of release, and it is still growing. At the same time, through the selection of the ladder system, some outstanding high score players appeared in people’s field of vision. Sufficient player base, the huge difference in the technical level of top players and ordinary players, as well as the characteristics of “StarCraft” itself that are competitive and enjoyable, gave birth to a brand new thing-professional league.

In the first two years of “StarCraft”, major events surrounding it have sprung up. In 1999, Shin Joo-young became the first Korean “interstellar” professional player on record, winning the top 16 in the third season of Blizzard in 1998 and the second BN tournament in 1999. The protagonist of that era, Canadian Guillaume Patri fought South Korea with the ID “Grrr” and defeated his opponent October in the 1999 I2E2 competition to win the championship.

In the Korean “League of Legends” professional league, the coach kkOma, who led SKT to win the three-time global finals, was also the “Starcraft Professional players in the “Hegemony” project

On September 25, 1999, the Progamer Korea Open qualifier opened, and the world’s first professional e-sports league was born. In December 1999, the Korea ProGame Association (Korea ProGame Association) was established and became the official organization responsible for the Korean “StarCraft” professional league. With the development of professional competitions, “playing GG”, a game etiquette that was originally observed among players, has naturally become a court etiquette.

However, the early professional games did not restrict the content of the players on the field. Therefore, the phenomenon of “fraudulent surrender” also appeared in the professional arena. Compared with ordinary ladder games, the “fraud” in professional competitions is obviously worse in nature and consequences, which will directly affect the attribution of bonuses and the reputation of the organizers. Based on this consideration, the Korean Professional Game Association later made regulations prohibiting players from communicating with each other in professional matches. The only words that are allowed to send are “PPP” (Please Press Pause) for requesting a pause and for admitting defeat. “GG”. inDuring the game, once a player plays “GG”, the referee will immediately lose.

“StarCraft” offline game site

In this way, the behavior of “playing GG” no longer just relies on the etiquette and customs maintained by the tacit understanding between players, but has become a compulsory event rule recognized by the organizer. Since playing “GG” in a professional game means that the outcome is determined and the game is over, the word “GG” gradually takes on the meaning of “game over” and spreads this meaning to outside the player community. Therefore, in daily life, many people also use “GG” in many occasions, but what they actually mean at this time is not “Good Game” but “Game Over”.

Who will call “GG”?

When the game etiquette of “playing GG” spread to other multiplayer games, the situation became more complicated. Like “StarCraft” and “Warcraft 3”, most of the ladder matches and professional games are 1v1 games. It is a very natural and logical process for players who feel hopeless to “play GG, admit defeat, and quit the game.” But for other multiplayer battle games that emphasize teamwork, the situation is much more complicated.

“Dota 2” is a very particular teamwork 5v5 multiplayer battle game, with the goal of pushing down the enemy base. In the passerby game of “Dota 2”, the only way for the system to judge the outcome is whether one of the bases is destroyed or whether one of the players quit the game.

In the passerby game of “Dota 2,” if one player is at a disadvantage, it is easy to disagree about whether or not to continue playing the game. In many cases, the opinions of the players are not uniform. Sometimes 4 team members are still sticking to the game, and one of the team members who feels desperate has already played “GG”. Another more troublesome situation is that one team member is still holding on to the game, while the other 4 team members have purchased the Shadow Talisman to hang up in the woods, and in fact gave up the game.

Ti6 final match point, DC team played “GG”, Wings team won and won the Ti6 championship

In many-to-many team competitive games, passers-by often have different judgments on the situation against randomly formed team members in the game, and they have different views on the question of “whether it makes sense to continue the game?” Therefore, in this type of game, “GG”, which expresses surrender, has gradually lost its original functions of “rules of the rivers and lakes” and “gaming etiquette”, returning to the function of modal particles, which is only used to express personal appreciation or mockery. . Only in the professional arena, “GG” is still retained as a rule for judging the winner.

However, in order to solve the problem of too long garbage time caused by disagreement among team members in multiplayer games, some games, such as “League of Legends”, have added a voting mechanism. After 15 minutes of a game of “League of Legends”, players who feel hopeless to win can initiate surrender at intervals of 5 minutes. A surrender initiated between 15 and 20 minutes from the start of the game requires all 5 players to agree to pass. For a surrender initiated 20 minutes after the start of the game, if the number of agreed-upon reaches 4 out of 5, it will be accepted. It is considered by the system to admit defeat. Although “Dota 2” does not have a surrender mechanism in a passerby game, in a professional game, when a professional team feels hopeless to win, a member will play “GG”. If there is no objection within a few seconds, the system will automatically judge negative.

Who is saying “GG”?

Many popular symbols in the form of English word acronyms have been circulating since the early Internet era, and “GG” is one of them. Many symbols that have appeared in the early Internet era, such as “lol” (laugh out loud) and “thx” (thanks) are still popular in the current English Internet environment and have relatively stable meanings.

Shouting “GG!” at the end of each game is a traditional art performed by the Korean division of the “League of Legends” professional league< /p>

However, there is no other symbol like “GG”, which is closely related to the game. With the changes of the game and the people who play the game, it has become rich and even self-confident.The meaning of shield. Over the past 20 years, e-sports derived from online games have developed into a booming situation. The popular “GG” symbol has also broken the game circle and spread to a wider range of fields. It comes out of play, enters life, and becomes part of the daily language surrounding everyone, making people use it daily without knowing it.

Behavior arises from language, convention becomes convention due to behavior, tradition becomes tradition through convention, and tradition becomes nature through practice. This is the story of “GG”.