Fun Club What are common misnamings/misinformation about gaming things that drive you up the wall?

[LuigiBlood]

People LOVE labeling King Dedede and Meta Knight as villains. Hell, even the Smash Bros. trailer for King K. Rool has Kirby vs Meta Knight is a reel of heroes vs. villains!

It's ridiculous! Meta Knight hasn't been truly evil in like 2 decades. Dedede is a bastard and a bit of a jerk but he also hasn't been truly evil in awhile, he just gets mind-controlled.

It's not a matter of villains and more of rivals (which may also be villains) in which Kirby VS Meta Knight fits perfectly here

 

[bixente]

Goldeneye 64
Conker 64
Insert well known N64 game - 64

It's GoldenEye 007, Conker's Bad Fur Day etc.

 

[Zemya]

Elder Ring

 

[woodhead]

Not a gaming thing directly but connected to gaming:
When people write Jason Schrier instead of Jason Schreier. As a native German speaker ie instead of ei sticks out like a sore thumb.

 

[AllEchse]

EDIT: Also, it’s not a “D-Pad”—it’s the “+Control Pad”!! Almost nobody ever gets this one right, despite Nintendo never calling it a “D-Pad” anymore—and I’m not sure they ever actually called it that in the first place; I tried to find the original source of the term “D-Pad” but only came up with dead ends, and I’m not convinced it was ever an official Nintendo term to begin with like most people seem to think, but I could be wrong. Either way, though, that’s absolutely not what it’s called now, and if it ever was officially called that it certainly hasn’t been for multiple decades now.

Noone is gonna call it a "+ Controlpad", Nintendo is so weird for coining the term while replacing the start button with a + button for further confusion.
Maybe I'm just further weirded out by it because it used to be called "Steuerkreuz"in German (Control-cross, I guess?) and nower newer Nintendo games try to force that weird name on you.

I'm not gonna stop calling it a DPad in english, it's just a good platform agnostic way to name it and people will get what you are talking about.

People calling zL and zR "L2 and R2".

Saying that the Nintendo Switch button layout is "weird" compared to the Xbox standard, insisting that Nintendo should adopt because "XInput came first". What is this zoomer nonsense?

"Bobby"

You are just gonna come of as weird an Nintedo elitist when trying to explain the controls playing splitscreen with friends that normally don't play on a Nintendo console.

Seriously guys, just call it whatever gets your point across to the friends you are playing with instead of trying to weirdly suck up to some corporation.

But yeah, people insisting Nintendo should adopt the Xbox ABXY-layout just because PC games use it too can piss off.
And I know that kinda defeats what I said before lol.

 

[carbvan]

It's not a matter of villains and more of rivals (which may also be villains) in which Kirby VS Meta Knight fits perfectly here

I really wouldn't call Samus vs Ridley or Link vs Ganondorf rivals lol. Unless you think killing your rival's parents and being the literal reincarnation of evil as just fun little things all rivals do.

 

[Samus95]

Silent hill 4 The Room was never an original IP, that rumor accepted as truth have been deconfirmed by the creator of Pyramide Head on Twitter

Code Veronica was succesful game on Dreamcast and it was the best critical recived game in the series by that point, it was also nominated for game of the year in 2000 by multiple magazines

It was never a "total flop" and it sold almost a milion a year later on PS2, and it was never ignored by the press or the fan like some wants to believe

 

[Joe]

People saying Samus Returns sold horribly.

The sales of Samus Returns were never publicized and all we have to go on was that Nintendo considered them "firm". It wasn't a massive flop and it performed well enough by Nintendo's expectations.

The Metroid series doesn't sell Mario numbers but it's not a commercial disaster like some people make it sound. I once saw a prominent YouTuber claim that "Nintendo doesn't make many Metroid games because the series sells badly" and that is just blatantly untrue.

 

[LuigiBlood]

I really wouldn't call Samus vs Ridley or Link vs Ganondorf rivals lol. Unless you think killing your rival's parents and being the literal reincarnation of evil as just fun little things all rivals do.

In any other case: Smash Bros. has not much Kirby to begin with it's still stuck to the 90s but that's an actual complaint and it's off topic lol

 

[CyberWolfBia]

People saying Samus Returns sold horribly.

The sales of Samus Returns were never publicized and all we have to go on was that Nintendo considered them "firm". It wasn't a massive flop and it performed well enough by Nintendo's expectations.

The Metroid series doesn't sell Mario numbers but it's not a commercial disaster like some people make it sound. I once saw a prominent YouTuber claim that "Nintendo doesn't make many Metroid games because the series sells badly" and that is just blatantly untrue.

Speaking of which.. misinformation about Crash Bandicoot 4 sales is always annoying. The game didn't "flop", not even by Activision's crazy greedy standards, in fact, they did mention in their investor meetings that the decrease of revenue of the CoD that year was offset by Crash 4 and Tony Hawk's 1+2.

The fact of matter is that people often compare to N. Sane Trilogy's sales, which was a huge spike for the Crash franchise, selling 10 million copies just on its year of exclusivity on PS4; but Crash's sales are about a million per entry (even Twinsanity, the lowest selling mainline entry, probably managed to do that with non-accounted bundles);

And while we are at that... Even if you buy the idea that Crash Team Rumble is a "dead game" and it's not being effective on keeping the brand relevant, before release Toys for Bob did mention that sales on the spinoff are not tied to the fate of the series and future mainline titles, so any concern is unfounded

I mean, yeah, the cynical part of me also agrees that PR talk can only carry this so much, but Activision has history of keeping at very least one family-friendly franchise on-going, and at this point, it's Crash and nothing else. Now, entering the Microsoft owned era, I have no clue how things will shake up, but I'll keep cautiously hopeful

 

[Tye]

Noone is gonna call it a "+ Controlpad", Nintendo is so weird for coining the term while replacing the start button with a + button for further confusion.
Maybe I'm just further weirded out by it because it used to be called "Steuerkreuz"in German (Control-cross, I guess?) and nower newer Nintendo games try to force that weird name on you.

I'm not gonna stop calling it a DPad in english, it's just a good platform agnostic way to name it and people will get what you are talking about.

I call it that. And Nintendo seemingly didn’t coin the term, as pointed out in this thread—it seems the Dreamcast was the first console to officially use the term “D-Pad”. I can’t speak to what it may be referred to in other languages, but at least in English and Japanese it’s been consistently referred to as “+Control Pad” for many generations; it’s not newer games “forcing a weird name on you.” The name makes perfect sense, anyway; it’s a control pad (as opposed to a control stick) that’s shaped like a plus.

Am I going to police what people call it colloquially? No, of course not. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t still bother me, though, lol. And my issue is mostly with so-called professional journalists and such not even using the correct terms when they should know better.

 

[jirou]

Some of these are not very common ngl

 

[zumaddy]

I feel like I've seen multiple people state Ganondorf's last name "Dragmire" is a made up name or from some esoteric spin-off, but it was mentioned in official materials for both LTTP and Twilight Princess HD

 

[MP!]

physical games are still just a licence to use that game you don't own it.

Spoiler

I know its pedantic but it's true... it's fine if you want physical media to stay around but that can't be your argument against digital media

 

[Tye]

physical games are still just a licence to use that game you don't own it.

Spoiler

I know its pedantic but it's true... it's fine if you want physical media to stay around but that can't be your argument against digital media

Yeah, as someone who prefers physical games myself, it’s frustrating to see that the most common arguments for or against it completely miss the point… It’s the same with the whole “we need physical games for preservation, and all content should be on the game card/disc” angle; both physical and digital games get dumped all the same, so you really don’t have to worry about them not being preserved in some way if your idea of “preservation” is to just pirate them eventually, anyway, and digital media is more likely to outlive physical media, too, because your discs and game cards aren’t going to last forever—even some game cards as new as 3DS have been known to fail within just 5 years or so, meanwhile you can still redownload your digital games from Wii and DS to this day (and you can easily—and officially—make backups of your SD card to ensure that data is safe for even longer).

No, the real argument in favor of physical games is that they can be freely shared or sold, unlike digital games. The fact that they take up less storage space on your console is a nice bonus, too.

 

[SiG]

You are just gonna come of as weird an Nintedo elitist when trying to explain the controls playing splitscreen with friends that normally don't play on a Nintendo console.

Seriously guys, just call it whatever gets your point across to the friends you are playing with instead of trying to weirdly suck up to some corporation.

That's not my problem. Imagine playing Mario Kart and somebody asking where the "Square" button is...

"Do you mean the Home Menu?"

But yeah, "L2" and "R2" do not make sense to me.

 

[Raccoon]

bumper and trigger are universal even if LB and LT aren't

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

Minecraft-like graphics being described as "8-bit".

 

[Tye]

bumper and trigger are universal even if LB and LT aren't

I’ve always heard them referred to as “shoulder buttons” rather than “bumpers” as a general term outside of Xbox. “Trigger” is an intuitive general term that makes sense for what it’s referring to, but I’ve never understood why shoulder buttons are called “bumpers”.

 

[Stilt Village]

They’re officially called “courses” in Mario Kart, not “tracks”. (It’s also “courses” for 2D Mario games as well, not “levels” as most people say!)

"Courses" for 2D Mario feels so unnatural for some reason. It makes sense to some degree, they're literal obstacle courses, but it's not really used that way in English normally and isn't something that got ingrained like similar terms. Nintendo kind of missed their chance with it I think.

When I think of Sonic level terminology I think of Zones and Acts, but when I think of Mario level terminology I think of the 1-1 naming system, not "courses". Because those things are what got put upfront at the start of every level. Did the games themselves ever even use the word prior to Mario Maker? Looking at the English manuals, the term was even there only used with World back in the day. I associate it more with 64 than any of the 2D games, actually.

I feel like I've seen multiple people state Ganondorf's last name "Dragmire" is a made up name or from some esoteric spin-off, but it was mentioned in official materials for both LTTP and Twilight Princess HD

It's called "made up" because it was invented wholecloth for the North American ALttP manual and then was never referenced again, including for the retranslated GBA version, up until it was added to the English Zelda website 25 years later. I'm actually surprised it's on his Zelda Wiki page now, for a long time Zelda.com was basically a banned source there for being full of errors and obviously false claims that often directly contradicted information from the games.

 

[Raccoon]

I’ve always heard them referred to as “shoulder buttons” rather than “bumpers” as a general term outside of Xbox. “Trigger” is an intuitive general term that makes sense for what it’s referring to, but I’ve never understood why shoulder buttons are called “bumpers”.

yeah shoulder is better

I think bumper might come from pinball

 

[MarcelRguez]

On the misinformation side:

"Bravely Default's second half sucks"
This is referring to a specific boss rush kind of segment that last a couple of hours (12 chapters out of 86 in this playthrough of the game, by my count). People tend to exaggerate how long certain parts of games are if they dislike them, but BD's case is the most egregious I've encountered.

 

[Síriocaz]

Perhaps my biggest gripe is when people refer to Mario as Mario Bros., which I think is only an occurrence outside the English speaking world, but I'm not sure.

 

[Pillydillsy]

That Mario sunshine is a good game

 

[AllEchse]

I call it that. And Nintendo seemingly didn’t coin the term, as pointed out in this thread—it seems the Dreamcast was the first console to officially use the term “D-Pad”. I can’t speak to what it may be referred to in other languages, but at least in English and Japanese it’s been consistently referred to as “+Control Pad” for many generations; it’s not newer games “forcing a weird name on you.” The name makes perfect sense, anyway; it’s a control pad (as opposed to a control stick) that’s shaped like a plus.

Am I going to police what people call it colloquially? No, of course not. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t still bother me, though, lol. And my issue is mostly with so-called professional journalists and such not even using the correct terms when they should know better.

It's not gonna make you appear more professional if you don't call it DPad just because you are talking about a Nintendo game at the moment.
Journalists play many games on many platforms probably, it's a pointless distinction.

Yeah, as someone who prefers physical games myself, it’s frustrating to see that the most common arguments for or against it completely miss the point… It’s the same with the whole “we need physical games for preservation, and all content should be on the game card/disc” angle; both physical and digital games get dumped all the same, so you really don’t have to worry about them not being preserved in some way if your idea of “preservation” is to just pirate them eventually, anyway, and digital media is more likely to outlive physical media, too, because your discs and game cards aren’t going to last forever—even some game cards as new as 3DS have been known to fail within just 5 years or so, meanwhile you can still redownload your digital games from Wii and DS to this day (and you can easially—and officially—make backups of your SD card to ensure that data is safe for even longer).

No, the real argument in favor of physical games is that they can be freely shared or sold, unlike digital games. The fact that they take up less storage space on your console is a nice bonus, too.

What I hate the most is companies like Limited Run Games acting like they are acting in favour of preservation when many of theor actions showed that they care more about profit than preservation.

People saying Samus Returns sold horribly.

The sales of Samus Returns were never publicized and all we have to go on was that Nintendo considered them "firm". It wasn't a massive flop and it performed well enough by Nintendo's expectations.

The Metroid series doesn't sell Mario numbers but it's not a commercial disaster like some people make it sound. I once saw a prominent YouTuber claim that "Nintendo doesn't make many Metroid games because the series sells badly" and that is just blatantly untrue.

Sales talks and Metroid never end well.
I mean we had a running joke here.

It doesn't help that the series took a break for so long and Federation Force only made that break feel longer even if it was a decent game.
Just at the wrong time.

 

[Tye]

It's not gonna make you appear more professional if you don't call it DPad just because you are talking about a Nintendo game at the moment.
Journalists play many games on many platforms probably, it's a pointless distinction.

I wasn’t saying all journalists, but still, if you specialize in reporting on Nintendo stuff I’d expect you to get the terminology correct. Same thing for, say, a site that specifically reports on amiibo consistently getting the capitalization or plural of the word wrong—it’s like, this is the one area you’re supposed to be an expert in, how/why are you failing to use the correct official terminology repeatedly??

I guess part of why it annoys me so much is because it’s something that I pick up on and care about more than most and I just wish more people would care about correctness in these situations—especially when it pertains to their biggest interests—as much as I do. It may be a rather trivial thing when it comes to video games, sure, but I greatly value correctness in general regardless of what the subject matter is.

And again, as I already stated, I’m not gonna try to police what people choose to say colloquially (though I may try to bring the correct terminology to their attention in case they’re not aware), but if you’re in a position in which people look to you for information about a particular subject and are as such seen as an expert in that area, I would hope you’re using the correct, official terms so you’re not contributing to spreading misinformation. Like, it just takes an error from one person in a respected position to create a snowball effect and contribute to many, many others believing whatever was said is, in fact, correct and official when it’s really not.

And I can’t stress enough that, yes, the examples I’ve mentioned here aren’t really that big of a deal all things considered, I am very much aware of that…but that doesn’t mean correct terminology should be completely ignored, either, especially in places where you’d expect it to be used most. It exists for a reason, after all.

 

[Dinoman96]

It always annoys me when people refer to Rare as "Rareware".

Like back even in their Nintendo days, they were always just internally referred to as just "Rare LTD". "Rareware" was just referring to the games they made. Because get it? It's "Rare" and "Software" condensed into one word.

 

[curl-6]

That Switch is on par with PS3/360 in graphics.

It's absolutely ridiculous how often this crops up for being completely untrue. I suspect a part of it is people comparing their rose-tinted memories of how good PS3 looked in 2010 versus how Switch games look now in the age of PS5/Xbox Series, but still, it's one of the most pervasive and irritating bits of misinformation in gaming circles these days.

 

[Kreeth]

The one thing that makes my blood boil is the way some (cough english speaking cough) people still pronounce the names of Ryu and Zangief from Street Fighter. How can you say "RAH-YOU" and "ZAN-GEEF" with a straight face?!!

 

[CyberWolfBia]

The one thing that makes my blood boil is the way some (cough english speaking cough) people still pronounce the names of Ryu and Zangief from Street Fighter. How can you say "RAH-YOU" and "ZAN-GEEF" with a straight face?!!

In Zangief's case, it's been used in actual games though;

Mainly Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter announcer (0:52)



Though strangely I remember hearing different pronunciations of different versions of the game depending on the region; They made one distinction for Chun-Li, I believe... (beyond the fact of changing names like Bison to Vega and Akuma to Gouki) but apparently not Zangief and Sakura..

 

[Joe]

It always annoys me when people refer to Rare as "Rareware".

Like back even in their Nintendo days, they were always just internally referred to as just "Rare LTD". "Rareware" was just referring to the games they made. Because get it? It's "Rare" and "Software" condensed into one word.

This is actually blowing my mind and I never put that together before. I always thought Rareware was the name the company went by in the '90s.

 

[Concernt]

"OLED Dock"

It's not an OLED dock. It's the "Nintendo Switch Dock with LAN Port".

Less precise, but something Nintendo themselves do is use LAN ONLY to prefer to wired ethernet using an RJ45 Jack, when WiFi is a kind of LAN - it's a kind of WLAN, so why doesn't Nintendo make it clear that you can play games in "LAN play" over WiFi? LAN is LAN, ethernet or WLAN.

 

[undefined]

I remember when there were rumors about a Resident Evil game codenamed “Outrage”, people sometimes called it “Outbreak”, which is an actual Resident Evil game for the PS2

 

[Joe]

I remember when there were rumors about a Resident Evil game codenamed “Outrage”, people sometimes called it “Outbreak”, which is an actual Resident Evil game for the PS2

Reminds me of when Majora's Mask first came out, and kids I knew called it "Zelda 2" and I had to correct them, haha.

 

[The Giant]

People calling Nintendo Japan, NOJ instead of NCL.

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

"OLED Dock"

It's not an OLED dock. It's the "Nintendo Switch Dock with LAN Port".

This feels like expecting people to say "PlayStation 2 computer entertainment system" or "the The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom game" rather than PS2 or TOTK.

This is actually blowing my mind and I never put that together before. I always thought Rareware was the name the company went by in the '90s.

I guess I did too. That it's just Rare + part of software doesn't help matters any, because Square did exactly the same with Squaresoft and that wasn't just game intro branding.

 

[AllEchse]

Reminds me of when Majora's Mask first came out, and kids I knew called it "Zelda 2" and I had to correct them, haha.

And Zelda can be your Zelda 1 if you want.
I expect some playground discussions revolving around TotK calling it Zelda 2 too.

We are all getting old.

 

[Mekanos]

I really wouldn't call Samus vs Ridley or Link vs Ganondorf rivals lol. Unless you think killing your rival's parents and being the literal reincarnation of evil as just fun little things all rivals do.

The trailer is literally called "The Rivals," which is a broad term that fits the theming of it:

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

Reminds me of when Majora's Mask first came out, and kids I knew called it "Zelda 2" and I had to correct them, haha.

This reminds me of one of those televised game awards shows where Samuel L. Jackson referred to Vice City as "Grand Theft 2".

 

[Concernt]

This feels like expecting people to say "PlayStation 2 computer entertainment system" or "the The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom game" rather than PS2 or TOTK.

That is literally what this thread is for. Plus... those are terrible examples? Both those examples are where the shortened name is contained within the official name.

Would you care to point out where "OLED dock" lives in "Nintendo Switch Dock with LAN Port"?

 

[Hailinel]

The trailer is literally called "The Rivals," which is a broad term that fits the theming of it:

It's still silly to think Samus and Ridley are just rivals when their connection is based on one killing the other's parents and committing an undocumented litany of other war crime-level atrocities when K. Rool...

Checks notes

...stole a banana stockpile from a gorilla.

 

[Phosphorescent Skeleton]

I get annoyed when people are super insistent on using corporate mandate language like "GCN" for gamecube or stuff like that. Just call it what make sense too you. Don't see why calling it the Nintendo Wii or D-pad could possibly be a problem.

 

[Link_enfant]

The fact that they take up less storage space on your console is a nice bonus, too.

And this actually only applies to Nintendo, or two generations behind for Sony / Xbox.
For current gen it's only relevant to Switch and probably its successor so can't be used as a general argument.

 

[hologram]

That is literally what this thread is for. Plus... those are terrible examples? Both those examples are where the shortened name is contained within the official name.

Would you care to point out where "OLED dock" lives in "Nintendo Switch Dock with LAN Port"?

My interpretation of the thread is that it's for situations where things are called the wrong thing by accident. People don't call it the "OLED Dock" because they actually think it's the official name, they do so because the official name is needlessly cumbersome and it's unambiguous what "OLED Dock" refers to

 

[Concernt]

My interpretation of the thread is that it's for situations where things are called the wrong thing by accident. People don't call it the "OLED Dock" because they actually think it's the official name, they do so because the official name is needlessly cumbersome and it's unambiguous what "OLED Dock" refers to

That's a valid interpretation, though not the one I take from it. I mean, there's a reason people say "Nintendo Wii" rather than just "Wii", since the official name is short and orally quite imprecise. You don't want people to think about urine, after all.

 

[Djehuty]

Funny thing is that's specifically an NoA thing. The European directs don't have that, which means the narrator has to record two separate line deliveries for basically no reason.

They say it so many times

 

[Tye]

And this actually only applies to Nintendo, or two generations behind for Sony / Xbox.
For current gen it's only relevant to Switch and probably its successor so can't be used as a general argument.

Ah, that’s right. I’m a Nintendo-only person so I wasn’t even considering other consoles when I wrote that, and I always forget that Xbox and PlayStation require installs from discs now. I don’t understand that at all, especially considering how much larger games tend to be on those systems—why make it so you can’t play games directly from the disc, saving you all that storage space?? I’m sure there must be a reason for it, but it makes no sense to me, lol. Glad I don’t have to worry about that with Nintendo, at least.

You can at least still share and sell physical PlayStation and Xbox games…right??

 

[Hailinel]

Ah, that’s right. I’m a Nintendo-only person so I wasn’t even considering other consoles when I wrote that, and I always forget that Xbox and PlayStation require installs from discs now. I don’t understand that at all, especially considering how much larger games tend to be on those systems—why make it so you can’t play games directly from the disc, saving you all that storage space?? I’m sure there must be a reason for it, but it makes no sense to me, lol. Glad I don’t have to worry about that with Nintendo, at least.

You can at least still share and sell physical PlayStation and Xbox games…right??

You can, but depending on the game, they're going to be of varying levels of use, particularly if your console isn't online.

 

[Concernt]

You can at least still share and sell physical PlayStation and Xbox games…right??

Yes.

Xbox is in such a weird position as regards physical games. On the one hand they have the longest lasting backwards compatibility, on the other hand the disks don't even contain the games anymore, at least not all of it. Very few Xbox Series X game disks actually have an Xbox Series X game on them you can install and play without internet.

 

[Dizzle]

Everything about console generations.

runs away