Gaming

● Aliven.✎ 3

Pentakill

Killing all five enemy players in quick succession in League of Legends, announced by the game in a voice that has been imitated in every school in the world since 2009. The record's entry for the MOBA's highest score and its most-clipped moment, and the name of Riot's in-universe metal band.

▸ 2009peak 2015still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 4

Plants vs. Zombies

Zombies walk toward a house across a lawn and the only defence is a garden of peashooters, sunflowers and a nut with a face. Designed by George Fan and released by PopCap in May 2009, it was the last big PopCap game before EA bought the company in 2011, and the record files it as the tower defence game that non-gamers would admit to playing.

▸ 2009peak 2010still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 4

Words with Friends

Scrabble by another name, played by turn on a phone against friends or strangers over days, with a chat box that became the point. Made by two brothers in Texas and released in July 2009, it was bought by Zynga in 2010 and became the game people played with their mothers, and the record files an actor's removal from a flight for refusing to stop as its cultural peak.

▸ 2009peak 2011still up

● Aliven.✎ 2

Any%

The speedrun category where only finishing counts, however you do it — and, since about 2023, the suffix for any task done with minimum effort: 'any% dinner', 'any% essay'. The record's entry for a category name as a life philosophy.

▸ 2008peak 2025still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 4

Braid

A platformer about rewinding time and a man called Tim looking for a princess, with painted backgrounds and an ending that reversed itself. Released on Xbox Live Arcade in August 2008, it was the game that made critics say indie games could be art and everyone else say the developer was a bit much. The record files both claims.

▸ 2008peak 2008still up

● Aliven.✎ 4

Call of Duty Zombies

Treyarch's co-op survival mode, first hidden as an after-credits bonus in World at War in 2008 and turned into a phenomenon by Black Ops in 2010, whose maps let players fight zombies as John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon in the Pentagon. The record notes that a bonus mode nobody planned became the reason many people bought the series for the next fifteen years.

▸ 2008peak 2010still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 4

Fantage

A browser world of anime-style avatars, a boardwalk of shops, a level system based on wearing items and a premium membership. The record's entry for the virtual world with a devoted afterlife: it was among the busiest children's sites of the early 2010s, its fashion and level culture made 'Fantage' a verb in some playgrounds, and it was closed in July 2018 with an announcement its players are still posting about.

▸ 2008peak 2011†2018

◐ Dyingphr.✎ 2

Fox Only, No Items, Final Destination

The caricature of the competitive Smash player's rules — one flat stage, no items, the best character — used from about 2008 as a mock-chant by casual players and, eventually, by the competitive scene about itself. The record notes it is the only tournament ruleset anyone can recite, including people who have never seen a tournament.

▸ 2008peak 2010still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 4

Left 4 Dead

Four survivors, a horde of zombies and an AI director that decided when to hurt you. Valve's co-op shooter was the LAN and Steam game of 2008, and its sequel a year later produced a Steam group of forty thousand people boycotting it, most of whom bought it. Left 4 Dead 2 still has tens of thousands of daily players; a third has not appeared.

▸ 2008peak 2009still up

◐ Dyingphr.✎ 3

Mid or Feed

The threat, typed in a MOBA lobby, that the speaker will play the middle lane or deliberately die to the enemy until the game is lost; a DotA phrase that League of Legends inherited around 2010–11. The record's entry for hostage negotiation in a video game, now mostly dead because the games assign roles first.

▸ 2008peak 2012still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 4

Moshi Monsters

A British browser world in which children adopted a monster, solved daily puzzles and collected small creatures called Moshlings. The record's entry for the UK's biggest children's craze of its decade: by 2011 it had tens of millions of registered users, a best-selling magazine, a number-one album and trading cards in every newsagent, and it was closed in December 2019 when Flash ended.

▸ 2008peak 2011†2019

● Aliven.✎ 4

Natural Disaster Survival

A Roblox game in which players stand on a small map and wait to see whether the round's disaster is a flood, a tornado, a meteor shower or an acid rain, and then try to be the last one standing. The record files it as the platform's longest-serving hit: released in 2008, still in the front page rotation in the 2020s, and the first game many people mean when they say 'the old Roblox'.

▸ 2008peak 2017still up

● Aliven.✎ 3

Obby

An obstacle course, in Roblox: a sequence of platforms, lava and kill-bricks that a player jumps across for no reward beyond the next stage. The word is a clipped 'obstacle', in use on the platform by about 2008, and the genre's titles ('Escape Grandma Obby') are a literature of their own.

▸ 2008peak 2019still up

● Aliven.✎ 3

PC Master Race

The PC gamer's self-mocking (then unironic, then self-mocking again) title, coined as a joke about snobbery in a 2008 Zero Punctuation video and adopted in earnest by a subreddit in 2011, whose members address console owners as 'peasants'. The record notes the coiner has said he regrets it, which is the fate of most jokes that get a flag.

▸ 2008peak 2015still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 4

Pet Society

A Facebook game in which the player kept a round pet in a house, visited friends' pets and bought furniture with coins earned by brushing. The record's entry for the Facebook game people actually liked: it had tens of millions of monthly players around 2010, its furniture catalogue was a fashion cycle, and it was closed in June 2013 when EA, which had bought its studio, shut most of its games in one afternoon.

▸ 2008peak 2010†2013

☠ Deadn.✎ 4

Pixie Hollow

A Disney browser world in which players were fairies in Tinker Bell's valley, with talents, gardens and a great deal of dressmaking. The record's entry for the world that was closed with its siblings: it was among Disney's biggest online games for girls in its short life, and it was switched off in September 2013 on the same day as Toontown, which is why its players and Toontown's share a grievance.

▸ 2008peak 2010†2013

● Aliven.✎ 3

Platinum Trophy

The top trophy on PlayStation, awarded for earning every other trophy in a game, introduced with the console's trophy system in July 2008 in answer to Xbox achievements. The record's entry for the reason people have played a game they disliked for sixty hours, and the noun ('a plat') by which they describe it afterwards.

▸ 2008peak 2015still up

▲ Fossiln.✎ 4

QWOP

A browser game in which Q, W, O and P control a sprinter's thighs and calves independently and the sprinter, named Qwop, rarely gets past two metres before collapsing. Made in 2008, it went viral two years later and became shorthand for any control scheme that does not work. The record keeps it as the first famous ragdoll.

▸ 2008peak 2011†2013

◐ Dyingn.✎ 4

Spelunky

A man with a whip descends through caves that are different every time, and a shopkeeper who should not be angered. Released free in December 2008 by an American developer, it fused platformers with roguelike permadeath, and the 2012 remake's Daily Challenge mode created a small ritual for a generation of players and streamers. The record files it as the roguelike people could see.

▸ 2008peak 2013still up

● Aliven.✎ 3

Split (Speedrun)

A checkpoint in a speedrun at which the timer records the elapsed time, and the column of green and red numbers down the side of every speedrun stream since the WSplit timer of 2008 and LiveSplit of 2013. The record notes that 'gold splits' are the fastest segments ever run and that no one has ever put them together in one run.

▸ 2008peak 2020still up

▲ Fossiln.✎ 4

Spore

Will Wright's 2008 game about evolving a species from cell to galaxy, whose creature creator was released three months early and used by the internet to build genitals, and whose copy protection, which limited installs to three, made it one of the most pirated games of the year and the target of thousands of one-star Amazon reviews. The record's entry for the 'Sporn' summer and the DRM revolt.

▸ 2008peak 2008†2009

▲ Fossiln.✎ 4

Street Fighter IV

The sequel that returned after nine years and revived the fighting game genre and its tournament scene. Street Fighter IV's arrival in 2009 filled EVO to a size it had never reached, made Daigo Umehara and Justin Wong household names in their community, and brought the arcade stick back to living rooms. It ran through four editions until 2016.

▸ 2008peak 2010†2016

● Alivev.✎ 2

Swatting

Calling armed police to a stranger's address as a prank. The only entry here with a manslaughter conviction attached.

▸ 2008peak 2015still up

▲ Fossiln.✎ 4

The World's Hardest Game

A red square moves through blue circles to a green zone, collecting yellow coins, and thirty levels of this. A Flash game from March 2008 by a British developer, it earned its name in school computer rooms and the record files it as the game whose death counter was the real score.

▸ 2008peak 2009†2020

● Aliven.✎ 4

Wizard101

A children's online role-playing game of wizards duelling with cards, with a free opening and a subscription for the rest of the world. The record's entry for the MMO a generation played in secret: it had tens of millions of accounts by the early 2010s, its television adverts ran between cartoons, and its adult returners in the 2020s have made it a nostalgia game with a Twitch presence its developers did not expect.

▸ 2008peak 2010still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 2

Wombo Combo

A combination of attacks from two teammates that ends a game in seconds, named after a 2008 Melee doubles clip in which the commentators lost their composure completely ('Wombo combo! That ain't Falco!'). The record notes the video did more for competitive Smash than most tournaments and that 'wombo combo' has since meant any coordinated demolition.

▸ 2008peak 2010still up

● Aliven.✎ 4

Work at a Pizza Place

A Roblox game in which players take shifts as cashier, cook, delivery driver or boxer at a pizza restaurant and spend their wages on a house. The record's entry for the first job many children ever held: released in 2008, it turned a shared shift into a social space, and its 'the manager is a child' dynamic became the template for every Roblox roleplay job that followed.

▸ 2008peak 2016still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 4

World of Goo

Balls of goo with eyes are dragged into towers and bridges to reach a pipe, and the leftover goo becomes a tower in a shared world. Made by two former EA employees working out of coffee shops, it was the indie hit of late 2008, and a pay-what-you-want sale in 2009 became a widely cited experiment about piracy. The record files the goo as bouncy and the numbers as honest.

▸ 2008peak 2009still up

● Aliven.✎ 2

360 No-Scope

Spinning a full circle and killing an opponent with a sniper rifle without using the scope, first as a genuine trick in Halo 2 and Call of Duty 4 montages and by 2013 as the central sacrament of the ironic MLG meme. The record's entry for the shot that took ten thousand attempts and thirty seconds of dubstep.

▸ 2007peak 2013still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 4

Bin Weevils

A British browser world in which players were weevils living in a rubbish bin, with a nest to decorate, mulch to earn and a paid Bin Tycoon membership. The record's entry for the UK's own Club Penguin: it was among the biggest children's sites in the country by 2011 with millions of accounts, its television adverts ran on the children's channels, and it was closed in January 2021 after Flash was switched off.

▸ 2007peak 2011†2021

● Aliven.✎ 4

Bloons TD

Monkeys throw darts at balloons that walk along a path, and the balloons get harder. A Flash tower defence spin-off from a 2007 balloon-popping game by two brothers in Auckland, it became one of the most played browser games of the 2000s and then, as Bloons TD 6 in 2018, one of the most played games on Steam. The record files the monkey as still employed.

▸ 2007peak 2018still up

▲ Fossiln.✎ 4

Bloxorz

A rectangular block is rolled across a floating grid of tiles and has to drop into a square hole, upright, without falling off the edge. A Flash puzzle from 2007 by a British developer, it lived on Coolmath Games and in school computer rooms, and the record files it as the puzzle whose 33 level codes were memorised by a generation who cannot remember their own phone numbers.

▸ 2007peak 2008†2020

▲ Fossiln.✎ 4

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

The Call of Duty that left the Second World War and invented the modern multiplayer template: perks, killstreaks, prestige levels and a progression bar that made a generation stay up. Its trend moment was 2008, in every dormitory and on the PC competitive scene through Promod, and its afterlife includes a 2016 remaster and a 2019 reboot with the same name. The record files the original.

▸ 2007peak 2008†2011

● Aliven.✎ 4

Crysis

Crytek's 2007 shooter, built to a specification no PC of the time could run at full settings, which made 'but can it run Crysis' the standard reply to any hardware announcement for a decade. The game was well reviewed and mostly pirated, and the record's entry is for the benchmark rather than the shooter: a game whose main cultural role was a question.

▸ 2007peak 2008still up

▲ Fossiln.✎ 4

Desktop Tower Defense

Creeps walk across a drawing of a desk and you place towers to stop them, with no fixed path and a maze of your own making. A British developer's Flash game from March 2007, it reached tens of millions of plays and is the reason 'tower defence' was a browser genre before it was a mobile one. The record files the maze as its lasting invention.

▸ 2007peak 2007†2013

● Aliven.✎ 2

Hitmarker

The small white cross that flashes on the crosshair in Call of Duty when a shot lands, introduced in Modern Warfare in 2007 and by 2013 the emblem of the MLG parody montage, where it was stamped over everything at ten a second. The record's entry for the sound and shape that told a generation their bullet had arrived.

▸ 2007peak 2013still up

▲ Fossiln.✎ 4

I Wanna Be the Guy

A small boy called The Kid tries to become The Guy through a set of levels that kill him with apples falling upward, moons from Zelda II and a Tetris block. A free game from October 2007 by an American developer, it was the first famous 'masocore' platformer and the record files it as the game that turned a Let's Play into a scream.

▸ 2007peak 2008†2014

● Aliven.✎ 6

Let's Play

Watching someone play a game and talk. Started as text with screenshots, became an industry that made its stars richer than the games.

▸ 2007peak 2013still up

▲ Fossiln.✎ 4

Noob Tube

An under-barrel grenade launcher used by people who could not aim. The most hated weapon in gaming history and the most used.

▸ 2007peak 2009†2013

● Aliven.✎ 3

Osu!

A free rhythm game from 2007 in which players click circles in time with anime and electronic music, which built one of the most intense skill communities online: drawing tablets, 300 BPM streams and a ranking system followed like a sport. The record files it as the game that made 'clicking circles' a discipline.

▸ 2007peak 2019still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 4

Peggle

A ball drops through a field of pegs, and when the last orange peg goes the game slows down, plays Beethoven's Ode to Joy and fires fireworks. A PopCap casual game from February 2007, it spread into the hardcore audience through a free version bundled with Valve's Orange Box, and 'Peggle fever' became a phrase people used seriously. The record files the rainbow.

▸ 2007peak 2009still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 4

Poptropica

A browser world of islands, each a self-contained puzzle adventure, created by the author of Diary of a Wimpy Kid before that book was famous. The record's entry for the school-computer game: it ran on library machines for a decade, its islands were played by tens of millions of children during lessons that were nominally about something else, and the end of Flash in 2020 removed most of the islands from existence.

▸ 2007peak 2010still up

▲ Fossiln.✎ 4

Portal

A three-hour puzzle game in a testing facility, with a gun that made two connected holes and a computer voice that promised cake. It was the surprise of the Orange Box, made GLaDOS the best villain of the decade, and produced 'the cake is a lie', a song called 'Still Alive' and a companion cube people mourned. The phrase is filed separately.

▸ 2007peak 2008†2011

● Aliven.✎ 3

Robux

Roblox's virtual currency, bought with real money and spent on avatar items, game passes and other people's pretend goods; introduced in 2007 next to a free currency called Tix that was quietly removed in 2016. The record notes it is the first money many children ever earn, lose or beg for.

▸ 2007peak 2021still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 4

Rock Band

Guitar Hero's creators added drums and a microphone and sold the whole band in a box. Its trend moment was 2008 to 2009, when The Beatles: Rock Band was launched with a press event that treated it as an album release, and its afterlife was seventeen years of weekly downloadable songs, which ended in January 2025 after Harmonix was bought by Epic.

▸ 2007peak 2009†2025

● Aliven.✎ 4

Team Fortress 2

Nine cartoon mercenaries, a Pixar look and, from 2009, hats. Valve's class shooter became the first game with a functioning virtual economy: keys, refined metal and unusual hats traded on a market Valve built to serve it. It went free in 2011, was overrun by bots from 2020 to 2024, and survived a player campaign against Valve's neglect. The record notes it is still updated.

▸ 2007peak 2011still up

▲ Fossiln.✎ 4

The Impossible Quiz

A Flash quiz of 110 questions that cannot be answered by knowing anything, only by guessing what the author found funny, with three lives and a bomb timer. Released in February 2007, it was the school computer-room ordeal of its era, and the record notes that the correct number of holes in a Polo is still debated in the comments.

▸ 2007peak 2008†2020

● Aliven.✎ 4

Dwarf Fortress

A colony of dwarves digs into a mountain in a world the game generates with its own history, drawn in text characters, and eventually something goes wrong. Made by two brothers and released free in August 2006, it was the impossible game everyone had read about and few had played, until a Steam version with pictures in December 2022 sold hundreds of thousands of copies. The record files 'losing is fun'.

▸ 2006peak 2022still up