Gaming

◐ Dyingn.✎ 4

Growtopia

A 2D sandbox of worlds built from blocks in which players trade items and run shops, casinos and scams with a currency of gems and locks. The record's entry for the mobile game with the economy of a small state: its player-run markets in South-East Asia were serious enough that its purchase by Ubisoft in 2017 made business news, its casinos were banned in-game, and 'Growtopia scam' was a YouTube genre for years.

▸ 2013peak 2016still up

● Alivev.✎ 1

HODL

Holding a cryptocurrency through a crash, from a typo in a drunken forum post. The typo has now outlived several of the currencies.

▸ 2013peak 2021still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 4

Outlast

A journalist with a camcorder walks into a Colorado asylum and spends the rest of the game running away from its patients through night-vision green. Free on PlayStation Plus in early 2014, it became the next reaction-video horror after Amnesia, and the record notes the batteries running out was the true villain.

▸ 2013peak 2014still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 4

Papers, Please

You are a border inspector in the fictional state of Arstotzka in 1982, checking passports against a rulebook that changes daily while your family gets cold. Made by one former Naughty Dog developer, it was the game of 2013 for people who wanted to feel bad about stamping, and the record files 'Glory to Arstotzka' as its lasting export.

▸ 2013peak 2013still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 4

QuizUp

A real-time quiz against a stranger in one of hundreds of topics, from Icelandic startup Plain Vanilla, released in November 2013 and reported at the time as the fastest-growing iPhone game ever. It raised tens of millions, tried to become a social network, and was shut down in March 2021. The record files it as the quiz game that lost its own question.

▸ 2013peak 2014†2021

● Aliven.✎ 4

Rust

You wake naked on a beach with a rock, and the other players are the danger. Released into Early Access in December 2013 by the Garry's Mod studio, it became the survival game people meant when they said survival game, and a private server of streamers in January 2021 gave it the biggest audience of its life. The record files the rock.

▸ 2013peak 2021still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 4

SimCity (2013)

EA's 2013 SimCity, an always-online reboot whose servers failed for its first week, whose cities were smaller than the 2003 game's, and whose insistence that offline play was technically impossible was disproved by a modder within days and by EA itself a year later. The record's entry for the launch that ended a series and made 'always online' a warning label.

▸ 2013peak 2013†2014

◐ Dyingn.✎ 4

Surgeon Simulator

A game in which you control each finger of a surgeon's hand separately and attempt a heart transplant with tools that keep falling on the floor. Built in 48 hours at a game jam in January 2013, it was on Steam by April, and the record files it as the beginning of the deliberately-bad-controls era.

▸ 2013peak 2013still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 4

The Stanley Parable

An office worker called Stanley finds his colleagues gone and a narrator telling him which door to take, and the game is what happens when he takes the other one. Released as a free mod in 2011 and remade for Steam in October 2013, it was the year's most quoted game about games, and the record files the narrator's voice as its own person.

▸ 2013peak 2013still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 4

TowerFall

Four archers on a single screen with three arrows each, and a rule that you can catch an arrow out of the air. Released in June 2013 as the only game anyone bought an Ouya for, it moved to PC and PlayStation as Ascension in 2014 and was the party game of that year. The record files it as the good thing that came out of a bad console.

▸ 2013peak 2014†2019

◐ Dyingn.✎ 4

Trivia Crack

A wheel is spun, a category comes up, and a quiz question is answered against a friend, with six cartoon characters to collect as trophies. Released by an Argentine studio in October 2013 and a hit across Latin America first, it reached number one in the United States in early 2015, and the record files it as the quiz game that made a spinning wheel a notification sound.

▸ 2013peak 2015still up

● Aliven.✎ 3

Whale (Gacha)

A player who spends so much that the game is, financially, for them — the casino word, imported to mobile games and now to any hobby with a top one percent. The record has whale for crypto; this is the original sense, and the more common one.

▸ 2013peak 2023still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 4

Xbox One Reveal

Microsoft's May 2013 unveiling of the Xbox One, a console described as an all-in-one entertainment device with a daily online check-in, restrictions on used games and a camera that had to be plugged in. Within a month Sony had released a ten-second video showing how to share a game by handing it to someone, and Microsoft had reversed everything. The record's entry for the reveal as a self-inflicted wound.

▸ 2013peak 2013†2013

● Aliven.✎ 3

Backseat Gaming

Telling the person playing what to do, from the couch since the 1980s and from Twitch chat since about 2012, where a streamer stuck on a puzzle can receive the answer five hundred times a minute from people who looked it up. The record's entry for help that nobody asked for, and the reason 'no backseating' is in most channel rules.

▸ 2012peak 2020still up

● Aliven.✎ 4

Candy Crush Saga

A match-three puzzle game of sweets, lives that regenerate on a timer and a map of levels that has passed many thousands. The record's entry for the game that made 'free to play' a household phrase: in 2013 it was the most-downloaded app in the world, its requests for lives clogged Facebook, and its publisher was bought by Activision in 2016 for a sum larger than most film studios cost.

▸ 2012peak 2013still up

● Aliven.✎ 4

Clash of Clans

A village-building game in which players train troops, raid other villages and wait for timers to finish, joined into clans that fight wars on a schedule. The record's entry for the game that funded a Finnish studio to a valuation most countries would notice: it sat at the top of the grossing charts for years, put a Liam Neeson advert in the 2015 Super Bowl, and taught a generation the phrase 'the builder is busy'.

▸ 2012peak 2015still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 4

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

The fourth Counter-Strike, which invented the weapon-skin economy in 2013, spawned a gambling scandal in 2016 and became the largest esport in the West. Its Majors filled arenas; its knife skins sold for the price of cars. Valve replaced it with Counter-Strike 2 in September 2023 and the skins came across. The game did not.

▸ 2012peak 2019†2023

◐ Dyingn.✎ 4

DayZ

A zombie mod for a military simulator in which the zombies were the least of it, because every other survivor might shoot you for a tin of beans. Released in April 2012 by a New Zealander working at Bohemia Interactive, it sold hundreds of thousands of copies of a three-year-old game and started the survival genre. The record files 'friendly?' as its one word.

▸ 2012peak 2013still up

↺ Undeadn.✎ 4

Diablo III

Blizzard's 2012 Diablo, twelve years after the last, whose always-online launch produced Error 37, a login failure that became the internet's name for the week, and a real-money auction house that turned loot into a stock market. Both were gone by 2014, when Reaper of Souls rebuilt the game. The record's entry for the launch that taught the industry what a server queue costs.

▸ 2012peak 2012†2013

◐ Dyingn.✎ 4

FTL: Faster Than Light

A small spaceship flees a rebel fleet across a galaxy, and its crew put out fires, patch hull breaches and, usually, die. Two former 2K China developers asked for ten thousand dollars on Kickstarter in early 2012, got twenty times that, and shipped in September. The record files it as the campaign that made the crowdfunded indie game a real category.

▸ 2012peak 2012still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 4

Fez

A two-dimensional platformer that rotates into three dimensions, with a language and number system hidden in its backgrounds for players to decode. Five years late and released in April 2012, it was the third subject of Indie Game: The Movie, and the sequel was cancelled by its developer on Twitter in July 2013. The record files the game and the exit together.

▸ 2012peak 2012still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 4

Frog Fractions

A browser game that begins as a maths lesson about a frog eating flies and becomes, within minutes, something the record is not permitted to describe without ruining it. Released in October 2012, it spread by people telling other people to play it and say nothing, and its sequel was hidden inside a different game in 2016. The record files it as the last real secret.

▸ 2012peak 2012†2016

● Aliven.✎ 3

Gacha

Paying for a random chance at a character, from Japanese capsule toys to the phone games that took over the world in the 2020s, with the pull, the pity system and the whale as its vocabulary. The record's entry for the mechanism that made spending a genre of content.

▸ 2012peak 2024still up

● Aliven.✎ 4

Hay Day

A farm game of crops, animals and a roadside shop, played on a slower clock than almost anything on a phone. The record's entry for where FarmVille's players went when Facebook got tiring: it was Supercell's first hit, it has not left the grossing charts in over a decade, and its economy of newspaper adverts and neighbourhood requests is run largely by adults who call it 'calming' with a slightly tense expression.

▸ 2012peak 2014still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 4

Hotline Miami

A man in a letterman jacket gets answerphone messages telling him to go to an address and kill everyone inside, in one hit each way, to a synth soundtrack, in 1989 Miami. Made by two Swedes and published by Devolver in October 2012, it was the year's most violent indie game and its most quoted, and the record files the question it asks about liking it.

▸ 2012peak 2013still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 4

Ib

A nine-year-old girl visits an art gallery with her parents and finds herself inside the paintings, with a man called Garry and a girl called Mary who may or may not be a painting. A free RPG Maker game from Japan, it was fan-translated within months of its 2012 release and set the template for the horror-RPG-Maker wave. The record files the rose.

▸ 2012peak 2012still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 4

Journey (Thatgamecompany)

A robed figure walks toward a mountain across a desert, and partway through another player appears who can only communicate by chirping. Released on PlayStation 3 in March 2012, it was the year's most written-about game and its score was the first from a video game nominated for a Grammy. The record files the chirp.

▸ 2012peak 2012still up

▲ Fossiln.✎ 4

Mass Effect 3

BioWare's 2012 finale, whose three-colour ending prompted the first mass fan campaign against a game's story: Retake Mass Effect, a charity drive, cupcakes in three colours sent to the studio, and a free Extended Cut in June 2012 that explained more and changed little. The record's entry for the moment fans decided a story owed them, and the studio agreed.

▸ 2012peak 2012†2012

☠ Deadn.

Miiverse

A social network drawn in handwriting by children about video games. The gentlest community ever to exist online, and Nintendo turned it off anyway.

▸ 2012peak 2014†2017

● Aliven.✎ 4

My Singing Monsters

A collecting game in which monsters on islands each sing a part of a song, and the song grows as more are bred. The record's entry for the late revival: it was a modest hit in 2013, then in late 2022 a TikTok wave built around a boxy monster called the Wubbox sent a ten-year-old game back to the top of the download charts and made its songs a meme in their own right.

▸ 2012peak 2022still up

● Aliven.✎ 2

One-Tap

A kill with a single click, one bullet to the head, in Counter-Strike and its descendants — and the verb, 'got one-tapped'. The record notes the term rose with CS:GO's launch in 2012 and that a one-tap is the only kill a shooter player never claims was luck.

▸ 2012peak 2018still up

● Aliven.✎ 4

Plague Inc.

A disease starts in one country and the player evolves it to infect and kill everyone before a cure is found, and the hard part is always Greenland. Made by one British developer in his spare time and released in May 2012, it topped China's paid charts in January 2020, was removed from the Chinese App Store the next month, and gained a mode where you cure the disease instead. The record files the closed ports.

▸ 2012peak 2020still up

● Aliven.✎ 4

Pou

A virtual pet in the shape of a brown blob with large eyes, fed, washed, dressed and put to bed on a phone. The record's entry for the Tamagotchi of the app store era: it was among the most-downloaded games in the world in 2013 despite looking like something drawn in a lesson, and its blob has been a reaction image, a Halloween costume and a running joke ever since.

▸ 2012peak 2013still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 4

Puzzle & Dragons

A match-three puzzle combined with a monster-collecting gacha, played on a board of orbs that the player drags around. The record's entry for the first mobile game to earn a billion dollars: in Japan it was on a large share of all phones by 2013, it made its publisher briefly worth more than Nintendo on paper, and it established the template of puzzle plus collection plus lottery that the rest of the decade copied.

▸ 2012peak 2014still up

● Aliven.✎ 2

Review Bombing

Flooding a game's user reviews with negative scores as a protest about something — an ending (Mass Effect 3, 2012), a price, a policy, an actor's opinion — regardless of the game; a practice Steam responded to in 2017 with graphs and in 2019 with a filter. The record's entry for the review as vote, and the reason 'mostly negative' now means 'something happened on Twitter'.

▸ 2012peak 2019still up

● Aliveadj.✎ 1

Salty

Bitter about losing. Older than the internet as sailors' slang and given a second, permanent life by people who had just lost at Street Fighter.

▸ 2012peak 2016still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 4

Slender: The Eight Pages

A free first-person game in which you collect eight pages from a dark forest while a tall man in a suit gets closer every time you look at him. It was the game that turned YouTube reaction videos into a horror genre in the summer of 2012, and the record files the screaming as part of the work.

▸ 2012peak 2012†2014

◐ Dyingn.✎ 4

Super Hexagon

A small triangle rotates in a spinning hexagon while walls close in, and the goal is to survive sixty seconds, which the game calls a win. Released on iOS in September 2012 by the maker of VVVVVV, with music by Chipzel, it was the year's most compulsive phone game and the record files the voice that says 'begin' as its opening line.

▸ 2012peak 2012still up

● Aliven.✎ 4

Talking Angela

A white cat in Paris that chats with the player by text, and the subject of a 2013 and 2014 chain-letter hoax claiming a man could be seen in her eyes and that the app was used to contact children. The record's entry for the app-store moral panic: the hoax was shared by parents on Facebook, denied by the studio and debunked by every fact-checker, and it is still the first thing many people remember about the cat.

▸ 2012peak 2014still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 4

The Simpsons: Tapped Out

A town-builder in which Homer's negligence has blown up Springfield and the player rebuilds it, with the show's voices and a decade of seasonal events. The record's entry for a long-running app dying on a date: it was a top-grossing hit in 2013, ran with new content through thirteen years of the show's decline, and was switched off in January 2025 with its players' towns deleted.

▸ 2012peak 2013†2025

☠ Deadn.✎ 4

Thomas Was Alone

Coloured rectangles jump through platform levels while a narrator gives each of them a personality, and by the end you are sad about a rectangle. Grown from a 2010 Flash game by a British developer and released in July 2012, it was the small game that won a BAFTA for Danny Wallace's narration, and the record files it as the proof that voice can carry a quadrilateral.

▸ 2012peak 2013†2015

● Aliven.✎ 3

Whale

A player who spends thousands. The one per cent who pay for the ninety-nine, in a business that pretends it is not a casino.

▸ 2012peak 2016still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 4

Wii U

Nintendo's 2012 console with a tablet controller, whose name was assumed by a large share of the public to mean an accessory for the Wii, and which sold around 13 million units, a fraction of its predecessor. The record's entry for a launch undone by a name, and for the console whose best games were later re-released on the Switch to the sales they had deserved.

▸ 2012peak 2013†2017

↺ Undeadphr.✎ 3

Creeper, Aw Man

The opening line of 'Revenge', a Minecraft parody of Usher's 'DJ Got Us Fallin' in Love' uploaded in August 2011, which eight years later became a call-and-response meme: post 'Creeper', receive 'Aw man', and the rest of the lyric follows from strangers. The record's entry for the song that was funny twice.

▸ 2011peak 2012†2015

● Aliven.✎ 4

Dark Souls

FromSoftware's 2011 successor to Demon's Souls, the game that turned difficulty into a personality and 'Souls-like' into a genre. A PC petition with over 90,000 signatures got it ported in 2012 as the Prepare to Die Edition, a port so poor that a fan fix was required in the first day. The record's entry for the moment the internet decided losing could be a hobby.

▸ 2011peak 2012still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 4

Dead Island

Techland's zombie game, announced in February 2011 with a trailer that ran in reverse, in slow motion, to a piano, showing a family's last moments in a holiday resort, and which was called the best game trailer ever made before anyone had seen the game. The game, released that September, was a co-op brawler with bugs and none of the trailer's tone. The record's entry for the trailer as the product.

▸ 2011peak 2011†2011

● Aliven.✎ 4

Dota 2

Valve's version of the DotA map, made with its original maintainer, and the game whose annual championship, The International, had the largest prize pool in esports for a decade, funded by players buying a digital book. The 2011 announcement was a tournament with a million-dollar prize; by 2021 the pool was forty million. The record notes the crowdfunding stopped and the game did not.

▸ 2011peak 2019still up

▲ Fossiln.✎ 4

Duke Nukem Forever

The shooter announced in 1997 and released in June 2011, after fourteen years in which its name was the internet's shorthand for anything that would never come out. It came out. It was poor, and the record notes that the joke had been better than the game, which was known in advance by everyone including, apparently, the people who finished it.

▸ 2011peak 2011†2011