A video game clone is either a video game or a video game console very similar to, or heavily inspired by, a previous popular game or console. Clones are typically made to take financial advantage of the popularity of the cloned game or system, but clones may also result from earnest attempts to create homages or expand on game mechanics from the original game. An additional motivation unique to the medium of games as software with limited compatibility, is the desire to port a simulacrum of a game to platforms that the original is unavailable for or unsatisfactorily implemented on.
Gaymer and gay gamer are umbrella terms used to refer to the group of people who are identified as homosexual and have an active interest in video games or tabletop games, also known as gamers. Lesbian, bisexual, and transgender gamers are often categorized under this term.
Riot Games, Inc. is an American video game developer, publisher, and esports tournament organizer based in Los Angeles, California. It was founded in September 2006 by Brandon Beck and Marc Merrill to develop League of Legends and went on to develop several spin-off games and the unrelated first-person shooter game Valorant. In 2011, Riot Games was acquired by Chinese conglomerate Tencent. Riot Games' publishing arm, Riot Forge, oversees the production of League of Legends spin-offs by other developers. The company worked with Fortiche to release Arcane, a television series based on the League of Legends universe.
A Let's Play (LP) is a video documenting the playthrough of a video game, often including commentary and/or a camera view of the gamer's face. A Let's Play differs from a video game walkthrough or strategy guide by focusing on an individual's subjective experience with the game, often with humorous, irreverent, or critical commentary from the player, rather than being an objective source of information on how to progress through the game. While Let's Plays and live streaming of game playthroughs are related, Let's Plays tend to be curated experiences that include editing and narration, and can be scripted, while streaming is often an unedited experience performed on the fly.
John Peter Bain, better known as TotalBiscuit, was an English video gaming commentator and game critic on YouTube. He was known for his role in professional shoutcasting and esports, and also known for his gaming commentary audio work on WCradio.com. According to Eurogamer, he gained a large following due to his video commentary on newly developed indie games and analysis of gaming news. Bain voiced strong support for consumer protection in the video gaming industry. In October 2015, Bain announced that he had terminal cancer that had spread to his liver. He continued to critique games after the diagnosis, announcing his retirement only a few weeks before his death in May 2018.
The fighting game community, often abbreviated to FGC, is a collective of video gamers who play fighting games such as Marvel vs. Capcom, Mortal Kombat, Soulcalibur, Street Fighter, Guilty Gear, The King of Fighters, Blazblue, Super Smash Bros., Tekken, Mobile Suit Gundam: Extreme Vs., Dead or Alive, Samurai Shodown, Shadow Fight 2 and many others. The fighting game community started out small in the late 1990s and throughout the 2000s referred to as the grassroots era, but it has grown to a larger scale in the 2010s, with many tournaments being held around the world. This is predominantly due to the rise of esports, online gaming, and digitized viewing habits on live streaming sites such as Twitch.
Hans Eli Sebastian Fors, known by the pseudonym Forsen, is a Swedish Twitch streamer who initially gained popularity for having competed in StarCraft II, but is best known for competing in Hearthstone and for streaming a variety of popular games. He is also known for his rowdy fanbase, who call themselves "Forsen Boys" or "Forsen Bajs" and have had a hand in popularizing a number of Internet memes. Since December 2018, Forsen has had over one million followers on Twitch, and as of May 2023, has more than 1.7 million followers.
Richard Lewis is an British esports journalist and livestream commentator from Wales. Having written technology articles for The Daily Dot, Breitbart News, and Cadred, he is best known as an esports journalist and as a former desk host of ELEAGUE.
h3h3Productions is a YouTube channel created and hosted by Ethan and Hila Klein, an American-Israeli husband-and-wife duo. Their content consists of reaction videos and sketch comedy in which they satirize internet culture. The H3 Podcast is their podcast channel that has been running since 2017 with the h3h3Productions now defunct.
Hila Klein is an Israeli-American fashion designer, businesswoman and YouTuber. She is the founder and owner of American streetwear brand Teddy Fresh. Klein is also known for co-creating h3h3Productions and the H3 Podcast with her husband Ethan Klein.
The live streaming of video games is an activity where people broadcast themselves playing games to a live audience online. The practice became popular in the mid-2010s on the US-based site Twitch, before growing to YouTube, Facebook, China-based sites Huya Live, DouYu, and Bilibili, and other services. By 2014, Twitch streams had more traffic than HBO's online streaming service, HBO Go. Professional streamers often combine high-level play and entertaining commentary, and earn income from sponsors, subscriptions, ad revenue, and donations.
Félix Lengyel, better known as xQc, is a Canadian online streamer and former professional Overwatch player.
Jason Gastrow, known online as videogamedunkey or simply dunkey, is an American YouTuber known for his YouTube skits and video essays that blend crude humor with video game criticism. As of March 2023, Gastrow's YouTube channel has seven million subscribers, and he has accumulated over three billion views.
Shanghai Moonton Technology Co. Ltd., commonly known as Moonton, is a Chinese multinational video game developer and publisher owned by the Nuverse subsidiary of ByteDance and based in Shanghai, China. It is best known for the mobile multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game Mobile Legends: Bang Bang released in July 2016.
Ludwig Anders Ahgren, known mononymously as Ludwig, is an American live streamer, YouTuber, podcaster, comedian, esports commentator, and competitor. Ahgren is best known for his live streams on Twitch from 2018 through late 2021, and on YouTube beginning in late 2021, where he broadcasts video-game-related content as well as non-video-game-related content such as game shows and contests. He is also known for his work as an esports commentator at various Super Smash Bros. Melee tournaments. He is the co-owner of the esports organization Moist Esports. He began streaming full-time on February 16, 2019.
Capcom U.S.A. Inc. v. Data East Corp., 1994 WL 1751482 was a 1994 legal case related to the copyright of video games, where Capcom alleged that Data East's game Fighter's History infringed the copyright of Capcom's game Street Fighter II. It was revealed that the design documents for Fighter's History contained several references to Street Fighter II, leading Capcom to sue Data East for damages, as well as a preliminary injunction to stop the distribution of the infringing game. In spite of the intentional similarities between the two games, the court concluded that Data East did not infringe upon Capcom's copyright, as most of these similarities were not protected under copyright. Judge William H. Orrick Jr. applied a legal principle known as the merger doctrine, where courts will not grant copyright protection where it would effectively give someone a monopoly over an idea.
Crab Game is a free-to-play video game developed and published by Norwegian indie developer Daniel Sooman, also known as Dani. The game was released for Linux and macOS on Itch.io and for Windows on Steam on 29 October 2021; the Linux and macOS editions were later released on Steam on 16 November. Based on the Netflix series Squid Game, players compete with each other in minigames in order to be the last one alive.
Maximillian Miles Christensen, best known under the alias Maximilian Dood, is an American YouTuber and Twitch streamer. Considered a prominent figure in the fighting game community, Christensen primarily makes video content on various fighting games, such as Street Fighter,Mortal Kombat and Killer Instinct. He is also known for his grassroots efforts to organize fighting game tournaments along with his campaigns to revive various fighting game series.
Overwatch is a multimedia franchise centered on a series of online multiplayer first-person shooter (FPS) video games developed by Blizzard Entertainment: Overwatch was released in 2016, and Overwatch 2 was released in 2022. Both games feature hero-based combat between two teams of players vying over various objectives, along with other traditional gameplay modes. With the launch of Overwatch 2, the roster of selectable heroes has grown to 39.
Eric Morino, better known as PointCrow, is an American YouTuber and Twitch streamer. He is known for online content surrounding video games—most notably The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom—and other real life productions. He has completed several challenges based around Breath of the Wild, and has received media attention for offering a US$10,000 bounty to whoever created a mod that allowed the game to be played in online multiplayer. The mod was released on April 4, 2023, and some of Morino's videos making use of it were issued YouTube copyright strikes by Nintendo shortly after.
