Monday 10 August 2015

Did GG start with chess?

Staying in touch with the latest slang is quite difficult for a 48 year old, but fortunately running a number of junior events has allowed me to keep up, in a limited manner. One interesting term I heard was "spamming", the meaning of which has evolved over the years. In the modern context it seams to mean "repeatedly press", as in "to reset the clock, just keep spamming the middle button".
Another term that has bled over from online gaming is "GG" which means "Good Game". On more than one occasion I heard "Checkmate. GG" being said, although it sometimes wasn't checkmate. But unlike "spamming" I had a thought that "GG" was in fact a chess term, from the early days of online gaming.
At first I thought I would have to do a great degree of research to see if "GG" did start in the chess community. Turns out that searching for "first use of GG" threw up and instant answer, which was Yes. It became a common sign off on ICC, which does make sense, as online chess was one of the first examples of online gaming. It then carried over to other multiplayer games (eg Starcraft) before entering into the vernacular. If you want to check this history out yourself, you can do so here.

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