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Game design document
A game design document (GDD) is a game's internal design record: vision, pillars, core loop, mechanics, scope, and decision log. Modern practice favors living wiki-style GDDs over the old hundred-page design bible.
Game Developers Choice Awards
Game Developers Choice Awards (GDCA), annual peer-voted game awards at GDC in San Francisco since 2001; winners chosen by the ICAN developer jury. Latest GOTY: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (2026); Balatro won 2025.
Game Developers Conference
Game Developers Conference (GDC), now GDC Festival of Gaming, is the annual professional game industry conference at the Moscone Center, San Francisco. Founded by Chris Crawford in his living room in April 1988; about 30,000 visitors in 2026.
Game development as a profession
Game development as a profession covers work at AAA studios, small indie teams, and contract roles, with education ranging from a high school diploma to a bachelor's degree.
Game engine
Game engine: software platform providing rendering, input, audio, and tools for building video games. Term coined with id Software's DOOM (1993); today Unity, Unreal Engine, and MIT-licensed Godot dominate, with differing licensing models.
Game Freak (ゲームフリーク)
Game Freak (株式会社ゲームフリーク) is the independent Tokyo studio founded by Satoshi Tajiri and Ken Sugimori in 1989 that develops the mainline Pokémon games and co-owns the franchise with Nintendo and Creatures.
Game Genie
Game Genie: pass-through cheat cartridge invented by Codemasters, made by Camerica, sold by Galoob from 1990 for NES, SNES, Genesis, Game Boy, and Game Gear; intercepts cartridge ROM reads to substitute code bytes; survived Nintendo's $15 million copyright suit.
Game Grumps
Game Grumps is an American comedy Let's Play YouTube webseries created in July 2012 by Jon Jafari and Arin Hanson; since June 2013 hosted by Hanson and Dan Avidan of Ninja Sex Party, with spin-offs, Starbomb, and live shows.
Game jam
Game jam: timed event where teams build games around a theme, from the Indie Game Jam (2002). Ludum Dare and Global Game Jam (39,197 jammers, 9,874 games in 2026) are major examples.
Game mechanics
Game mechanics: the rules, processes, and data governing how actions change a game's state; also called gameplay rules or game verbs. Defined variously as agent-invoked methods (Sicart), simulation state rules, and the M in the 2004 MDA framework.
Game of Death (死亡的游戏)
Game of Death (死亡遊戲) is Bruce Lee's unfinished 1972 martial arts film, completed in 1978 by Robert Clouse with stand-ins after Lee's 1973 death; only about 11 minutes of Lee's footage were used, and the yellow-jumpsuit pagoda climax became iconic.
Game of the Generals
Game of the Generals, or Salpakan, is a Philippine hidden-rank strategy board game invented by Sofronio H. Pasola Jr., introduced publicly in 1973, played on a 72-square board with 21 concealed pieces and a neutral arbiter.
Game of the Three Kingdoms (三国棋)
Game of the Three Kingdoms (三國棋, San-kwo-k'i) is a historical Chinese three-player xiangqi variant for Wei, Shu, and Wu on a hexagonal board, documented by Murray (1913) from von Möllendorff (1876), distinct from modern Three Kingdoms auto-battler apps.
Game of Thrones (2014 video game)
Game of Thrones: A Telltale Games Series, a 2014-2015 six-episode graphic adventure by Telltale Games with HBO, following original House Forrester from the Red Wedding to season five, with Dinklage, Headey, Dormer, and Rheon reprising roles.
Game of Thrones: Dragonfire
Game of Thrones: Dragonfire (GoT Dragonfire) is a free-to-play mobile 4X strategy game by Warner Bros. Games Boston, launched June 2, 2026, set in the Targaryen Civil War of House of the Dragon, with 28 dragons, tile warfare, and seasonal Reigns.
Game of Thrones: Kingsroad
Game of Thrones: Kingsroad is a free-to-play action-adventure RPG by Netmarble, licensed by Warner Bros. for HBO, released May 21, 2025 on PC and mobile; set in Season 4 Westeros, criticized for mobile-style monetization, Metascore 57.
Game over
Game over is the end-of-game message and the name of several works: Dinamic's 1986 run and gun, the 2025 Australian indie Game Over – A Musical RPG??, a Peytevin memory board game, an unreleased 226GameStudio Steam title, and the Game Over Online review site.
Game Science (游戏科学)
Game Science (游戏科学, 深圳市游科互动科技有限公司), Chinese studio founded June 2014 by ex-Tencent 斗战神 developers Feng Ji and Yang Qi; developer of Black Myth: Wukong (UE5, 2024), the record-selling Chinese buy-to-play game, with Hero and Tencent investment.
Game server
Game server: a program or machine hosting a multiplayer game session, holding the authoritative game state. Includes dedicated headless servers, listen servers, P2P comparison, cloud hosting (Amazon GameLift), replication, and latency compensation.
Game testing
Game testing (video game QA) evaluates games for bugs, localization, compliance, compatibility, accessibility, and balance; it relies mainly on manual playtesting, with automation research growing and QA labor unionizing.
Game to lose
Game to Lose, or Nine Card Don, is a three-player card game from the West Midlands of England, played as the reverse of Chase the Nine.
Game Workers Unite
Game Workers Unite (GWU) is a decentralized international grassroots network of video game workers founded in 2018 after an IGDA GDC roundtable confrontation, promoting unionization through Discord-based chapters, zines, and direct action; successor bodies include IWGB Game Workers and United Videogame Workers-CWA.
Game.com
Game.com, also known as Tiger game.com, is a handheld game console released by Tiger Electronics in 1997 to compete with Nintendo's Game Boy; it was the first touchscreen console.
Gamebryo
Gamebryo (NetImmerse until 2003) is a licensed 3D game engine from NDL, later Emergent Game Technologies, used in Oblivion, Fallout 3, New Vegas, and Civilization IV; acquired by Gamebase in 2010.
GameCube (ニンテンドーゲームキューブ)
GameCube (ニンテンドーゲームキューブ) is Nintendo's 2001 sixth-generation home console with IBM Gekko CPU, ATI Flipper GPU, and 1.5 GB miniDVD discs; it sold 21.74 million units, behind PS2 (160M+) and Xbox (24M).
GameCube controller
GameCube controller: Nintendo's 2001 gamepad for the GameCube, with asymmetric face buttons, C Stick, and analog L/R triggers with digital clicks; used via adapters on Wii U, Switch, and Switch 2, and standard in competitive Super Smash Bros. Melee.
Gameloft
Gameloft: French video game developer and publisher founded in 2000, known for the Asphalt, Dungeon Hunter, Modern Combat, and Disney Magic Kingdoms franchises; wholly owned by Vivendi since its 2016 acquisition for €621 million, now shifting from mobile toward PC and consoles.
GameMaker
GameMaker is a cross-platform 2D game development engine created in 1999 by Marc Overmars and developed by YoYo Games; it powers games like Undertale and Hotline Miami.
Gamemaster
Gamemaster (GM), or Dungeon Master in D&D: the tabletop RPG participant who prepares the world, narrates outcomes, runs non-player characters, and adjudicates rules. Descends from wargame referees; term predates D&D's 1974 trademarked "Dungeon Master".
Gameplay
Gameplay is the activity and experience of playing a game, arising from how a game's rules interact with the player's goal pursuit, skill, and strategies.