Just like everything online, the gaming community is subject to trends and fads. The online gaming community took up the Bernie Sanders wearing mittens meme like many others, for example. However, a somewhat new trend unique to gaming is growing more and more common. That trend is replying “dead game” to a post about a game, but now some are debating on Twitter what “dead game” really means.
What confuses many is that the comment “dead game” is more often than not in response to a post about a game that is, at least to those on the outside, very much alive. The comment is usually directed at games that still have player counts in the millions like Among Us, Fortnite, Apex Legends, and Fall Guys. So the discussion began, to the point where “dead game” became a trending topic on Twitter today.
What sparked the discussion seems to be a series of posts from Fortnite about fan-favorite character Drift, creating a cryptic message that led to a lot of replies of “dead game” in the comments. The phrase then began to trend independently, which led to posts from Twitter users like SikeJayyKayy pointing out popular targets getting over 1,000 likes. If one was to search “dead game” on Twitter, they would find countless others like it.
Many took offense with people calling games like Overwatch, which is still an active esport, a dead game. The general consensus seems to be that a person who comments “dead game” only does so because they no longer like to play the game for whatever reason, or they know that enough other people feel that way so it will get a lot of likes. It is much more of a popularity contest than anything it seems, according to Twitter user _rookV2.
This also spawned a discussion about which games should actually be considered “dead.” There were many suggestions, based on criteria such as whether the developer still releases new content for it, or whether there are enough players to have full online matches. One generally agreed upon definition of a "dead game" came to be live-service titles that have been shut down, like Epic Games’ MOBA Paragon and the 4v1 monster game Evolve.
While a bit of a silly trend, this kind of negativity in online gaming communities can really bring both developers and fans down. Thankfully, there seems to be a lot of people calling out the trend, so hopefully people online claiming popular and beloved games are “dead” will eventually pass.