Video Game Logic

About

Video Game Logic is an expression used to highlight absurd plot lines, mechanics and glitches that are found in video games.

Origin

The earliest known use of the phrase "video game logic" comes from a review on the Internet humor site Something Awful^[11] for the 1986 Macintosh computer game Dark Castle, which complained about the game's attempt to justify instant death upon touching an enemy.

"Okay, you made it so touching the enemies causes instant death. That's pretty stupid, but as a mature adult I can deal with it. There's no need to insult us both by attempting to rationalize your insane video game logic with some bullshit plague excuse."

Spread

On April 12th, 2007, Yahoo! Voices^[1] published an article titled “Applying Video Game Logic to Real Life,” in which the author hypothetically explores applications of strange video game mechanics in real life. On November 8th, 2009, Urban Dictionary^[12] user DonPianta submitted an entry for "Nintendo Logic," defining the term as the impossible physics found in Nintendo. On November 21st, the "Video Game Logic" YouTube channel was created to highlight and expose glitches in video games (shown below).

On December 28th, 2010, the Internet humor blog Cracked^[6] published a slideshow titled “If the Real World Operated on Video Game Logic,” featuring a set of photoshopped images that combine real-life subjects and user-interface designs in video games (shown below, left) On December 14th, FunnyJunk^[7] user Zizzerman submitted a comic titled "Video Game Logic," which illustrated a video game transaction for a sword costing five million coins (shown below, right). Within the first three years, the post garnered more than 53,000 views and 1,400 up votes.

On April 27th, 2012, Redditor Tackett79 submitted an image macro titled "Video Game Logic" to the /r/gaming^[9] subreddit, which consisted of an illustration of Bowser from the Super Mario franchise with the caption "Boss gets weaker / his attacks get stronger" (shown below, left). Prior to being archived, the post accumulated over 5,100 likes and 240 comments. On May 19th, Redditor pearson530 posted a rage comic to the f7u12^[10] subreddit mocking the lock mechanisms and enemy placement in fighting games (shown below, right), which received more than 4,100 up votes and 75 comments before it was archived.

On July 31st, a Facebook^[5] page titled “Video Game Logic” was launched. On January 19th, 2013, the Internet humor site The Chive^[4] highlighted 44 notable video game logic image macros. On March 22nd, the Internet humor blog Smosh^[3] posted another compilation featuring many of the same examples.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References