Tencent’s guide to gaming lingo calls unlucky players "Africans"

World’s biggest gaming company produces a guide for parents with some questionable language

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The 122-page guidebook says that 38.1% of all mobile gamers in China are under 25 years old. (Picture: Tencent)

Published: 5:30pm, 18 Jul 2018Updated: 8:32am, 20 Sep 2019

This article originally appeared on ABACUS

Chinese kids are spending a lot of time and money playing games, leading some parents to blame the country’s biggest game company. Tencent’s answer? A digital guidebook on WeChat to educate parents about the games their children are playing.

But the guidebook contains language which is either wrong, or in one example, highly offensive.

One chapter lists out what it says are some of the most used gaming terms, so that parents can “gain more acceptance from gaming teenagers.”

For example, it explains that MMORPG means Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game, and its most popular titles include World of Warcraft and League of Legends. (League of Legends is not an MMORPG, but a MOBA: Multiplayer Online Battle Arena.)

Later, it explains “pwn” -- a term for completely defeating someone, derived from the word “own”. But that term is about a decade old at this point, and not in common use.

Those two were wrong, but no real harm was done -- unlike another term in there: The guide defines “Africans” as a word for unlucky players.

"Africans: unlucky players in a game," the circled line reads. (Picture: Tencent)