Fortnite esports glossary

AdvanceClass – Esports educational videos for improving gameplay published by AdvanceClub.

AdvanceClub – A Silicon Valley company providing educational videos and gameplay updates for a monthly subscription fee.

AS, BR, ME, NAE, NAW, OCE – Abbreviations for Fortnite regions (see Regions).

Battle Royale – An online multiplayer last man-standing gaming genre. Fortnite has multiple game modes, with “Fortnite Battle Royale” being the competitive esports mode. Within the competitive Fortnite Battle Royale community, the term “Fortnite” refers to the Battle Royale game mode.

Bootcamp – Players coming together at a physical location to practise their gameplay, play competitively as solo players and as a team, as well as socialising together. Bootcamps often take place before larger LAN events.

Brand – A brand is a product manufactured or sold by a company under a particular name.

BYOC – Bring Your Own Computer - A LAN event where you bring your own PC, monitor and peripherals. At larger BYOC events it is often possible to rent equipment.

Cash cup – Online tournaments within Fortnite Battle Royale where top placing players receive cash prizes. This is opposed to tournaments where top prizes are things like cosmetic items (skins in Fortnite) or clout (mentions on social media).

Chat – A window on a stream where one can type messages visible for the player and all other viewers and engage in conversations. This includes the use of emotes and commands. Streamers some times use the phrase "the chat" to designate all the viewers writing in the chat window or all that has been written during a stream. For instance, after streams, MrSavage has sometimes used phrases like “the chat was good today” or the more occasional “the chat didn’t behave well”.

Chatbot – Third party tools that add functionality like tailored commands, scheduled messages, automatic greeting of new viewers etc. to a Twitch chat window.

ClubNow – AdvanceClub’s video series with monthly updates from their instructors.

Command or Twitch Command – A text entered in the chat on a specific format that invokes an action on the stream platform, most often resulting in an automated reply visible in the chat. For example, "/mods" displays a list of all moderators in a Twitch channel. Chatbots offer the opportunity to add tailored commands and messages.

Content creator – Someone who creates appealing videos, whether it is live, or edited and then published. In a broader sense this is someone who creates and publishes a variety of audio, video, photographic and written content.

Content Castle – The name of NRG Esports’ space in Los Angeles containing a variety of rooms and installations to use for their content creators, influencers and esports players, like a “rage room” stylised as the Oval Office.

Content house – (See Team house).

Console – Device made specifically for gaming as opposed to more general-purpose devices like smartphones and personal computers.

Cooler Esports – A European esports organisation with headquarters in London, UK. Cooler closed their operations in April 2021 due to financial reasons.

Custom games – Invite only games often used for competitive practice.

Discord – Discord is a group-chatting platform, originally built for gamers. Players use Discord to voice and video chat, as well as live stream games and other programs.

Drop spot or landing spot – The location where a player lands at the start of a Fortnite Battle Royale game. Some locations are more favourable than others, offering a higher chance of loot. Popular drop spots can be contested by other players, and the selection and practice of landings are an essential element of the Fortnite “early game”.

Early game – The first part of a game, which in Fortnite Battle Royale corresponds to a player’s landing, building up material, finding loot and fighting off any contestant on their drop spot.

Emote – Graphic symbols that viewers and streamers use to express feelings in a chat similar to emojis (and not emoticons, which are displayed as a sequence of text characters, e.g. ;-) and x-D). To try out an emote yourself, head over to MrSavage's stream (twitch.tv/mrsavage) and type e.g. ":mrsavaHi" in the chat's Send a message field.

End game or Late game – In Fortnite Battle Royale this refers to the last few minutes of the game, and more specifically the time from around the fifth zone (storm circle) until the game is finished.

Epic Games, Inc – The company that develops and publishes Fortnite.

Facecam – Short for “face camera”, i.e. a video camera focusing on the player's face.

FaZe Clan – An esports and entertainment organisation with headquarters in Los Angeles, United States.

Flank – Attacking an enemy from one or more sides.

Fnatic – A European esports organisation with headquarters in London, UK.

FNCS – An abbreviation of Fortnite Champion Series, an online tournament series organised by Epic Games.

Graphic card – A computer hardware component providing high performance video to monitor screens.

Griefing – Playing with intent to disrupt another player or team in-game rather than playing for one’s own best interest.

Grinding – Performing repetitive tasks, like playing many games in Fortnite Battle Royale to gain experience points (XP) and advance in levels. Grinding in Fortnite often means the same as practising.

Hearing loss – A person has hearing loss if not able to hear low whispering or leaves rustling, which corresponds to a measurement of about 20 dB according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).

Independent sponsorship – A funding of a player from a brand or company which is not the player's esport organisation, thus independent of the organisation. The term 'personal sponsorship' is often used interchangeably.

Influencer – An individual with enough followers or engagement on digital channels like Instagram, Twitter etc. to be able to inspire or guide the attention and actions of others.

IRL – An abbreviation of the term “in real life”, as opposed to being online.

KBM cam – Short for "Keyboard mouse camera", i.e. a camera displaying the player's keyboard and mouse.

Keybinds – The association of a key on a keyboard or mouse to a function in your game, like W, A, S and D for moving your ingame character up, left, down and right.

LAN – A “LAN event”, “LAN tournament”, “LAN party” or simply “LAN” is a gathering of players at the same physical location where a Local Area Network (LAN) is used to connect the gaming devices, as opposed to connecting over the internet.

Lag or laggy – Slower response than expected from your game, computer or network.

Late game – (See End game)

Loot – Objects in Fortnite Battle Royale like ammunition, weapons and shield potions.

Mechanical skills – Skills related to the ability to quickly and precisely control devices like keyboard and mouse. These are physical skills in contrast to other types such as game sense, awareness and positioning.

Mechs – Two-player robots present in Fortnite season 10 (“Season X”, August to October 2019). The robots acted like a vehicle, with one player controlling movement and the other weapons.

Meta – Literally means “about” or “beyond”, and in gaming translates to information about the game and the most effective tactics available based on the current items and rules in the game.

Mid game – In Fortnite Battle Royale this corresponds to the part of the game between surviving and leaving the drop spot and the late game.

MMB – An abbreviation of the popular Fortnite trio that consisted of the players Mongraal, Mitr0 and benjyfishy who played together in FNCS Season X, 2019.

Mod – An abbreviation of moderator. In streaming this is someone that ensures that the stream chat meets content standards by removing offensive posts and spam.

Motherboard – The main hardware component of computers containing parts like the central processing unit (CPU), randomaccess memory (RAM) and connectors for peripheral devices.

NA – An abbreviation of North America.

NGL – An abbreviation of the phrase “not going to lie”.

NRG – A professional esports organisation based in Los Angeles, California, United States. “NRG” is to be pronounced “eNeRGy”. See nrg.gg for more information.

Org – An abbreviation for esports organisation. Other words often used are 'team' or 'clan'.

Over the top content – Content going beyond what is expected, like a short video film with an unexpected and fun ending.

Pro-am or ProAm – An event involving both professionals (“pro”) and amateurs (“am”).

Promotional activities – Efforts made to communicate a product, brand or service of a company to increase sales. Efforts can be made through marketing or advertising. In esports, efforts can be made indirectly by creating content through live streams or videos of gameplay, on which ads can be placed.

Regions or Fortnite regions – The Fortnite regions include Asia (AS), Brazil (BR), Europe (EU), Middle East (ME), North America East (NAE), North America West (NAW) and Oceania (OCE).

ROCCAT – A German brand and computer peripherals manufacturer bought by Turtle Beach Corporation in 2019.

Rotate or rotations – Moving between points of interest on the map in-game. Good rotations in Fortnite Battle Royale typically involves tactical elements like avoiding (or engaging) enemy players, gathering as much loot and material as possible and ending up in a good position for the late game.

Scrim – Practice games against several players or teams. The word is derived from “scrimmage”.

SDI – Serial Digital Interface is a standard for digital video transmission over cable for broadcast-grade video.

Shoutcasting – Live commenting of games to entertain and inform the viewers.

Sniping – In Fortnite this is to shoot another player accurately at a long range with a rifle, typically from a place where the shooter cannot be seen by the other player.

Solary – An esports organisation based in Tours, France.

Support-A-Creator Code or Creator Code – Epic Games’ Support-A-Creator program is a way for fans to support their favourite player or creator by entering the player’s code or tag when they make a purchase in the in-game shops.

STEM – Short for Science, Technology Engineering and Mathematics.

Streamer – A person broadcasting live on an online platform like Twitch or YouTube Live. Examples of stream categories on Twitch are “Just Chatting”, “Valorant” (a video game), “Travel & Outdoors” with “Fortnite” being one of the largest.

Streamlabs – A company delivering software for live broadcasting and streaming. The software is named “Streamlabs Desktop”.

Squad – A team in Fortnite Battle Royale consisting of four players (see Team modes).

Team, gaming or content house – An esports organisation’s facility for their various player teams and/or employees. An example is the “Cash App Compound”, which is 100 Thieves’ 15,000 square feet (1400 m²) headquarters in Los Angeles, United States, with spaces for esports training, streaming, content production and more.

Team modes – In Fortnite Battle Royale, this corresponds to player team sizes, which are solo, duo, trio and squad, consisting of one, two, three and four players, respectively.

Turbo building – A feature in Fortnite allowing players to build and place structures repeatedly while holding down a button rather than rapidly clicking.

Turtle Beach Corporation – A global gaming accessory company with headquarters in San Diego, USA. Owner of the ROCCAT brand.

Twitch – A live streaming platform and the most popular place for players to share their live gameplay with others. These players, often called streamers, manage to engage the viewers as well as creating a space for friends and fans to meet and interact through the chat. Moderators help players by deleting any inappropriate messages that may appear during their stream.

Victory Royale – The last solo, duo, trio or squad team alive in Fortnite Battle Royale during a game.

Vlog – Video log or video blog, i.e. videos about personal experiences and situations. Gaming vlogs typically do not show much gameplay but more of experiences outside of gaming, like what happens behind the scenes during LAN events or competitions.

VOD reviews – Analysing a game based on replaying game recordings to learn from mistakes and more. Game recordings are named VODs (video-on-demand). The built-in replay system in Fortnite allows for viewing gameplay for any player from any angle.

Washed – In gaming, this is a derogatory reference to a player not being so skilful, popular or successful in the game as they used to be.

Zone or safe zone – The zone is the safe area within the eye of the storm inside a Fortnite Battle Royale gameplay. Any player outside the zone takes damage from the storm. The zone is circular and shrinks and moves during gameplay.

100 Thieves – A lifestyle, gaming and esports organisation based in Los Angeles, California. Often abbreviated to “100T”.

200IQ – In gaming, this is an informal reference to a player’s high intelligence, strategy and analytical skills. Martin "MrSavage" Foss Andersen earned a reputation among his fans as having a 200IQ early in his career and subsequently changed his Support-A-Creator Code from “MrSavageM” to “200IQ”.

Here is some html code in case you want to include a reference to a term from your web page, like “Victory Royale”:

<a href="https://deeperdown.com/fortnite-esports-glossary/#victory-royale" Victory Royale</a>

The hashtag (#) for a word in the glossary is the term itself, like #200IQ or #washed. If the term consists of several words, replace spaces with hyphens (-), like #cash-cup or #victory-royale. If there are synonym terms like “Drop spot or landing spot” use the first term, i.e., #drop-spot.

This Fortnite esports glossary originally appeared in the book Build It Like benjyfishy and MrSavage written by Anne Fish and me. The glossary will be updated as time goes by and act as a reference for terms used in my blog articles. One of my purposes for blogging is to explore and clear my thoughts around subjects. Clear thoughts rest on well-defined terms and I really enjoy writing these definitions. Let me know if you have ideas for terms to include - or other suggestions. Leave a reply to this Tweet or check here for other alternatives to connect with me.