Games
Discover facts about games. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
Games
Roulette balls have a surprising casino name
Dealers do not just call it a tiny white sphere. In official casino terminology, the object bouncing around and crushing your dreams is called a 'pill', which…
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Your Xbox once whispered Apollo transmissions
If you leave the green glowing dashboard idle long enough, the console subtly plays garbled transmission audio from the actual Apollo moon missions. It…
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Cleaning raw sewage out of a beautiful digital city
You spent hours crafting the perfect metropolis, only to realize you placed the water pump downstream from the drain pipe. Cities: Skylines perfectly…
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Microsoft nearly gave away the original Xbox
Executives seriously debated handing out the incredibly bulky hardware for absolute zero dollars, desperately hoping to recoup costs through software alone.…
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Why tomb raiding ends with dinosaur gunfights
Exploring lost tombs for priceless artifacts eventually requires you to inexplicably fight a massive prehistoric lizard. Trapped in a tiny cavern, you must…
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High sugar intake directly impairs hand-eye coordination
Sugar jitters are the enemy of microscopic precision. Spiking your blood glucose causes involuntary micro-tremors in your extremities, ensuring you will miss…
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When South Park turned MMO grinding into reality
Art imitates life, especially the pathetic parts. In a famous South Park episode, the boys spend weeks killing low-level boars in World of Warcraft just to…
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Lara Croft’s mansion started as a real office
When you need a sprawling aristocratic estate, just look out the window. The original team literally mapped out their own corporate headquarters in Derby,…
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Obama was gifted The Witcher 2—and never played it
Nothing projects international prestige quite like handing a sitting US President a gritty fantasy RPG famous for copious amounts of digital nudity and…
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Tag-team wrestling began as a way to catch your breath
The chaotic spectacle of four people brawling in the same ring wasn't an ingenious creative breakthrough. It was implemented specifically because lengthy solo…
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Protective collection sleeves are manufactured from plastic
Wrapping paper in indestructible synthetic film to preserve its value. The obsessive need to keep cardboard pristine means millions of barrels of crude oil…
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Why esports referees watch players from behind
The peak of competitive integrity is a guy in a striped shirt staring intensely at a monitor. To prevent unauthorized communication or macro abuse, designated…
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Elden Ring was successfully beaten using a dance pad mat
Because dodging massive, aggressively fast dragons with a standard controller is apparently entirely too easy. Some absolute madman decided to map the…
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In Liar’s Dice, confidence beats certainty
You roll in secret and then confidently lie to everyone's face about how many threes are on the table. The winner is simply the person most adept at…
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Caloric burn increases slightly from an elevated pulse
A very pathetic excuse for skipping the gym. While your stressed heart does burn a marginal amount of extra calories, it is immediately offset by the stagnant…
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Pac-Man swallowed billions of quarters
Who needs a functioning economy when you can just rob teenagers twenty-five cents at a time? By the early eighties, this single maze game had raked in a…
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Why two jacks are called one-eyed
Look closely at your deck next time you play. Due to the strict profile angle drawn by ancient illustrators, these two royals only reveal half their face,…
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The toxic moon dust behind Portal 2's portals
In order to place portals literally anywhere, the eccentric billionaire character grinds up incredibly poisonous lunar material. It is a brilliantly unhinged…
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Nintendo Game Boy relied on a heavily blurred green screen
The original monolithic handheld completely lacked a backlight and routinely smeared fast-moving objects into an unrecognizable smudge. Despite forcing a…
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How Nintendo tried to ban game rentals
Horrified by the concept of people playing their products without permanently buying them, the corporate giant tried to legally annihilate the rental…
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Hardware cursors bypass the game engine to reduce input lag
Letting an engine draw a virtual mouse pointer adds agonizing milliseconds of delay to your movements. Hardware cursors bypass the software rendering pipeline…
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Some orchestras record scores on the first try
Why practice when you can just stress out dozens of highly paid musicians at once? Due to restrictive budgets and tight schedules, professional orchestras…
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Leave Sonic idle and he gets impatient
Extreme speed is clearly linked to severe impatience. Take your hands off the controls for a few seconds, and this heroic blue blur will break the fourth…
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Stardew Valley farmers never require actual sleep
Passing out at 2:00 AM is just a minor inconvenience for agricultural tycoons. You can toil endlessly in the mines and collapse on the dirt, only to wake up…
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