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The games industry is known for deploying often confusing and unclear \u2018tech-speak\u2019 terminology to convey the supposed value of new gaming hardware, drawing on tropes of numerical objectivity, \u2018upgrade culture\u2019 and the implicit obsolescence of previous technological iterations. However, we show a divide between supposedly objective tech-speak penned by the industry and the subjective experiences of users. Gamers rarely understand their gaming hardware through these marketing and advertising discourses despite their high visibility, instead framing the technology they engage with in intimately tactile, and more broadly contextual, terms. This highlights a significant disjuncture between the industrial and their perception of their audience, with implications for our understanding of \u2018tech-speak\u2019, its limitations, the video games sector and the consumers who purchase its products.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1177\/1461444819880155","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2019,10,17]],"date-time":"2019-10-17T05:56:18Z","timestamp":1571291778000},"page":"1462-1483","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1177\/sage-journals-update-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":2,"title":["How do players understand video game hardware: Tactility or tech-speak?"],"prefix":"10.1177","volume":"22","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-8465-8325","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Yinyi","family":"Luo","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"University of Leeds, UK"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Mark Richard","family":"Johnson","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"University of Alberta, Canada"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"179","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2019,10,17]]},"reference":[{"key":"bibr1-1461444819880155","volume-title":"Dialectic of Enlightenment","author":"Adorno T","year":"1944"},{"key":"bibr2-1461444819880155","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.16997\/wpcc.145"},{"key":"bibr3-1461444819880155","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1177\/1555412015616509"},{"key":"bibr4-1461444819880155","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.7551\/mitpress\/9787.001.0001"},{"key":"bibr5-1461444819880155","unstructured":"Ashcraft B (2010) Why are consoles banned in China? 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