Deathmatch (abbreviated DM) is a widely-used gameplay mode very well integrated into first-person shooter computer games. The goal of a deathmatch game is to kill (or "frag") as many other players as possible until a certain condition or limit is reached, commonly being a fraglimit or timelimit. Once one of these conditions is met, the match is over, and the winner is whoever has accumulated the most frags. It is based around the idea of player spawns, and weapon/item/pickup spawns in one play session. Doom, one of the games that defined the first-person shooter genre. ... A computer game is a game composed of a computer-controlled virtual universe that players interact with in order to achieve a defined goal or set of goals. ... Frag is a computer and video game term, used in first-person shooter deathmatch. ...

The term Deathmatch has been attributed as being coined by John Romero for the game Doom. Games that had such gameplay features beforehand did not use the term. Romero with short hair Alfonso John Romero (born October 28, 1967) is a famous figure in the computer gaming industry. ... Doom (or DOOM) is a 1993 computer game by id Software that is among the landmark titles in the first-person shooter genre. ...

Some games give a different name to these types of matches — for example, slayer in Halo and combat simulator in Perfect Dark, but the underlying concepts are identical. Halos protagonist, the Master Chief. ... Perfect Dark (パーフェクト・ダーク in Japan) is a first-person shooter video game for the Nintendo 64 game console; developed and published by Rare. ...

Background

It has been suggested that in 1983, Drew Major and Kyle Powell probably played the world's first deathmatch with Snipes, a text-mode game that was later credited with being the inspiration behind Novell Netware, although multiplayer games spread across multiple screens predate that title by at least 9 years in the form of Spasim and Maze War. The term "deathmatch" was originally coined by John Romero in 1993 during the development of Doom, and later gained mainstream popularity with the Quake and Unreal Tournament series of games. 1983 (MCMLXXXIII) is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Snipes (Diminutive for Snipers) is a text-mode networked computer game that was created in 1983 by SuperSet software. ... NetWare is a network operating system developed by Novell, Inc. ... Spasim (space simulation) was a 32-player 3D networked game involving 4 planetary systems with up to 8 players per planetary system, it was released in March 1974 and is claimed to be the very first first-person shooter and a reward of US$500 is put up to anyone... Maze War (also known as The Maze Game, Maze Wars or simply Maze) was the first networked, 3D multi-user first-person shooter game. ... Romero with short hair Alfonso John Romero (born October 28, 1967) is a famous figure in the computer gaming industry. ... 1993 (MCMXCIII) is a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar and marked the Beginning of the International Decade to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination (1993-2003). ... Doom (or DOOM) is a 1993 computer game by id Software that is among the landmark titles in the first-person shooter genre. ... Zombies attacking the player. ... Unreal Tournament or UT is a popular first-person shooter computer game. ...

In a team deathmatch, the players are organised into two or more teams, with each team having its own frag-count. Friendly fire may or may not cause damage, depending on the game and the rules used — if it does, players that kill a teammate (called a team kill) usually decrease their own score and the team's score by one point; in certain games, they may also themselves be killed. The team with the highest frag-count at the end wins. Friendly fire or non-hostile fire is United States military parlance for fire from friendly forces, as opposed to fire coming from enemy forces, which is known as enemy fire. In a friendly fire incident, forces or material assets of one side are attacked and damaged in error by those... A team killer (or TKer) is a player that attacks and kills his own teammates in a multiplayer computer game. ...

Other forms of deathmatch, though not necessarily for a first person shooter, include the Super Smash Bros. series' timed multiplayer mode. Super Smash Bros. ...

Resources

• Deathmatch maps for Doom and Doom 2