Quickscoping

About

Quickscoping is a technique used in multiplayer first-person shooter video games to quickly kill an opponent with a sniper rifle by centering them on the screen and firing immediately after zooming in with the gun’s scope.

Origin

The earliest known use of the term was submitted to Urban Dictionary^[1] by user Kevinsss on August 6th, 2007, describing it as a technique used in games like Counter-Strike to kill an opponent with a sniper rifle at the same time the zoom feature is used.

Spread

In November 2007, technique was further popularized with the release of the game Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. On August 10th, a how-to article for quickscoping in Call of Duty was submitted to the site Wiki How.^[6]

On November 22nd, Call of Duty Forums^[4] member deadopoerator submitted a thread titled “Why You Can’t Quickscope in Real Life,” which argued that real sniper rifles are too heavy to perform the technique effectively and are not guaranteed to kill an enemy in one hit. On November 13th, 2012, YouTuber 9Lives uploaded a tutorial video on quickscoping in Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, which accumulated upwards of 500,000 views and 1,300 comments in the next two years (shown below).

On May 5th, 2014, Redditor MoistCludderduck released a first-person shooter game parodying MLG montage videos titled Quickscope Simulator, in which the player kills approaching enemies by quickscoping with a sniper rifle.^[5] On June 23rd, Broarmy Forums^[3] member MKeRix posted a download link to Quickscope Simulator and two days later YouTuber PewDiePie uploaded a video of himself playing the game.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References