The term "roguelike" came from Usenet newsgroups around 1993, as this was the principal channel the players of roguelike games of that period were using to discuss these games, as well as what the developers used to announce new releases and even distribute the game's source code in some cases. With several individual groups for each game, it was suggested that with rising popularity of Rogue, Hack, Moria, and Angband, all of which shared common elements, that the groups be consolidated under an umbrella term to facilitate cross-game discussion. Debate among users of these groups ensued to try to find an encapsulating term that described the common elements, starting with rec.games.dungeon.*, but after three weeks of discussion, rec.games.roguelike.*, based on Rogue, which was at the time considered to be the oldest of these types of games, was picked as "the least of all available evils". By the time it was suggested that a group be created to discuss the development of these kind of games in 1998, the "roguelike" term was already established within the community. This usage parallels that of "Doom clone", a term used in 1990s that later evolved into more generic "first-person shooter".
the term "roguelike" came from usenet newsgroups around 1993 as this was the principal channel the players of roguelike games of that period were using to discuss these games as well as what the developers used to announce new releases and even distribute the game's source code in some cases with several individual groups for each game it was suggested that with rising popularity of rogue hack moria and angband all of which shared common elements that the groups be consolidated under an umbrella term to facilitate cross-game discussion debate among users of these groups ensued to try to find an encapsulating term that described the common elements starting with recgamesdungeon* but after three weeks of discussion recgamesroguelike* based on rogue which was at the time considered to be the oldest of these types of games was picked as "the least of all available evils" by the time it was suggested that a group be created to discuss the development of these kind of games in 1998 the "roguelike" term was already established within the community this usage parallels that of "doom clone" a term used in 1990s that later evolved into more generic "first-person shooter"