Arcade and Games: What Is the Difference?
Last updated: August 21, 2026
Three verticals involve games and the overlap confuses almost everyone once. The short version: the Arcade is a platform, Games is a catalogue, and Terminus is a single world. Each is the correct destination for a different question, and none of them is a subset of another.
The three, side by side
| Xdripia Arcade | Xdripia Games | Terminus | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | A platform for browser-playable titles | A catalogue of video and physical games | One persistent strategy experience |
| You go there to | Play now, and have it counted | Find out what exists | Run an ongoing operation |
| Persistence | Achievements and global leaderboards | None — it is a catalogue | A living world state that continues without you |
| Identity | Wallet or sign-in, for progress | Not required | Connected identity for command surfaces |
| Rules live | On each title's page | With each game | In the versioned Terminus manual |
And a fourth surface
The Multimedia Archives also hold game pages, at /video-game/{slug} and /arcade-game/{slug}. Those are showcases: presentation of a title as media. They are the right link when you want to show someone a game and the wrong one when you want them to play it.
Choosing quickly
Want to play something in five minutes? Arcade. Want to know whether something exists, or buy a boxed game? Games, then the Emporium. Want something that keeps going after you close the tab? Terminus.
A title can legitimately appear in more than one place. That is not duplication — each surface is making a different claim about it.
Official source
Canonical source for this subject: Xdripia Games. Checked 21 August 2026 — where this guide and the live service disagree, the service is right.
Related reading
- Xdripia Arcade Guide — The browser-playable arcade platform, its titles and the systems that track play.
- Tales of Xdripia: Terminus Guide — The persistent strategy frontier and the command surfaces that make it up.
- Xdripia Games Guide — The catalogue of video games and physical games set in the Universe.
- Games in the Multimedia Archive — Why games appear here as showcase pages and what those pages are for.