Today’s gamer vocabulary word is “Guild/Clan”

A guild or clan is a collection of gamers who play a specific game together. Guild tends used in MMOs while clan tends to be used in FPSs.

There are three main advantages to being part of a guild or clan.

1. They give your gamer a group of people to play with consistently. Normally a guild or clan will have scheduled nights and times they play. This can be good for you too because it can take the guess work out of limiting your gamer’s play time.
2. They allow your gamer to accomplish things they could not on their own. This is especially true in MMOs. For example, one of the ways to get the best gear in World of Warcraft is to run end-game raids. However, these raids require anywhere from 10 to 25 people to complete. Being in a guild gives your gamer a group with which to run these raids.
3. They give your game social interaction through video games, even when they are not physically in the same place. I used to have a guild that regularly ran raids in WoW. Those raids require teamwork, coordination, and communication. Plus, in the downtime we could goof around as well. It was a fun way to “hang-out” with my friends, some of whom had moved away.

You will want to make sure you know about any guilds or clans your gamer is looking to join. Some of them can be pretty hardcore, requiring more of a time commitment than you are willing to allow. Others might have behavior standards you are not comfortable with. Just be sure to have an open line of communication about this with your gamer.

Today’s gamer vocabulary word is “Platform Exclusive”

A platform exclusive is a game that is only released on one platform. For example, if you want to play Halo 4, you must have an Xbox 360. However, if you want to play inFAMOUS Second Son, you must have a PlayStation 4.

It is important to understand platform exclusivity when you are looking to buy a game for your gamer. You would hate to go through all the trouble to buy a game only to find out they cannot play it because they do not have the right console.

The easiest way to found out what platforms a game is on is to search for it on Google and then click on the Wikipedia link. On the right side of all the video game pages is a box with game’s information, such as release date, developer, and platforms.

You can see on the right of the inFAMOUS page that PlayStation 4 is the only platform listed. However, if you look at the Watch Dogs page, you will see Microsoft Windows (this means it was released for the PC), PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, and Wii U all listed.

Today’s gamer vocabulary word is “Streaming”.

Streaming is a specific type of of Let’s Play. In it, the viewers are watching the player in real-time as opposed to watching something prerecorded. Streaming has taken off over the last few years with the proliferation of high-speed internet connections.

The main site for watching streams right now is Twitch.tv. You can search for a game there and probably find someone playing it. This will not be the case with every game but will be for the big ones. For example, here are the channels streaming Minecraft, Starcraft 2, and Call of Duty Ghosts.

Twitch offers another great opportunity for you to connect with your gamer outside of playing. I have mentioned esports tournaments before. Twitch is one of the places you can watch these tournaments live. Riot Games is actually running a League of Legends tournament this week. This is a great opportunity to connect with your gamer.

Today�s gamer vocabulary terms is �Speedrun�

In a speedrun, the player is trying to accomplish something specific in the game in the fastest time possible. This might be finishing the whole game or completing a specific achievement. The games used in speedruns tend to be older. These are games the community has poured over to figure out any glitches or shortcuts to make the runs even faster.

I mentioned last week that �Let�s Play� videos are a great way for you to get an idea of the content in the games your gamer is playing. Speedrun videos are a type of let�s play that can help you connect with them. It is a lot of fun to watch someone run through these games quickly. You could then challenge your gamer to try to duplicate some of the tricks you saw.

The main YouTube channel you need to find speedruns is SpeedDemosArchiveSDA. They have some amazing speedruns, like the one for Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past and the Super Metroid race. They also do a marathon they call �Games Done Quick� which helps raise money for charity. This is another opportunity for you to connect with your gamer without having to actually play. The next one will be June 22-28 of this year.

Today�s gamer vocabulary term is �Let�s Play Video�.

A �Let�s Play� video is a video of someone playing the particular game. The player may be playing through the whole game, trying for specific achievements, or showing the viewer secrets. The video may or may not include commentary depending on the creator.

�Let�s Play� videos are a huge resource for you as a parent. They are an easy way to get an idea of the content in a game before buying it. It is as easy as going to YouTube and typing in �[Name of the game] let�s play�.

For example, searching for �Grand Theft Auto 5 Let�s Play� returns over 1 million results while �Call of Duty Ghosts Let�s Play� returns over 600,000. Watching a few of those will give you a good idea of what the game is all about.

Today’s gamer vocabulary word is “Free To Play”.

Free to play is a business model that has risen to prominence in the last few years. The idea is that the developer and publisher give most or all of the game away for free. They then make money through microtransactions. They sell things ranging from cosmetic items to content to extra lives.

This business model is especially prevalent in the mobile gaming space. One big example of this is Candy Crush Saga. Candy Crush is a match 3 game where the player must complete a specific objective in a certain number of moves. The player gets 5 chances and then must wait until a timer completes to continue. However, they can pay $0.99 to skip the timer and continue playing. The player is also able to spend money to buy power-ups to help them complete the level.

You will find these types of “time gates”� in a lot of mobile free to play games. They will impose timers that impede your progress unless you pay. The hope is that they can hook the player so they will want to pay instead of having to wait. This can be a very profitable model.

Mobile games are not the only ones making money using free to play. One of the best examples is Team Fortress 2. TF2 is a free to play team based first-person shooter. The developer, Valve, makes their money selling hats. The hats are completely cosmetic. They do not effect gameplay at all. And yet players spend a TON of money on them.

The big benefit of free to play games, obviously, is that you can try one out without having to make a large financial investment. If you do not like it, you just stop playing. You can find a list of ones to try out here.