Words Worth Knowing: Twitch
Words Worth Knowing was a vertical I wrote weekly explaining key pieces of gaming jargon to parents, guardians and teachers, as part of the larger overall GameHub outreach effort. The column ran for nearly two years and resulted in around 60 WWK articles. GameHubHQ.com closed in late 2017. This piece originally appeared on Mar 22, 2015.
What It Is: Twitch = A video-game streaming platform.
What It Means: Twitch is a popular service which allows users to play a video-game in real time whilst simultaneously broadcasting what they are playing onto the internet.
Why You Care: Twitch allows players to share the games they are playing with other people around the world online. This is something parents should be aware of, as it allows kids and teens to see the content of games they might not be allowed at home. We've seen this used a lot of times by kids as a crafty bolster to their "but all my friends have it" claims. When they can describe the game's content, perhaps embellishing a little here and there, kids can sometimes cleverly convince their parents that they have played it at a friend's house, and that as "everyone has it" they should be permitted to own a copy too. Try to turn these streaming services to your parental advantage by using them to pre-check a game's content to see if it meets with your approval. Don't get the wool pulled over your eyes by suspiciously well-informed youngsters!
