Absolutely can’t stand watching people play video games. They play wrong.
And the only videos I watch of a game are ones to see what kind of game it is when I don’t know too much beyond word of mouth “this game is great” kind of thing. Sure, you’ve described the game as an action-packed romp with tons of weapons and semi-open world, but the video shows it’s a 2d side scroller with variations of the same 5 pixel “guns” that all shoot the same ball. Not interested.
Beyond that, I have no interest in watching videos. And if companies started trying to somehow cram even more ads into their games to advertise to people watching a stream then I’m even less in than before
They play wrong.
I feel that. A few times I had to stop the stream and play the game better myself.
I have to ask if you have ever watched professional level StarCraft 2. Because those people play at an insane level of multitasking and optimization and it is actually beautiful to watch in many cases. The stuff they do is often not even achievable by the average player. I’m sure there are other examples in FPS games and other genres, but what professional RTS players do definitely pushes the level of human cognitive ability.
The obvious barrier to entry here is knowing the game, as you can’t really appreciate things fully unless you’ve played at least a little. But I’ll say that I started off watching LowkoTV and he was entertaining enough to watch until I finally decided to try out the game, and then came to appreciate it even more after that.
Obviously using in game portals to related content creators to push more ads is idiotic, just saying the recognition of the importance of gaming content creators to the games themselves isn’t inherently a bad thing.
I’ve spent boatloads more time watching football than playing football, too.
Also, with Rainbow 6: Siege, there’s so many ways to play the game that I love watching videos to get ideas for new strategies to try.
Lastly, contrary to popular belief, a lot of games actually require thinking about what you’re doing. Time spent playing is not really time spent spacing out so I will happily watch videos about a game I like to play when I don’t have the energy to actually focus on playing them.
I don’t watch streams, but I do watch a lot of Let’s Plays (i.e. Materwelonz, WoolieVersus). Sometimes to watch them play games that I normally wouldn’t, sometimes to listen to their insights at certain hype points in games I previously played, and usually due to loneliness (i.e. parasocial relationships).
Regarding the last point, it also tends to be the reason I gravitate towards games with strong story, or MMOs. Feeling like I belong to a community keeps the loneliness at bay. Outside of games, I like to be in crowded areas, though not necessarily interacting with anyone.
New report claims people with hobby spend more time watching videos about hobby than doing hobby
Watching someone cut a dovetail by hand is a lot more interesting now that I know from experience how hard it is. And maybe I’ll learn a trick to make my next ones better.
Dovetail sounds like a bird. It’s not a bird, right? Right?
Execution is a small part of “the planning”, man. That ain’t even fair.
If I want to do my hobby, I need to make time for it, whereas if I want to watch videos about my hobby, I can do it on the toilet. It turns out it’s a lot easier to watch than make time for a hobby, hence why I do more of it.
If I didn’t have to work, I’d spend more time doing my hobby. But I do, and I have kids, so hobby time is quite limited.
That’s partly because it’s now more important to know what you’re doing, than figuring out what you’re doing, or just enjoying the fight. Unless you’re willing to just tank insults while playing, and rebuild and retry with constant leavers, you have to study. Usually people try, but often they sit back and give in to “experiencing” games through video instead.
WoW for example has almost no tolerance for flawed teammates anywhere anymore, I’ve seen countless groups that would rather sit outside a dungeon for hours, than be inside it for 15 minutes too long.
And people no longer think “if you want good teammates, you have to build a team”, they instead think that everyone who joins the random matchmaker has a responsibility to be good. It’s rude to be bad at World of Warcraft.
I game while watching my favorite streamers!
I’m part of this group and didn’t even realize it. But I have the most boring job in the world so I watch a lot of YouTube. Otherwise I never watch anything, especially at home.
Plenty of people have a twitch stream open whilst playing a game.
Hi, I’m plenty of people
All of my little cousins and nephews watch streamers. To them it’s more fun to watch someone play than to play most times. They don’t like dealing with challenging games all the time, they really just want to have fun. These kids do play games but they watch more than me so I tried watching some streamers and I get it. When I was growing up we had systems with multiple controller ports and no online. Online gaming was PC only until I went to college and console online took off. But growing up you had to bring your friends or cousins to play some Mario Kart 64. That was way different than playing with randoms online. Streamers kinda brings that connection back.
when my son plays he’s constantly talking through whatever he’s doing in the game. streaming has rubbed off that much
Streamers kinda brings that connection back
In a parasocial kinda way…?
And videos complaining about videogames.
Thank god we have YouTube videos that tell us what games to like and what games to hate. Imagine we would have to make this decision on our own.
Reviews have actually saved me money. Time is limited, so I’m thankful to be able toto watch a review and be able to use that to help me make a decision about a game I’m on the fence with.
Yeah, reviews can be really helpful of course.
Just have a friend who tells me the whole time what games are supposed to be bad because of wokness and stuff. He isn’t even interested in them in the first place, so it’s kind of annoying.
So I vented a bit, sorry.
It’s getting really fucking annoying to look at steam reviews and discussions and running across several “is it woke?” posts.
Often times, it will be “one black NPC in a historically white environment, one female in a combat position, it’s been ruined by wokeness.”
Or often “two non-essential NPCs are in a gay relationship, stay away” when they could be entirely avoided by accident.
It’s disappointing.
Oh, you’re right about the wokeness thing. I really just look at a review for info about gameplay and plot quality.
This thread got me thinking Lemmy needs a better “find a co-op buddy” community for games in general. If it’s here already, could use better marketing.
Not sum’m I suffer from, but I want to see y’all living your best lives too. A good homie can make or break a game run.
Guilty
Thats technicaly correct for me .I often play eu4 while i watch eu4 and spice it up with a bit of music in the background. Alghtough i do only watch gameplays of games im really into ( eu4 ,against the storm ) but generaly not skilled ( or patient )enough to do whatewer crazy shit the streamer is doing, rarely gameplays of games where plot is important in any way and when id do usualy its speedruns.
My wife likes YouTubers but isn’t a gamer. If I’m doing stuff with them I’m more likely to pick a video about games than a game.
My wife thought she was the same until suddenly it clicked and she realized she is in fact a gamer
We called my wife “fake gamer girl” for a while because we made a group chat back in 2020 with everyone in it to coordinate online games. They were there because she would play Among Us or Jack Box with us. It was very tongue in cheek. To be honest, they may have even said it themselves for the first time lol.
Nice. My partner is more of a movie person and I’m more a games person, so I’ll watch movies with her almost as a favour, and she’ll return it by playing games with me lol.
There’s an art to picking a movie or game for a choosie person, and we’ve both got pretty good at predicting eachothers’ tastes in media.
Where’s “New report claims sports fans spend more time watching sport / videos about sport than playing sport”.
This isn’t some new, crazy, hard to understand concept.
I’ll be honest I find it hard to understand for sports as well.
