This makes me feel kind of alienated.
I don’t think I’ve ever watched someone playing games intentionally, outside of like “how do you do this part?” guides, and maybe a couple hours spectating in games total.
Ok, and a handful of like “let me solo her” highlights that made it to me. But I never like seek it out.
I’m principal Skinner, I guess.
I like people doing challenge runs and speed runs, and occasionally letsgameitout who spends 1000 hours committing to the bit that I might have considered as a passing funny joke. I’d rather watch that then some evening ad riddled free to air.
I’m well over 30, not far from 40. Hobbies can be entertaining like watching someone else race a car. I ain’t gonna be able to do that. But I appreciate those who can.
It would never occur to me to go watch someone do a whole speed run. Even less so to watch someone “doing a bit”. Like, making a character that looks like Shrek and invading in a swamp is kind of funny, but I’m not going to watch that.
I don’t know how to explain the complete void that is my interest there. Like, I wouldn’t be mad if it was on in the background. But I just… Don’t find it appealing. Like watching paint dry or looking out my window. It’s there. Sometimes there’s a cat. But I’m never going to be like "sweet let’s go watch outside the window "
this is Lemmy. There’s like dozens of us in this thread that hate watching streamers! you are not alone.
Bro, preach. Definitely only need a quick clip for like, where is this item hiding in Elden Ring?
Maybe helps that I still have a solid squad of irl mates I game with, but also don’t mind catching solo time on single players.
I was dead fucking wrong about twitch tho. When it first came out I was like “who the hell is this for, younger siblings?” Like, why wouldn’t you just play the game yourself? Figured there’d be a lil niche for e-sport pro level scene, but twitch got way bigger than I ever would’ve thought.
Saying all this as a mid-thirty dude who truly will never comprehend people who spend a bunch on twitchy
It’s cool watching people of different skill levels than you, not just the pros I think. Also when people take on challenges that take a long time, you can kind of skip through the vid at your leisure.
Plus sometimes you just don’t have the energy to game. It’s like Matt Groening said in that old Life is Hell comic (although about tv): Why is tv the best pal of all? When you’re tired, tv does the playing for you.
Yeah cause I’m too busy to game frequently, but I can watch something while being productive.
imagine if this was about football fans
The interesting part to me is that you can watch football even when/if you can’t play football, but you could be gaming instead of watching.
Nah, I can’t game while I’m doing the dishes but I can watch a video just fine
You’re taking too long to do the dishes.
I don’t only do dishes. Also, there are short videos.
There are more chores than dishes:
- folding laundry
- sweeping and mopping the floor
- fixing the car
- going through the mail
- changing the sheets
That’s when I watch/listen to streamers, I almost never do it when I could otherwise be gaming. I’ll occasionally listen/watch while gaming though.
Obligatory
I feel this so much sometimes…
Watching sports is a useful activity when you confined to a hospital bed for a month or two as has happened to people I know. In one case they wouldn’t be allowed to game, even sports were in danger of being too exciting for their condition.
Logic does not check out. Like they’re both activities I can do on my couch? Okay sure, I guess. Just like I can watch a video about knitting even if I can’t knit, but I could be knitting instead of watching!? Complete nonsense…
I can only watch so much football as can a rare other people like me. If I am watching football I want the view of one position. I don’t care that the quarterback got sacked on the play, how did the running back avoid the defense in his attempts to become open for a pass - or some such that I want to emulate when I next play. (i think that is a likely thing - I consider football too dangerous to play so I’m guessing - in reality I’d prefer to see other sports that I’m likely to play)
edit: spelling
i can’t make heads or tails of this reply :P
“how did the running back avoid the defense”, i’m assuming there should be a “to” in there? who runs back? i can’t parse it…
They went with American football, where “running back” and ”defense” refer to positions.
…huh.
The game most of the world calls “football” is called “soccer” in the US. We have a very popular game we call “football” in the US that is unrelated to “soccer”, instead it is related to rugby (still very different from rugby, but there is a relation)
strange
Welcome to the world. There are strange things all over. Sit back and enjoy laughing at the ride.
buarterpacv
That’s a fascinating way to spell… Presumably “quarterback”?
It’s time for game publishers to think about in-game video as something beyond marketing alone," said Rhys Elliott, games analyst, MIDiA Research. ‘‘By reclaiming video engagement, publishers have the potential to unlock new revenue streams, like advertising, and drive growth.’’
Groooowwwtthhhh! It’s all about that Groooooowwwtthhhhh!
Please bro just a little bit more groooowth. I promise we’ll unlock all the money in the world if we can just have a littile more grooowwth.
Lmao, what a takeaway. Guy is struggling to earn that paycheck.
Reminds me of the business plans of the business guys from Ready Player One. “We estimate we can sell up to 80 percent of a user’s visual field before inducing seizures.” 😂
That’s me for sure these days. Back in high school I used to play at least a couple of hours every day. I have a gaming PC and a Steam Deck but probably play a few hours a month. But I’ll happily watch several hours of Twitch each day while I’m relaxing.
Probably just getting older and busier, haha.
As a (probably) even older guy I find it the weirdest thing ever. “watching games being played”. It’s boring AF.
Sure, I can’t t play counterstrike effectively anymore. Sure I am the one with the most deaths in helldivers2. Doom eternal is just way too twitchy for me. I’ve become too slow. In mechwarrior 5 I have too put the difficulty on story/easy and aim assist on. Which hurt my old ego the most to be honest.
But doing it still beats the shit out of watching it.
/start_old_man_rant
Especially these days when every streamer is an egocentric manchilds screaming their head off in a totally scripted “episode”. Or girls in bikinis only because it sells. Can we just leave that in hooters? And everything is bought and paid for. You’re watching a commercial. Or do you really think that logo on his mike just happens to be in view? Or the brand of the gaming chair?or that cupboard behind him filled with lights and gaming gear? Its ultra consumerism. And the begging for money. Fuck off. Really.
I hate it.
I miss total biscuit. That was entertainment.
/end_old_man_rant
I mean, the thing that people watch twitch for is mainly the person/people on the stream, the game is a backdrop, rarely the actual focus
And not everyone is ego-centric like you’re saying? I mean, there’s literally tens of thousands of streamers. Don’t just look at the biggest ones that probably mainly appeal to kids, i.e. a different audience than you. Chances are the kind of people you would enjoy watching are just smaller and more niche
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.
Oh, you’re right about the wokeness thing. I really just look at a review for info about gameplay and plot quality.
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.
Expensive as the games are these days you gotta do copious amounts of research before plunking down those bennies
What you need to do is find two or so reviewers who align with what you want out of a game.
It is a free and easy way to experience 75% of the experience without even downloading it (data bloat has massively ballooned too, perhaps needlessly in some cases). Also linear stories, or procedural things not being as deep as they seem.
Even when it comes to indie-appearing stuff I often don’t like the direction of the game design/difficulty, so it will likely be a more enjoyable experience in those cases too. The narrator also cuts boring bits or issues, also may do things I would not especially when it comes to skill or knowledge of said game. They may do silly things or tell a story. This may be 300% experience (of a new mix).
EDIT: Also never really been into the idea of multiplayer games, competitive or cooperative for different reasons. So watching is a new avenue for that.
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.
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.
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.
I miss r/summonsign and whatever the one for elden ring was. From Soft co-op is the best part of their games.
Truly. A bit of jolly co-op goes a long way
Makes enough sense, as goofy as it sounds.
- No Money. - Videos let me watch games that aren’t worth buying to me along with letting me parse games that look fun enough to buy.
- No Time. - Videos can be put on during other chores or tasks, left on as background noise during times where I would absolutely not have enough time to actually play a game.
- Skill Issue. - No matter how good I want to be, I’m ultimately just kinda ok at games. Watching higher level players can be a way for me to learn tips and tricks to improve, or they can be a way for me to experience difficulty levels of the game I will never realistically achieve on my own.
You forgot: The videos often have absurd challenges that most gamers would never try, like for example trying to beat Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire with only a physical attacking Abra.
Or counting how many people are employed in Skyrim.
Arguably that falls under both 2 and 3, but yeah entirely unique challenges or play modes is another reason to watch.
Amen to that!
Because the new games are shit and the good old games you can’t play on newer systems properly
Emulators are a thing, you know.
New report claims people with hobby spend more time watching videos about hobby than doing hobby
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.
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?
A dovetail is a type of joint that doesn’t require fasteners and only uses the material (usually glue for wood).
It was more funny when I didn’t know that :(
But thanks! I kind of expected it’s something like that :D
Does knowing that the name comes from one of the join elements (left side) looking like the tail of a dove, improve that?
I use one of those big metal paper choppers to cut doves tails.
😏
And its cheaper to watch someone do it. Quality timber and tools are expensive.
And less annoying to your neighbor if you’re in a neighborhood. Plus how many tables can you actually fit in a house?
Cutting dovetails implies by hand - power tools exist for it, but those using power tools generally use different joints.
My neighbor does not make dovetails, then.
I’m not surprised. They are very hard to make correctly and not that much better than other options that are easier to do. they are a “holy grail” of wood working skill for a reason. I’ve done a dozen in my life and the best is so awful I want to burn an otherwise nice creation to hide the evidence.
I watch games about the game in gaming, but I also watch games about my game when I’m not gaming. Therefore by definition my gaming will be less than my watching gaming.
What if gaming time is 4 hours, you spend 3/4 of gaming time playing games, and you watch gaming videos for one hour outside gaming time?
You have to watch the video of the game you are playing in order to play the game you are playing. By definition… (if you are video gaming) all bets are off for boardgamers!
Board gamers watch videos about board games too!
The point is if you are video gaming you are literally watching a video of yourself playing the game. That is why it is "video"gaming…
What if gaming time is 4 hours
I remember not having kids…
Now gaming time, if I’m lucky, is like 30 mins a week. Much of that spent patching and remembering wtf I was doing last time I played.
Not counting playing with them, at least. Though they spend more time watching Minecraft videos than playing Minecraft, so there’s that.
That’s because I suck at the games I like and need that hit of dopamine imagining I’m actually good at something
you only know you suck because of watching others. I skip that part :-)
Damn I feel that
