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Non-techies that are my age don't get the value of let's plays. When I was a kid, it was NES and then Sega. You'd go over to your friend's house and would take

Non-techies that are my age don't get the value of let's plays. When I was a kid, it was NES and then Sega. You'd go over to your friend's house and would take turns playing Mario, Ninja Gaiden, Contra, etc. When you weren't playing, you were watching your friend play. Sure, some games were multi-player, but not all of them. Let's plays capture that same feeling of watching your friend play the game.

JohnJamesRambo 7y ago
Should I point out the obvious that you aren't friends with the youtuber doing the Let's Play? You can't form a real two-way bond with one another, and that is the foundation of friendship. Real friendship could bloom in many other ways and you guys could go get a pizza, go climb Everest, help them work on their car, etc. In a nutshell, that describes my fears and reservations about the way the current age is going. It's all watching and commenting and not enough back and forth interaction and doing.
- falcolas 7y ago
  You may not be their friend, but they are (frequently) interacting with you.
- Tehnix 7y ago
  It’s different but similar. Streamers usually build a community around their streams, and this is the part that is equivalent to the friendship part in the “physical let’s play”.
- ryanstorm 7y ago
  There's a concept called Parasocial interaction that describes the relationship between an audience and a media personality (originally observed for tv personalities, but more recently YouTube and internet ones apply too). "Viewers or listeners come to feel and consider media personalities almost as friends." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasocial_interaction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasocial_interaction
- zrobotics 7y ago
  One way to look at these communities is that in many ways they are similar to IRC, except the interactions take place in twitch chat and discord. For example, the one game streamer I follow I certainly wouldn't consider a friend, but I do have some friends I have found through the community (in the same loose internet friend sense as some of the people i met through IRC and still talk to). Just like IRC channels were formed around a common theme/topic, these communities are formed around a 'personality' and shared videos. For a technical equivalent to this, look at the EEVBlog forums. It's arguably the premiere forum online for hobby electronics discussion, but a lot of it also revolves around the EEVBlog YouTube videos. There are some people who don't watch, but they are in the minority.
- shereadsthenews 7y ago
  You're not friends with the cast of a TV show either. Game streaming can be much more interactive. I follow a player on YouTube who plays XCOM 2. His followers build the characters, write their biographies and so forth. Then the characters appear in the game and their authors contribute diaries about what happens to the characters in-game ... and since XCOM 2 has a "bond" mechanic, and since it takes 100+ hours to play through, and since unlike other games it's very common for characters to get killed in-game, the experiences can be pretty rich. It's just a bunch of self-organized randos on the internet, not friendship or community, but as far as what you can get out of staring at screens it's near the top in terms of interactivity.
- jimcsharp 7y ago
  I wonder if async forum communication / semi-interactive celebrities can adequately replace the 'piece' of human interaction that makes prisoners go insane in solitary confinement. I'm sure we'll find out soon.
  - killingMisuse 7y ago
    I can tell you it does not adequately replace any such thing. But more importantly, let's suppose it did. Knowing that nature often chooses the path of least resistance, what do you think would come of such a discovery? 1. A larger quantity of half-assed pseudosocial forum interactions replacing what was previously face to face interactions, because we can squish more people into ever more meager lives, netting a greater wealth inequality than ever before imagined, if more people lock themselves in their rooms and live at the edge of sanity, barking garbage text messages at each other over the internet. 2. An ambient increase rich lives that experience meaningful face to face socialization with healthy peers who genuinely enjoy each other's company. From where I sit, the odds seem promising that there is only one thing coming our way.
brootstrap 7y ago
Yeah this is a great point. I spent hours watching my buddies play and vice versa. My dad asked me this weekend , as i half jokingly put on the Overwatch tournament on tv, how can you watch someone play video games it's boring. I said well dad how can you watch golf on TV it's boring. We both agree, yes we watch it but really we want to play. but sometimes you cant play. The lets plays are fun for me , same with twitch. Sometimes i cant fully get into a game so i hop onto twitch, or i'll start up a lets play series. Watch 30 minutes everyday on lunch break and after a few weeks/months you are done. I mainly do lets play to relive my first experience in dark souls & bloodborne haha.
ASalazarMX 7y ago
If your statement was accurate there would be no thriving game streaming services like Twitch, UStream, etc. Watching people play is like watching sports: it's enjoyable the better the player is; it's boring if they're just fooling around with the controls. Also, like sports, the enjoyment improves the more you know about the game being played.
- degenerate 7y ago
  I second your opinion. Watching my friend play NES was sometimes frustrating because he played so poorly. I wanted to nab the controller and help him so many times. Twitch wouldn't be fun to watch if everyone sucked. If I am watching someone on twitch who I think is the best at the game, and I found out some other gamer X is better, I will watch that better player if all other factors are equal.
- Kiro 7y ago
  I disagree. Many of the top streamers (Forsen, Sodapoppin etc) are not good gamers. They are fun to watch for other reasons. Some others are decent (Lirik) but far from pro gamers. They are a different category but just as popular as watching the pros.
  - myself248 7y ago
    Sometimes watching a terrible gamer struggle, and listening to their exasperation, is more entertaining than watching some ace just zip through the challenges.
    - WorldMaker 7y ago
      It's a similar community thing to that "watching a friend play at their house". So many of the biggest streamers may or may not be "good" at the games they play, but certainly work their tails off trying to seem the most like "a friend", their channels the most like a friendly community or even "their house". You want to see them succeed because they are a friend, you enjoy watching them suffer sometimes for the same reason. The social nature of Twitch chat shouldn't be easily dismissed. It's easy to laugh at the "rituals" that have developed where almost every streamer is constantly interrupting themselves to "thank" chat users for random things that matter on the platforms but not really outside of that (follows, likes, "sparks", what have you), but those are absolutely social interactions evolved (tough to say designed in some of these cases) to try to make "friends" visit "your house".

JohnJamesRambo 7y ago

Should I point out the obvious that you aren't friends with the youtuber doing the Let's Play? You can't form a real two-way bond with one another, and that is the foundation of friendship. Real friendship could bloom in many other ways and you guys could go get a pizza, go climb Everest, help them work on their car, etc. In a nutshell, that describes my fears and reservations about the way the current age is going. It's all watching and commenting and not enough back and forth interaction and doing.

falcolas 7y ago
You may not be their friend, but they are (frequently) interacting with you.
Tehnix 7y ago
It’s different but similar. Streamers usually build a community around their streams, and this is the part that is equivalent to the friendship part in the “physical let’s play”.
ryanstorm 7y ago
There's a concept called Parasocial interaction that describes the relationship between an audience and a media personality (originally observed for tv personalities, but more recently YouTube and internet ones apply too). "Viewers or listeners come to feel and consider media personalities almost as friends." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasocial_interaction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasocial_interaction
zrobotics 7y ago
One way to look at these communities is that in many ways they are similar to IRC, except the interactions take place in twitch chat and discord. For example, the one game streamer I follow I certainly wouldn't consider a friend, but I do have some friends I have found through the community (in the same loose internet friend sense as some of the people i met through IRC and still talk to). Just like IRC channels were formed around a common theme/topic, these communities are formed around a 'personality' and shared videos. For a technical equivalent to this, look at the EEVBlog forums. It's arguably the premiere forum online for hobby electronics discussion, but a lot of it also revolves around the EEVBlog YouTube videos. There are some people who don't watch, but they are in the minority.
shereadsthenews 7y ago
You're not friends with the cast of a TV show either. Game streaming can be much more interactive. I follow a player on YouTube who plays XCOM 2. His followers build the characters, write their biographies and so forth. Then the characters appear in the game and their authors contribute diaries about what happens to the characters in-game ... and since XCOM 2 has a "bond" mechanic, and since it takes 100+ hours to play through, and since unlike other games it's very common for characters to get killed in-game, the experiences can be pretty rich. It's just a bunch of self-organized randos on the internet, not friendship or community, but as far as what you can get out of staring at screens it's near the top in terms of interactivity.
jimcsharp 7y ago
I wonder if async forum communication / semi-interactive celebrities can adequately replace the 'piece' of human interaction that makes prisoners go insane in solitary confinement. I'm sure we'll find out soon.
- killingMisuse 7y ago
  I can tell you it does not adequately replace any such thing. But more importantly, let's suppose it did. Knowing that nature often chooses the path of least resistance, what do you think would come of such a discovery? 1. A larger quantity of half-assed pseudosocial forum interactions replacing what was previously face to face interactions, because we can squish more people into ever more meager lives, netting a greater wealth inequality than ever before imagined, if more people lock themselves in their rooms and live at the edge of sanity, barking garbage text messages at each other over the internet. 2. An ambient increase rich lives that experience meaningful face to face socialization with healthy peers who genuinely enjoy each other's company. From where I sit, the odds seem promising that there is only one thing coming our way.

brootstrap 7y ago

Yeah this is a great point. I spent hours watching my buddies play and vice versa. My dad asked me this weekend , as i half jokingly put on the Overwatch tournament on tv, how can you watch someone play video games it's boring. I said well dad how can you watch golf on TV it's boring. We both agree, yes we watch it but really we want to play. but sometimes you cant play. The lets plays are fun for me , same with twitch. Sometimes i cant fully get into a game so i hop onto twitch, or i'll start up a lets play series. Watch 30 minutes everyday on lunch break and after a few weeks/months you are done. I mainly do lets play to relive my first experience in dark souls & bloodborne haha.

ASalazarMX 7y ago

If your statement was accurate there would be no thriving game streaming services like Twitch, UStream, etc. Watching people play is like watching sports: it's enjoyable the better the player is; it's boring if they're just fooling around with the controls. Also, like sports, the enjoyment improves the more you know about the game being played.

degenerate 7y ago
I second your opinion. Watching my friend play NES was sometimes frustrating because he played so poorly. I wanted to nab the controller and help him so many times. Twitch wouldn't be fun to watch if everyone sucked. If I am watching someone on twitch who I think is the best at the game, and I found out some other gamer X is better, I will watch that better player if all other factors are equal.
Kiro 7y ago
I disagree. Many of the top streamers (Forsen, Sodapoppin etc) are not good gamers. They are fun to watch for other reasons. Some others are decent (Lirik) but far from pro gamers. They are a different category but just as popular as watching the pros.
- myself248 7y ago
  Sometimes watching a terrible gamer struggle, and listening to their exasperation, is more entertaining than watching some ace just zip through the challenges.
  - WorldMaker 7y ago
    It's a similar community thing to that "watching a friend play at their house". So many of the biggest streamers may or may not be "good" at the games they play, but certainly work their tails off trying to seem the most like "a friend", their channels the most like a friendly community or even "their house". You want to see them succeed because they are a friend, you enjoy watching them suffer sometimes for the same reason. The social nature of Twitch chat shouldn't be easily dismissed. It's easy to laugh at the "rituals" that have developed where almost every streamer is constantly interrupting themselves to "thank" chat users for random things that matter on the platforms but not really outside of that (follows, likes, "sparks", what have you), but those are absolutely social interactions evolved (tough to say designed in some of these cases) to try to make "friends" visit "your house".