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This phenomenon is similar to how people enjoy watching others play video games. Your brain can't entirely distinguish between watching a video game on a scree

This phenomenon is similar to how people enjoy watching others play video games. Your brain can't entirely distinguish between watching a video game on a screen and actually controlling the action.

__david__ 12y ago
> Your brain can't entirely distinguish between watching a video game on a screen and actually controlling the action. I'm not sure I agree with that. I'm an avid gamer but find long gameplay-only vids to be pretty boring. The really successful lets-plays are good because there are one or more people talking over them.
- derefr 12y ago
  It depends on the game. Or, to put that more incendiarily: the degree to which a non-voiceover, 100% completion, edited-for-repetition LP (these are usually called "longplays") of a game serves as a good replacement for playing the game, is inversely proportional to the degree to which the game is actually a game, rather than interactive fiction. The least interesting longplays are made from games that are games in an essential sense: games that are about the aesthetic of exploring and mastering the mechanics of an environment. Simulation games, procedurally-generated adventure games, etc. If you don't wrap a narrative around these, there's nothing compelling there to watch. It's only compelling to play. I'm wondering whether the proliferation of LPs will actually kill the market for genres like the JRPG, the visual novel/dating sim, etc. as people feel satisfied with just having watched the-movie-of-the-game and are left with no urge to play. --- Three examples: 1. I recently tried to watch a Kirby: Epic Yarn LP and fell asleep after five minutes. Yet I'd gladly play it as a game. The same applies to, say, Tetris. 2. Final Fantasy makes for excellent long plays. I played FFVII once and have no urge to do so again, but I'm still waiting for the FFVII-HD longplay well-cut enough that some friends and I can just watch it and Advent Children in sequence as if it were any other movie series. 3. I still do pull out games like FFV every once in a while, just to faff about with the combinatoric possibilities of the battle system and to replay some of the boss battles--but I have no urge to undergo the grindy bits. What I really want from these sorts of hybrids is a CG movie that comes with a "bonus disc" that lets you jump right into the various preset sandbox fights, plot battles, and minigames. As it is, I frequently keep emulator save states to do exactly this.
  - lotharbot 12y ago
    it also depends on the degree of mastery displayed / degree of difficult of beating the game. I love watching Let's Plays for the Descent series, particularly when I see someone beat a level I've had trouble with by using tactics I haven't mastered. Here's Avder wrecking D1 level 6: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCLhArmirhw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCLhArmirhw
morgante 12y ago
> This phenomenon is similar to how people enjoy watching others play video games. Agreed, in that I can't understand why somebody would be interested in either.
- pavel_lishin 12y ago
  Do you watch sports? I sometimes watch people play video games. Some of my reasons are: 1. I'm bad at video games, but like seeing the story unfold. 2. I'm not sure if I want to buy the game or not, so I watch someone play it to decide. Some other people also watch others play games to learn, to increase their skill, because they find the player/presenter amusing, etc.
  - morgante 12y ago
    > Do you watch sports? Nope.
    - pavel_lishin 12y ago
      But you do understand, in principle, why people watch sports rather than play them themselves, right?
      - innguest 12y ago
        Could you explain it anyway, for those of us that are interested? I've noticed that I enjoy watching youtube videos of other people coding, and I like where you're going by tying watching sports with watching unboxing videos. I've always thought I liked watching coding videos because I secretly wish I could just think about programs and make them happen, instead of having to sit up, type, switch between contexts, etc. Coding videos go straight to the point and quench a specific thirst I have when I don't feel like coding anymore but would still like the high I get from seeing the coding process unfold.
        pavel_lishin 12y ago

This phenomenon is similar to how people enjoy watching others play video games. Your brain can't entirely distinguish between watching a video game on a screen and actually controlling the action.

__david__ 12y ago

> Your brain can't entirely distinguish between watching a video game on a screen and actually controlling the action. I'm not sure I agree with that. I'm an avid gamer but find long gameplay-only vids to be pretty boring. The really successful lets-plays are good because there are one or more people talking over them.

derefr 12y ago
It depends on the game. Or, to put that more incendiarily: the degree to which a non-voiceover, 100% completion, edited-for-repetition LP (these are usually called "longplays") of a game serves as a good replacement for playing the game, is inversely proportional to the degree to which the game is actually a game, rather than interactive fiction. The least interesting longplays are made from games that are games in an essential sense: games that are about the aesthetic of exploring and mastering the mechanics of an environment. Simulation games, procedurally-generated adventure games, etc. If you don't wrap a narrative around these, there's nothing compelling there to watch. It's only compelling to play. I'm wondering whether the proliferation of LPs will actually kill the market for genres like the JRPG, the visual novel/dating sim, etc. as people feel satisfied with just having watched the-movie-of-the-game and are left with no urge to play. --- Three examples: 1. I recently tried to watch a Kirby: Epic Yarn LP and fell asleep after five minutes. Yet I'd gladly play it as a game. The same applies to, say, Tetris. 2. Final Fantasy makes for excellent long plays. I played FFVII once and have no urge to do so again, but I'm still waiting for the FFVII-HD longplay well-cut enough that some friends and I can just watch it and Advent Children in sequence as if it were any other movie series. 3. I still do pull out games like FFV every once in a while, just to faff about with the combinatoric possibilities of the battle system and to replay some of the boss battles--but I have no urge to undergo the grindy bits. What I really want from these sorts of hybrids is a CG movie that comes with a "bonus disc" that lets you jump right into the various preset sandbox fights, plot battles, and minigames. As it is, I frequently keep emulator save states to do exactly this.
- lotharbot 12y ago
  it also depends on the degree of mastery displayed / degree of difficult of beating the game. I love watching Let's Plays for the Descent series, particularly when I see someone beat a level I've had trouble with by using tactics I haven't mastered. Here's Avder wrecking D1 level 6: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCLhArmirhw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCLhArmirhw

morgante 12y ago

> This phenomenon is similar to how people enjoy watching others play video games. Agreed, in that I can't understand why somebody would be interested in either.

pavel_lishin 12y ago
Do you watch sports? I sometimes watch people play video games. Some of my reasons are: 1. I'm bad at video games, but like seeing the story unfold. 2. I'm not sure if I want to buy the game or not, so I watch someone play it to decide. Some other people also watch others play games to learn, to increase their skill, because they find the player/presenter amusing, etc.
- morgante 12y ago
  > Do you watch sports? Nope.
  - pavel_lishin 12y ago
    But you do understand, in principle, why people watch sports rather than play them themselves, right?
    - innguest 12y ago
      Could you explain it anyway, for those of us that are interested? I've noticed that I enjoy watching youtube videos of other people coding, and I like where you're going by tying watching sports with watching unboxing videos. I've always thought I liked watching coding videos because I secretly wish I could just think about programs and make them happen, instead of having to sit up, type, switch between contexts, etc. Coding videos go straight to the point and quench a specific thirst I have when I don't feel like coding anymore but would still like the high I get from seeing the coding process unfold.
      - pavel_lishin 12y ago