Both of my daughters enjoy watching people play video games. Me shaking my head about not understanding it is showing that I’m an out-of-touch old man. I’ll cop to that, sure.
Well, I’ve watched my husband play games before. The first was Silent Hill 2 because that shit’s creepy and I wasn’t brave enough to play it on my own, but it was so artistically rendered it was fascinating to watch. I also enjoy Markiplier videos because he’s hilarious. Watching him play Getting Over It with Bennet Foddy - a game that is so hard it becomes an exercise in existentialism - was quite the journey. I mean I’M not going to play a game that hard, but I’ll happily watch Markiplier throw his chair into a wall or whatever. He wept with relief at the end.
So I don’t fully understand Twitch, but I halfway kinda understand it. If you accept that video games are art, and I do, it’s a way to experience certain artistic elements without having the do the work yourself.
I’m afraid I fell down the internet rabbit hole of Terrible Things People Do To Their Loved Ones While Livestreaming on Twitch. Pretty sad.
I may have cursed at the “settlers of Catan” game on my phone. And maybe when i flew into a mountain in minecraft and lost all my hard-won stuff. But no, I’ve never lost it in a way that would disturb anyone who might have seen me
wasnt there a controversy where a chick was called out on twich becuase she threw her cat after getting mad at a game while back ?
I’m not into watching videos of it but there’s two types, imho. Some are “walk throughs”, showing how you can go through a level. Watching those is often for the purpose of getting better and doing it yourself. Others are player vs player, and there you’re watching a competition. When my former son in law was over I’d watch him play 3v3 “Last of Us”. It’s watching a shoot out with a player to cheer for.
Sure, on occasion I’ll watch those videos, though I prefer written guides more so I can use them as references. I’ve found raid videos helpful for MMOs for sure, because usually it’s not enough to just read about what to do, and it sucks to be the one in the raid blowing it for everyone else. I don’t watch them for entertainment though, they’re informational.
There’s a third type - the parasocial relationship. Kind of a “hanging out with your buddies” experience. It is more about the streamer having a personality, being engaging, cracking jokes, and interacting with chat, etc. It doesn’t really matter if the person is good at the game or not.
The “parasocial” type is mainly how I interact on Twitch. It’s mostly people I know in real life and we just chat while playing not-too-difficult games like Zelda or Animal Crossing.
I also enjoy watching people play games I don’t have access to like foreign otome games, or games I am not great at but play like Love Live. I don’t see how it’s any dumber than watching TV. It can be really fun to watch someone destroy a game/level you suck at.
DanTdm is considered the no1 youtuber of this type …