For me it seems a progression from the offical game strategy books. I have watched you tube videos from Wrel on Planetside 2, and they have been very useful and entertaining. Playing WoW in a raiding guild was the first time I felt required to view a video on a game in order to stop wiping out the party. I have no interest in watching twitch tv and others play in professional competitions because I lost my twitch in 2005.
Like watching porn. Something you’d much rather be doing.
I have zero interest in it but there’s lots of things in this world that are popular yet I have zero interest in. I don’t even like watching videos for tips or walk throughs – I’d much rather just read the information. The few big popular YouTube people who do this that I’ve seen were invariably annoying to listen to but, again, they have a million followers so my opinion isn’t universal (though it should be).
My wife’s friend has a husband who is in his mid 30s and watches tons of Let’s Play videos. Maybe he doesn’t feel like he has the time to play the games or maybe he likes the commentary or maybe he just doesn’t want to buy the games. I’ll have to ask him one of these days.
I’m completely terrible and uncoordinated at video games. I used to watch my friends play and still got a lot of enjoyment out of my non-participation, still getting to see the story and cool graphics.
There are some games, like Adventures and similar puzzle or exploration games, that I do prefer to play on my own; I get great satisfaction from solving puzzles. But for FPS or action games, where I am completely out of my comfort zone, I’m okay with watching others play, either friends or online at Twitch.
I watch Felicia Day on Twitch sometimes, as she is a very entertaining and charismatic interactor as she plays.
Another thing is, it’s not something you have to be engaged in every second to enjoy it. So it’s a great thing to put on in the background while crafting, drawing, or doing some other stationary hobby. Other people might put on an audiobook, or music, but you can just as easily put on a let’s play. My husband will often play games as I draw so I just use him as a live “let’s play” essentially. I’ve seen all of Dead Space that way. Not sure if I can handle playing it personally…but it was a good watch.
It essentially lets me hear the story and see the visuals of games I might not otherwise have time for. Only so many hours in the day and for me, Red Faction: Guerilla isn’t high on my list of games I haven’t played yet.
I wouldn’t do it, but I wouldn’t pay to watch people play baseball, football, etc., either.
I do love watching Conan Obrian playing video games (at work so I can’t link streaming videos but it’s easy to Google).
I enjoy watching competitive esports when it’s a game that I also play. I paid a bit of real money in 2014 for the DOTA Compendium so that I could watch the games live through the client and I really enjoyed having that access. These days, I’ll watch Heroes of the Storm tournaments when they’re available, though the game still has a way to go before there are enough playable characters to make tournaments truly interesting.
Not really into general videos of non-competitive games.
Those are amusing but of course that’s less of a “Let’s Play” and more of a five minute comedy bit.
I’ve heard that some people can actually make money with these videos.
I guess this Far Side wasn’t that far off reality.
This one where they play Super Smash Bros. is pretty funny.
I personally don’t enjoy watching others play video games, but it’s just another form of competition that certainly some people do enjoy. I don’t think the people who watch should be laughed at any more than the people who are playing. Which is, of course, not at all.
Low barrier to entry is not the same as actually being successful. As others have mentioned, the guitarist mention is off–what is the barrier to entry for being a musician? Buying a guitar and finding a street corner to play on?
Same thing here–yeah, anyone can post to Youtube. What does it take to be a successful one, able to make a good living off of it? Well, for starters it’s more than just playing a game, you’re commentating as well. Actually providing interesting and engaging commentary while playing is not in the least bit easy. Heck, simply talking for 20 minutes straight into a mic for a recording is not all that easy, even without having to play a game in the middle of it.
So you have to be able to talk for 20 minutes or more at a stretch in a manner that engages an audience watching later, all while playing a game.
Barrier to entry? Well, unicycles aren’t that expensive, juggling balls are cheap, it doesn’t cost anything to do improv comedy, but doing improv comedy on a unicycle while juggling requires a lot more work and skill than most are willing to put into it.
The vast majority of YouTubers who make a living off of it mention they work way more than 40-hour weeks to do it. Yeah, we may see one or two 20-minute videos a day from them, but they have to do all the setup, prep work (in or out of game), editing, rendering, etc–they’re all one-man shops.
As for why I like watching them? All sorts of reasons. Sometimes they serve the purpose that used to be served by radio–background entertainment that maybe I switch more attention to if something particularly interesting happens. Play the game instead of watch? I’m usually doing both–I’ll have Youtube on one computer/monitor while I’m playing something on another. (heck, I’ve got a group playing Minecraft on another tab while I’m typing this).
I suck at FPS games, and really any fast-response type game I’ve found myself getting worse at as I’ve gotten older. If I try to play Bioshock, for one example, I’d be concentrating so hard on staying alive that I’d miss a lot of the really cool scenery and all the cool little things in the game that I can see when watching.
(or possibly I can turn the game down to some sort of easy/trivial setting, but I may as well watch at that point).
So sometimes it’s it’s an engaging commentator, where I like listening to whatever stories are being told largely regardless of the game. Sometimes it’s the game, and I want to see things in the game I would have a hard time experiencing on my own. Sometimes it’s both.
Yeah, the prize pool for the 2015 DOTA International was more than eighteen million dollars. The first place team got 6.6 million of that.
Say what you will, but those kinds of dollars mean that professional gaming is about a lot more than having too much free time on your hands.
Hey you kids quit watching other people play video games, and while your at it get off my lawn and turn down that dang rock n roll music! It’s just noise!
People have different levels of appreciation for different things. I don’t think this is any different than any other hobby.
Nonsense. Actual professional gamers are playing their game just as much if not more than the guys in pads at the NFL. There’s no “League of Legends Off-Season” where you get to take time off. This is serious freaking business. As mentioned, the recent DotA international paid out about half as much total money as the US OPEN, and WAY MORE of that to the winning team. It pays out way more than the PGA Championships. And the time put in is certainly comparable. You’re not talking about some dudes who play for four hours a day after school or something here.
Do you mean that watching the PLAYER of the game is like watching someone watch football?
Yeah; This is basically what it comes down to: It’s no dumber than watching anyone do anything that you could be doing yourself, only not as well.
The biggest moneymakers on Youtube are gamers, led by PewdiePie, iirc - it’s why they split off a gaming subsidiary. I’ve seen some that were entertaining, but I wouldn’t watch it regularly, anymore than I’d watch Mukbang streams (people eating, iydk).
Even closer than you think – YouTube launched in April 2005, long after The Far Side ended. :eek:
I personally find it utterly boring and dull, which should have absolutely no bearing on anyone else’s enjoyment. Even when I’m trying to figure out how to solve some puzzle or level that has me stumped, I prefer text over video. But I’m old. Now hand me the newspaper and leave me alone! 
To be fair, I think videos are a terrible, terrible way of conveying “help” information about a game unless it’s a strictly visual thing like “here is the correct way to weave through this pattern of bullets”. The unsearchability of video content makes trying to find the information you need an exercise in futility.
I don’t really think most people who watch games are watching them for information.