

Are “Let’s Play …Videos” bad for the gaming industry? - olsn
http://indiegamr.com/are-those-lets-play-videos-bad-for-the-gaming-industry/

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reitzensteinm
The author is assuming that people not buying games because of let's play
videos is a _bad_ thing for the industry.

He's right that it happens, but it's actually a _good_ thing.

If a game is so boring and forgettable that watching a Youtube video is an
effective replacement, a player who purchases it will _not_ be satisfied with
the game. This directly harms the industry, because it disincentiveses people
from purchasing more games in the future.

Ideally, you want to match up games with people that want to play them. Crappy
games should sell zero units, and people shouldn't feel burned having spent
their hard earned cash. Let's play videos aren't perfect, but they're a damn
better solution than text reviews or advertisements.

Disclaimer: I'm an indie game developer that's just released the first alpha
of my game [1], which has gotten most of its attention so far via let's play
videos (made by myself, and others). So I'm biased in that direction, but I
would have said the same thing a year ago when I was making Flash games.

[1]: <http://www.underthegarden.com> (shameless plug)

~~~
shahidhussain
"If a game is so boring and forgettable that watching a Youtube video is an
effective replacement, a player who purchases it will not be satisfied with
the game."

This I disagree with - the same goes for great games that are heavily story
oriented (perhaps something like Alan Wake or Dreamfall). I'm not saying you
get the full experience watching the YT video, but I think the OP's point is
that you get enough value that the delta from actually playing the game isn't
worth $50.

~~~
nathanb
I think you just made his point for him.

What makes games interesting as a storytelling medium is the degree of
interactivity. If a game is heavily story-based but I can get all (or most) of
the game's value just by watching a youtube video, is there really any benefit
to it being a _game_ , as opposed to a movie or TV miniseries or whatever?

Why not just use the game's engine to tell your story and release it as a
made-for-youtube movie? Maybe with some clever narration a la the best let's
play creators? I have no idea how the margins would be compared to a game, but
if your game is going to bomb because everyone gets all the value just by
watching some guy record himself playing it, you might as well be that guy.

~~~
shahidhussain
I hear where you're coming from, but I think different people just like
different things about games, and my bias is towards games that have strong
stories. Take Mass Effect an an example - for me personally, the most
interesting part of the game is making decisions and seeing how the story
progresses as a result. I like to pew-pew the aliens as much as the next guy,
but I'm most interested in seeing how character X reacts to action A. I'm not
alone - the reason so many people were annoyed about the ending was that they
wanted to find out what happens to the characters that they'd grown attached
to over the last three games.

Now you're right that they could absolutely release the story of Mass Effect
as a (really really long) film, but I like to have choice in how the story
progresses, and I don't want to watch lots of different movies with all the
choices played out. Having that control makes me feel more engaged in the
story than watching it passively.

Not everyone will feel that's worth the price of entry for a game - I do.

~~~
nathanb
I think you're missing the point of what I said. I didn't say that story-based
games should be movies rather than stories. I said that if games don't utilize
the interactivity of the medium, they may as well be movies.

If the interactivity is what draws you (as it does in your example of Mass
Effect), watching a video of someone else playing the game is not going to be
nearly as satisfying as playing the game yourself.

My point was that the only games whose sales will be materially affected by
Let's Play videos are the ones which may as well be movies anyway.

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debacle
I love Let's Play videos. My daughter, for a long time, would watch me play
Minecraft (she, only being three, would refer to it as "Yourcraft").

When it got to the point that I just didn't really enjoy playing Minecraft
anymore, we started watching Coe's Quest. All the benefit if playing Minecraft
with my small passenger, without all of the effort, and with a nice narrator
to boot.

Since then, I've discovered several games via Let's Play series, including
Terraria, King Arthur's Gold, and Dwarf Fortress. I've purchased two of them.
I'm not crazy enough to try Dwarf Fortress.

~~~
constant_change
I always got a kick out of my three year old daughter referring to it as
"Yourcraft", or "Daddy's Craft". She only stopped just this week.

~~~
danso
There's such a gulf of experience between those who have children and those
who don't...I regularly volunteer with elementary-age students and am always
surprised at what they know, even though I faintly remembering being "smart"
back then.

I just didn't think 3-year-olds would understand or even be introduced to
possessive pronouns...I can't even conceive the linguistic path it takes from
saying the first word and other nouns to understanding possession and
"me"...Although I guess "mine" is pretty easy for them to figure out as a way
to get things :)

~~~
ken
When my brother showed photos to his young son, he'd say "...and that's me"
when pointing to himself in the photo, so my nephew assumed that was his name.
("Me, Me, what's for dinner, Me?") He now understands pronouns, but seems to
have also kept "Me" as his dad's name.

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jgoewert
Well, I guess that is his opinion. But, the poll question at the end is going
to give misleading results.

"Have you lost the desire to buy a game by watching a Let's Play Video?"

Yes, I have. I can't remember which game it was, but what I do remember is
thinking "Oh, dang, that game does not look like fun to me. Glad I just saved
some cash not buying it." So, I would have to answer Yes. However, I watch
others and have rebought games including Starflight, Ultima 4, and Star
Control 2 from GOG because I watched Let's Play and wanted to play it myself
again.

A lot of the time, I buy my games via Steam, GoG, or the discount bundles. On
the pages, they usually have 1 or 2 videos and a handful of screenshots. Too
often the video teaser they have is a bunch of fading text telling me that the
game has "Over 20 graphics shaders!" and some snapshots of concept art and
then half a second of "actual" gameplay which shows an external camera pointed
at the player doing whatever to show off the graphics instead of the HUD or
how the player will actually be playing the game. Those videos hurt game sales
way more than any Let's Play series I have ever watched.

~~~
GFischer
I loved Starflight... is there a newer version or did you get the original?
Where did you get it?

I think I have the original lying around (with the code wheel and everything..
I feel old).

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xSwag
While OPs statement might apply to single player video games where there is
just one generic campaign. I feel the need to mention that this is not the
case with all games, specially sandbox games such as Minecraft and multiplayer
games such as Starcraft and Call of Duty along with a ton of other games.

Let's Play videos are great for the gaming industry, specially indie game
developers. For example, Minecrafts success was partially due to all the Lets
Play videos that were created on Youtube. Its essentially free publicity for
video games. The prime example of this would be Seananners[1] who made a video
that currently has 1.5M views. In addition, Lets Play videos allow players to
preview the game before they buy it to get to know the game and see if its
worth purchasing. A trailer is not always enough.

Disclaimer: I launched a website dedicated to Lets Plays 2 days ago
(<http://commentato.rs>)

[1]<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bAMaNYrJ4o>

~~~
aristidb
For example in Minecraft, Let's Plays can give you ideas for things to build,
maybe even outright copy, in your own world. This works because it's a huge
open-ended game with rich game mechanics.

Maybe if your game is a linear pseudo-Movie that can be fully substituted by a
few LP videos, you have something to worry. But that's not LPs damaging the
game industry, that's the game industry churning out unoriginal and, frankly,
lame games.

~~~
pyre
Even linear pseudo-movies aren't necessarily damaged by Let's Play videos.

I watched an entire walkthrough of Batman Arkham City, but the combat system
was so awesome/fun-looking that I'll eventually buy the game myself and play
it (probably even go back and buy Arkham Asylum too, as it has the same combat
system -- though an earlier version).

That said, I also watched through the entirety of Max Payne 3, and it didn't
make me all that excited to run out and buy it. It mostly made me remember how
the bullet time became less fun after hours of using it in actual game play
(in the first 2 Max Payne games). In reality, it was just the story that would
have driven that game for me (and in the end, I didn't really like the story
that much anyways).

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jiggy2011
Youtube videos seem to be the only way to get an idea of what gameplay is
like. The majority of official promotion videos on Steam etc seem to basically
just show clips from cutscenes along with sentences from the press release
splashed up dramatically rather than actual gameplay.

However I find most "Let's play" videos deadly boring , especially for games I
haven't played yet. I've never watched a full one. Though sometimes I do enjoy
watching parts of the ones with amusing commentary especially for retro games
since it's a lazy way to re-live the experience.

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withad
For me, Let's Plays fall into two categories. Some are like audio commentary
tracks on DVDs - they can be entertaining and informative but you'd never
listen to it without watching the film alone first. Others are more like
MST3K/RiffTrax, where it's a particularly bad game that I wouldn't have played
anyway made funny by the audio commentary. Some good examples of the latter
are the famous Let's Play of _Sonic the Hedgehog 2006_ [0] or the Retsupurae
guys doing _Dark Seed_ [1].

Basically, I've never watched an LP instead of actually playing a game and
I've actually avoided watching LPs of games I intend to play at some point,
just to avoid spoilers. There might be a few people who have but, overall, the
marketing benefit outweighs the downsides (unless, of course, you release an
awful game that gets famously ripped apart).

Interestingly, Michael "slowbeef" Sawyer, the Something Awful goon who's
credited with creating Let's Plays, can't stand a lot of YouTube Let's
Players. He and diabetus do Retsupurae [2], which is basically them commenting
over other people's commentary tracks and mocking them.

[0] <http://lparchive.org/Sonic-The-Hedgehog-2006/>

[1] <http://blip.tv/slowbeef/real-estate-headaches-5568062>

[2] <http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Retsupurae>

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mxfh
If you pay for a game it should be available as a whole. Cheat codes used to
be quite ubiquitous back in the day, today you might even have to pay for some
"DLC" to unlock the game to its full potential. There are so many reasons why
full play-through videos are a good thing.

1\. You can learn from them if you are stuck. (A good game should always
optionally hint you to what to do next.)

2\. Platform exclusive games

3\. Some people just don't have the time, motivation or simply the ability[1]
to acquire the reactive skills needed to progress in a game, just to unlock
the next cut scene. It's simply tiresome at some point. Especially story-heavy
action games suffer from this.

Basically you know you will eventually beat this sequence anyway, if you put
enough dedication into it, but on the other hand the reward of advancing is
just not high enough to continue playing. So you stop playing, which is bad
for the game, not you.

See Spec-Ops: The Line, Max Payne 3, Alice, Batman: Arkham Asylum, all very
good games but at some point just not worth you're time if you're tired of
doing the same thing over and over again (mostly shooting people) and you
basically just want to enjoy the story at some point.

A good example was L.A. Noire where one could skip the action sequences, sadly
the story was kind of boring.

Maybe there could be some kind of "Big Brother" mode where you just hand over
the action sequence to some reflex-superior AI which does the nasty stuff for
you. Until then videos are simply the best thing. People just like to be
passive at times.

It's OK to withhold achievements or other bragging rights from people who
progress in that way, but this way the storytelling aspect of single player
games are accessible to way more people than they are right now, which would
ultimately result in a bigger exposure of those and better games for all.

[1]
[http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2012/08/03/ga...](http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2012/08/03/game-
accessibility-what-it-is-and-why-it-matters.aspx)

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Paul_S
If your game offers the same experience when played or watched played then
it's a really crap game and should've been made into a film instead.

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jlbranca
I find myself drawn more to the funnier Let's Plays rather than the more
informative ones. I prefer to play games myself so most of the time I'll play
a game first before seeing if there's an LP about it.

Saying they're ruining the gaming industry is a bit harsh. What's ruining the
gaming industry are people buying the same games over and over again without
rewarding the developers who are trying new things. Yes I'm looking at you
Activision. At least a company like Ubisoft is TRYING to do new things. And
then some other big developers like Sega and Square-Enix have fallen on their
faces.

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tsumnia
Like many others here, "Let's Play" videos can, and personally should,
discourage the sell of bad games. They also can encourage more unknown games
to be brought to light. I frequent Twitch.tv a few times a week and never
click the top games, they are over-saturated and honestly over-hyped, though
to be fair I was never into the competitive gaming realm. I prefer the caster
to casually stream whatever retro/flavor-of-the-month/casual games and just
enjoying it.

A great example is Trauma Center for the Wii. I was busy working on my thesis
late at night and would pop on a stream to pass time while my processes ran.
Trauma Center was the type of game I would have never picked up, but during
the stream, the caster was covering the forensics section of the game. For a
mostly point and click game with cheesy graphics, the unraveling story behind
a wife killing her family was completely unexpected. Literally, the story drew
me in and I picked up the game to playthrough the entire thing.

"Let's Play" videos are still a delicate thing, mostly because you can't just
set up a stream and expect money. It requires community building and generally
speaking, you're personality has to be engaging enough that someone is willing
to stare at a little box of you while you game.

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stephengillie
These videos take the information out of the "game" realm and into "video".
These are less-bad for the gaming industry than rampant piracy:

 _I don’t have to pay $50 for a youtube-video_

Here we use the venerable _warez_ defense - these videos are like demo videos
in that they make you want to play the game yourself.

 _I get to see everything in HD, no matter how bad my system is(even on
mobile)_

So we can get the full game experience, even on an underpowered smartphone
over a bad connection. The future is awesome.

 _I don’t have to go through the hassle of installing a 10GB+ game_

The future is indeed awesome.

 _I can fast forward boring parts or skip parts_

I play Angry Birds during boring videogame sections

 _I can relax after work and don’t have to think while watching or I can
choose to figure out the next steps myself and then say “Yes, I would have
done it the same way”_

We can do the same with video episodes and movies, and many are written to
have main characters make dumb mistakes so viewers feel smarter.

 _It’s just as rewarding as figuring out something by playing myself_

No it isn't, and that's why these videos are good for the industry.

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alex_c
I understand the argument, but in the absence of any data we'll just be
trading anecdotes. Take, for example, The Walking Dead: a purely story-driven
single player game that would be the perfect candidate to watch instead of
play. I bought it because I saw my girlfriend watching some let's play videos
of it, and I thought it looked great - I hadn't even heard of it before.

That might just be my instinct - when I'm watching someone having fun, I want
to participate and have fun too. I suspect many people watch these videos
semi-passively while doing something else, which does not necessarily
translate into a lost sale. If anything it's hurting TV.

If some games are a lot more fun to watch than to actually play _for a
significant proportion of its potential player base_ , then I would argue
that's a problem with the game itself. It's possible that "let's play" videos
might actually push the industry to make better games.

Overall my guess would be these videos are either neutral for the industry as
a whole, or actively helpful by increasing exposure to games and creating
stronger gaming communities.

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Lockyy
In the face of a decreasing availability of demos for games I feel that let's
plays are the closest available thing to find out whether you like a game or
not. A review can only go so far.

The decreasing amount of demos for games is probably feeding into more people
watching LPs or pirating the games. I know a few of my friends pirate games
because they don't want to sink £30-40 pounds into a game only to find out
they hate it. Even if you've owned previous games in a series you can't rely
on that experience to determine whether you'll like the next game, as I've
discovered with several games lately.

Also, the author's assertion that watching the LP was a sufficient substitute
for playing the game seems like it may not stand up against more choice based
games like Mass Effect, at least for me. I could certainly see myself not
watching any longer if the person playing started wildly diverging from how
I'd react to situations. Even if someone is generally close to how I'd play
there would be divergences in the choices.

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vetler
I've never been turned off buying a game after watching a Let's Play video,
but I can see how I might ... It could be a great companion to a proper
review.

However, getting turned off buying a game isn't necessarily a bad thing; it
might prevent you from buying a game that isn't any good, or that is hyped by
the games media.

So bring on the Let's Play videos, I say!

~~~
TillE
> It could be a great companion to a proper review.

Maybe it's just my ignorance, but I've yet to see anyone doing really good
video reviews.

I'd love a 5-10 minute video that demonstrates gameplay (not just random
B-roll stuff, but specific clips intended to showcase what you actually do in
the game) and also provides the reviewer's impressions of the game as a whole.

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nuttendorfer
The author is missing something: Some people might just not _want_ to play
themselves. Could be a question or just interest in actually playing the game,
as some people (myself included) want to play a certain game but just can't
bring themselves up to it.

Those don't represent lost sales, these people wouldn't have bought the game
anyway.

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brador
This is more about how boring most modern games are to play. Plots and quests
are now standard, thanks to "game design" schools. Reuse of assets is common.

Most modern games are just not very fun to play. There's no challenge, because
challenge is hard and makes playtesters quit. So let's hold hands.

And then you have the tutorials. Sometimes an entire game ends up as one big
game tutorial. Most hardcore players would prefer a quick rundown of controls
during a loading screen and then to be let loose and make mistakes. But no,
first here's a 30 minute tutorial level you can't skip.

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AjithAntony
I used to play Startcraft II a lot. Now I just watch the videos and streams.
Less stress, easy to do anywhere, better gameplay. You could say that it is
because this is "e-sports" and not typical of other genre's, but there really
is a lot of entertainment value in watching other people play games. I
remember back in the day when I had the only Nintendo on my block, the
neighborhood kids would come over just to watch me play. And they didn't even
really want to play. If I would offer to share, they would just get frsutrated
because we would make much better progress when I was playing.

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grose
I think it ultimately comes down to this: playing games is more fun than
watching them. There are some games like Phoenix Wright or visual novels where
a Let's Play is essentially the same thing as the real deal, but for most
games the fun comes from doing it yourself. Let's Plays are interesting for me
because they've got funny narrations, skilled play, interesting commentary,
secrets, stuff like that. I don't feel like they are a replacement for
actually playing a game. They're kinda like DVD special features.

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robert00700
I think it depends on the genre at hand. Massive AAA singleplayer titles that
tend towards being more ‘interactive cinematic experiences’ would suffer from
this certainly, but I’m sure (as other have posted) more free-form games such
as Minecraft it can only be a boon for. With the former, a play-through
potentially makes your own experience feel a bit stale, whereas with creative
games it more likely than not just stimulates your own imagination about how
the possibilities of the sandbox the game gives.

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jamesu
To me a Let's Play is a useful insight into how someone else tackles a game.
Commonly if I am stuck, I will look for a Let's Play video to see how it's
done. It's also great being able to see the ending of a game which you find
impossible to complete.

Also in the case of a story-driven game, I might decide to watch a Let's Play
of the previous game to refresh my memory on basic plot points.

If anything they are good for the gaming industry.

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ZachPruckowski
I know I've bought several games because I watched or read Let's Plays on
Something Awful or YouTube and enjoyed them, and so bought the game or its
successor. Three examples that come to mind are Arkham City (watched the
Arkham Asylum LP), Europa Universalis (read an LP after playing CK2 a few
times) and Assassin's Creed II (watched an amazing LP of Assassin's Creed I)

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AndyNemmity
I've watched several Let's play games. They have caused me to buy games at a
much much much higher rate than I would normally.

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leh0n
Let's play videos encourage people to play the game, unless it's a bad game.
Games aren't movies

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unimpressive
I guess it would depend on the game. If it's a puzzle game a LP would probably
ruin it. But for something like say, skyrim; watching a LP only made me
hungrier to play the game.

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bartwe
As a gamedev and 'Let's play' fan i'd say No.

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danso
This was awhile back, but when I saw the time-attack video for Super Mario
Bros 3, I just about gave up playing video games out of a sense of abject
inadequacy.

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actsasbuffoon
No.

