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I mean, have you played games recently?
This makes me feel kind of alienated.
I don’t think I’ve ever watched someone playing games intentionally, outside of like “how do you do this part?” guides, and maybe a couple hours spectating in games total.
Ok, and a handful of like “let me solo her” highlights that made it to me. But I never like seek it out.
I’m principal Skinner, I guess.
I like people doing challenge runs and speed runs, and occasionally letsgameitout who spends 1000 hours committing to the bit that I might have considered as a passing funny joke. I’d rather watch that then some evening ad riddled free to air.
I’m well over 30, not far from 40. Hobbies can be entertaining like watching someone else race a car. I ain’t gonna be able to do that. But I appreciate those who can.
It would never occur to me to go watch someone do a whole speed run. Even less so to watch someone “doing a bit”. Like, making a character that looks like Shrek and invading in a swamp is kind of funny, but I’m not going to watch that.
I don’t know how to explain the complete void that is my interest there. Like, I wouldn’t be mad if it was on in the background. But I just… Don’t find it appealing. Like watching paint dry or looking out my window. It’s there. Sometimes there’s a cat. But I’m never going to be like "sweet let’s go watch outside the window "
this is Lemmy. There’s like dozens of us in this thread that hate watching streamers! you are not alone.
Bro, preach. Definitely only need a quick clip for like, where is this item hiding in Elden Ring?
Maybe helps that I still have a solid squad of irl mates I game with, but also don’t mind catching solo time on single players.
I was dead fucking wrong about twitch tho. When it first came out I was like “who the hell is this for, younger siblings?” Like, why wouldn’t you just play the game yourself? Figured there’d be a lil niche for e-sport pro level scene, but twitch got way bigger than I ever would’ve thought.
Saying all this as a mid-thirty dude who truly will never comprehend people who spend a bunch on twitchy
It’s cool watching people of different skill levels than you, not just the pros I think. Also when people take on challenges that take a long time, you can kind of skip through the vid at your leisure.
Plus sometimes you just don’t have the energy to game. It’s like Matt Groening said in that old Life is Hell comic (although about tv): Why is tv the best pal of all? When you’re tired, tv does the playing for you.
I stream a 25-year-old MMO, EverQuest, about 8 hours a week and lots of viewers just want to live vicariously through my moment remembering when they were doing it themselves without committing 500-1,000 hours to level a character.
I also watch other people play other class types of endgame content to do the same.
I’m not the most engaging streamer, but I enjoy answering questions to my 2-10 viewers. I also enjoy when another streamer answers my own questions.
I don’t understand watching streamers with 4,000 viewers spamming kewk emojis though.
I’ve been really into Meridian 59 lately, but haven’t been playing in the past couple of weeks. Thanks for the reminder.
You play live service EQ or P99 or Quarm?
I’ve played them all. EQ definitely the game nearest and dearest to my heart.
I stream and play Quarm exclusively. Best balance of nostalgia and community. <3
I played Quarm until just before Kunark came out. Haven’t played since Kunark but continue to support Secrets on Patreon. She’s putting so much work into it. How’s Kunark doing?
Lots of VP raids these days and there was a kick-ass event for the one year anniversary where we got to play in Plane of Justice for a month with all kinds of fun loot. Raids are instances now, with open world raids still around as well. So there’s none of that P99 FTE sweat going on. Basically, if you raid, you’ll get gear. No bottle necks for epics anymore.
Most of us are ready for Velius, but having fun.
Because the new games are shit and the good old games you can’t play on newer systems properly
Emulators are a thing, you know.
Makes enough sense, as goofy as it sounds.
- No Money. - Videos let me watch games that aren’t worth buying to me along with letting me parse games that look fun enough to buy.
- No Time. - Videos can be put on during other chores or tasks, left on as background noise during times where I would absolutely not have enough time to actually play a game.
- Skill Issue. - No matter how good I want to be, I’m ultimately just kinda ok at games. Watching higher level players can be a way for me to learn tips and tricks to improve, or they can be a way for me to experience difficulty levels of the game I will never realistically achieve on my own.
You forgot: The videos often have absurd challenges that most gamers would never try, like for example trying to beat Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire with only a physical attacking Abra.
Arguably that falls under both 2 and 3, but yeah entirely unique challenges or play modes is another reason to watch.
Or counting how many people are employed in Skyrim.
Amen to that!
I mean they are counting e-sports? Because is the same shit as watching soccer but better, vast majority of soccer fans doesn’t play it regularly.
7.4 hours a week gaming
Those are rookie numbers
The long weekend from Thanksgiving gave me unprecedented access to factorio space age. I think I hit 60 hours last week.
Makes sense. I usually just put on a 2+ hours long video whenever I’m doing chores. I don’t actually care about Wolfey’s last weird team, it just makes for good background noise.
Same. I watch VODs about a strategy game I really like playing (EU4) because I rarely have the time to actually dig in to a campaign, so watching/listening to someone else (while I do chores) do what I don’t have for allows me to get some of that connection to a game I love. I do play the game quite a bit (have nearly 1k hours), but not nearly as much as I’d like.
There’s a pretty big difference in what I play vs what I watch though. I generally play action games and watch strategy games, because action games are easy to jump into for an hour or so at a time, whereas strategy games usually need an hour just to remember what I was doing last, so I tend to wait until I can block out an entire evening.
Yep, it’s hard to make time for a several hours long hobby when you’re an adult.
strategy games usually need an hour just to remember what I was doing last, so I tend to wait until I can block out an entire evening
lol yeah, it’s like planning date night with your game.
I have played through Factorio, I have also watched every video doshdoshington has made about it while cooking, doing dishes etc.
Exactly what I did the last few days, great channel :D
New report claims people with hobby spend more time watching videos about hobby than doing hobby
Watching someone cut a dovetail by hand is a lot more interesting now that I know from experience how hard it is. And maybe I’ll learn a trick to make my next ones better.
And its cheaper to watch someone do it. Quality timber and tools are expensive.
And less annoying to your neighbor if you’re in a neighborhood. Plus how many tables can you actually fit in a house?
Cutting dovetails implies by hand - power tools exist for it, but those using power tools generally use different joints.
My neighbor does not make dovetails, then.
I’m not surprised. They are very hard to make correctly and not that much better than other options that are easier to do. they are a “holy grail” of wood working skill for a reason. I’ve done a dozen in my life and the best is so awful I want to burn an otherwise nice creation to hide the evidence.
Dovetail sounds like a bird. It’s not a bird, right? Right?
A dovetail is a type of joint that doesn’t require fasteners and only uses the material (usually glue for wood).
It was more funny when I didn’t know that :(
But thanks! I kind of expected it’s something like that :D
Does knowing that the name comes from one of the join elements (left side) looking like the tail of a dove, improve that?
I use one of those big metal paper choppers to cut doves tails.
😏
Execution is a small part of “the planning”, man. That ain’t even fair.
If I want to do my hobby, I need to make time for it, whereas if I want to watch videos about my hobby, I can do it on the toilet. It turns out it’s a lot easier to watch than make time for a hobby, hence why I do more of it.
If I didn’t have to work, I’d spend more time doing my hobby. But I do, and I have kids, so hobby time is quite limited.
Where’s “New report claims sports fans spend more time watching sport / videos about sport than playing sport”.
This isn’t some new, crazy, hard to understand concept.
I’ll be honest I find it hard to understand for sports as well.
This thread got me thinking Lemmy needs a better “find a co-op buddy” community for games in general. If it’s here already, could use better marketing.
Not sum’m I suffer from, but I want to see y’all living your best lives too. A good homie can make or break a game run.
I miss r/summonsign and whatever the one for elden ring was. From Soft co-op is the best part of their games.
Truly. A bit of jolly co-op goes a long way
I don’t watch streams, but I do watch a lot of Let’s Plays (i.e. Materwelonz, WoolieVersus). Sometimes to watch them play games that I normally wouldn’t, sometimes to listen to their insights at certain hype points in games I previously played, and usually due to loneliness (i.e. parasocial relationships).
Regarding the last point, it also tends to be the reason I gravitate towards games with strong story, or MMOs. Feeling like I belong to a community keeps the loneliness at bay. Outside of games, I like to be in crowded areas, though not necessarily interacting with anyone.
I watch games about the game in gaming, but I also watch games about my game when I’m not gaming. Therefore by definition my gaming will be less than my watching gaming.
What if gaming time is 4 hours, you spend 3/4 of gaming time playing games, and you watch gaming videos for one hour outside gaming time?
You have to watch the video of the game you are playing in order to play the game you are playing. By definition… (if you are video gaming) all bets are off for boardgamers!
Board gamers watch videos about board games too!
The point is if you are video gaming you are literally watching a video of yourself playing the game. That is why it is "video"gaming…
What if gaming time is 4 hours
I remember not having kids…
Now gaming time, if I’m lucky, is like 30 mins a week. Much of that spent patching and remembering wtf I was doing last time I played.
Not counting playing with them, at least. Though they spend more time watching Minecraft videos than playing Minecraft, so there’s that.
I’ve spent boatloads more time watching football than playing football, too.
Also, with Rainbow 6: Siege, there’s so many ways to play the game that I love watching videos to get ideas for new strategies to try.
Lastly, contrary to popular belief, a lot of games actually require thinking about what you’re doing. Time spent playing is not really time spent spacing out so I will happily watch videos about a game I like to play when I don’t have the energy to actually focus on playing them.
In other stunning news, researchers find people who like sports spend more time watching it than playing it.
That’s me for sure these days. Back in high school I used to play at least a couple of hours every day. I have a gaming PC and a Steam Deck but probably play a few hours a month. But I’ll happily watch several hours of Twitch each day while I’m relaxing.
Probably just getting older and busier, haha.
As a (probably) even older guy I find it the weirdest thing ever. “watching games being played”. It’s boring AF.
Sure, I can’t t play counterstrike effectively anymore. Sure I am the one with the most deaths in helldivers2. Doom eternal is just way too twitchy for me. I’ve become too slow. In mechwarrior 5 I have too put the difficulty on story/easy and aim assist on. Which hurt my old ego the most to be honest.
But doing it still beats the shit out of watching it.
/start_old_man_rant
Especially these days when every streamer is an egocentric manchilds screaming their head off in a totally scripted “episode”. Or girls in bikinis only because it sells. Can we just leave that in hooters? And everything is bought and paid for. You’re watching a commercial. Or do you really think that logo on his mike just happens to be in view? Or the brand of the gaming chair?or that cupboard behind him filled with lights and gaming gear? Its ultra consumerism. And the begging for money. Fuck off. Really.
I hate it.
I miss total biscuit. That was entertainment.
/end_old_man_rant
I mean, the thing that people watch twitch for is mainly the person/people on the stream, the game is a backdrop, rarely the actual focus
And not everyone is ego-centric like you’re saying? I mean, there’s literally tens of thousands of streamers. Don’t just look at the biggest ones that probably mainly appeal to kids, i.e. a different audience than you. Chances are the kind of people you would enjoy watching are just smaller and more niche
