Players watching Players

King of Posters
#1

Here’s a general-purpose streaming / Twitch thread.

This time last year I had no interest in watching streams, and I harbored an active antipathy toward the effects of Twitch on game-discussion communities. I may still have a violent aversion to Twitch emotes used in most contexts, but I have completely reversed my position on the value of streaming, thanks mainly to various Sunless Sea LPers and the work of Joseph Anderson. I got started watching him because of his Youtube channel, notably his video on What Remains of Edith Finch, but what really tripped me down the rabbithole of regular stream watching was his longplay of Super Mario Odyssey, which culminated in a two-hour criticism video in which he exhaustively breaks down and categorizes the nature of the game’s play.. The guy clearly plays games in a completely different mindset than I do, so watching him go through the process of playing a game he’s never played before has been pretty satisfying.

So: streamers. Do you watch any? Why?

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#2

i watch vinny from vinesauce becauseof his soothing voice

#3

Sometimes I watch Streams of stuff I don’t think I actually want to play but am curious about.

#4

I still have no idea what the attraction of watching streaming is relative to watching a well edited youtube video with the exception of watching a streamer in a low-population environment where you can actually regularly interact with them.

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#5

My streamwatch begins and ends at EVO coverage, and even that’s waned as I care less about the games being contested

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#6

I like watching LordBBH’s MAME Roulette streams; he’s an all-around pleasant guy, and he knows enough about a wide variety of games to have a good chance of showing off interesting ones, and at least tolerating the rest long enough to get a sense of the experience.

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#7

I like to watch other people play videogames, honestly. I’m at the point in my gaming life where I know exactly how I would approach every situation and what I’m interested in is seeing how other people approach the same thing. Have negative interest in eSports or people who are busier putting on a show about themselves than playing games though.

Twitch emotes made a lot more sense to me once I started studying Japanese and seeing how kanji are used in practical use. Kanji have an extremely high information density relative to English, and the only equivalent for English speakers would be emotes. Everyone has their own in-jokes and lingo, regardless of context. The usage of the Kappa emote is almost 1:1 to 笑, for example.

I don’t really like watching LPs for the most part. It’s more fun to be able to interact with the player and hang out for more than just the highlight reel. Streams more than about 400~600 viewers are basically not terribly fun though.

and yeah LordBBH is great, favorite streamer right now for sure here. That he streams regularly every Monday/Thursday night makes it easy to schedule around too.

Aside from him I’ll pop in on CapnClever(dos games, primarily), Chuboh(old games lately, lots of jank), Macaw45(king of obscurity), and SpootyBiscuit(Necrodancer runner/puzzle games/Descent) fairly regularly.

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#8

lordbbh is the only one i can tolerate

#9

I basically do nothing but watch shit on twitch/have twitch on in the background while I do nothing help

right now it’s lcs, which probably doesn’t count, but holy shit lcs is so bad right now riot fix your game jesus

#10

I can relate to this. Lately I have just been phasing in and out on finals day. Will you be tuning into Evo Japan next week? That one really snuck up on me and I didn’t realize it was so soon.

#11

you should come over to HGC, where no one is watching and every game is a clown fiesta

#12

Might catch the ARMS stuff

#13

some of my jp friends are incredibly hype for evo japan

i barely paid attention to evo last year, because i honestly could not care less about this generation of fighters

what i enjoy most about the genre has been slowly but surely obliterated by the need to be spectator friendly for esports. that is, the games feel designed for spectators more than players, and they suffer for it.

bleh

#14

even when I played hots every day and watched pro streamers every day (and I still watch them frequently) I couldn’t bring myself to enjoy professional hots. and then I realized that if they couldn’t rope me in, they were doomed. I am the patient zero target audience for HGC. they fucked.

#15

look, it’s like I said, no one’s watching

it doesn’t help that English coverage of Korean teams gets dumped in the middle of the morning (the next match is at 4 AM EST, whereas Western coverage starts at the decidedly saner noon)

#16

I feel bad for wolf, the caster. he’s like the most passionate korean esports afficianado on the planet, but he keeps ending up doing things no one cares about. he was the GSL code A caster in starcraft. SSL in starcraft. never invited to any of the big international events when starcraft mattered, only filled in for Code S, the premiere korean league (and he no longer does that either). all his caster friends eventually made it to lol or overwatch. he subbed in for the korean overwatch league sometimes. now that league is dead. when he did code A his first partner was doa, who ended up an extremely popular league caster who now does the overwatch league. they were a great duo. doa probably makes ten times the money wolf makes now.

#17

he’s still probably doing better than the Chinese HGC streams, which are in the morning at the beginning of the work week and casted by some EU HotS streamers (Kendrick and someone else) skyping over the Chinese feed

yes, this is on the official HotS channel.

#18

I watch Macaw for my obscure Japanese retro fix - PC-88/98/X68000 stuff. He clearly loves the stuff he’s into, so it’s always entertaining to watch even when he doesn’t quite have the hang of the game. Used to watch a senior Japanese streamer called miyabi142, but he’s not as active as he was, sadly.

I’ve heard good stuff about BBH, so I’d be inclined to give him a go. Otherwise most streams seem to have inherited the “YO WASSUP GUUUUUUUUUUUUUYS ITSYABOI” stuff from let’s plays, or are just straight up normie stuff, so I’m not interested unless it’s someone I know streaming.

#19

Everyone is talking about how Macaw plays obscure games and jank and all these old computer games, from Japanese-only computers to DOS an old Mac

What they aren’t telling you is that the true Macaw experience is watching him stream porn games

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#20

The only streams i regularly watch are by the duckfeed.tv guys

Kole streams horror games (of all eras and production values) from time to time. Gary streams readings of Choose Your Own Adventure and similar gamebooks every Friday, with the gimmick that anytime he dies, the book is over and he moves on to a new one. They both use the same twitch channel: https://www.twitch.tv/duckfeedtv

They’re good, funny dudes with non-obnoxious voices, go check out their stuff

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