Your favorite streamer?

OH! Really? cohhHmm

We are now at War! / ?

View attached image.

I see your point. But I think for me sitting around with my brothers and taking turns (which we still do) is completely different from watching a streamer put on a show. The one is a social activity in the way the other isn't. And even then, I don't find somebody else playing games all that inherently interesting. But playing together is a shared activity of ours, not just a viewing experience.

That said, I get the sense that a lot of people do feel like they're hanging out with their favorite streamers or podcasters--that it's part of the appeal. I don't. And that might partly explain my curmudgeonly attitude.

xD

I think we need to differentiate between streamers that simply play random games on an average player's level and e-sports tournaments.

The latter is very similar to regular sports. Maybe the fans are not quite as enthusiastic as regular sports fans (or maybe they are, to be honest I don't know a lot of people who watch e-sports). But the core elements are very much the same - two players or two teams playing a certain game against each other. I don't see much difference between soccer and say Starcraft 2 (which I love to watch, btw). The one big argument people always bring is that Starcraft is not an athletic sport and therefore doesn't count. But I don't think that's true, since there are other sports that don't really have an athletic component, yet are accepted as sports. For instance I love to watch Snooker.

So, I believe that most people on SG will probably understand why e-sports is fascinating to some people, similar to regular sports. Way more people will have difficulties understanding the other kind of stream, the guy that just plays some games.

I have to say I see it as some sort of TV substitute. It's not that different from certain TV formats, actually. People watch other people cook food on TV. How different is it really to watch someone play a video game? Sure, it looks different. The cooking show is probably well made and has that TV show look, while the stream shows mostly the video game and a small webcam image. But aside from that, you watch someone do something that you could do yourself, or maybe want to do later. Maybe you learn something, maybe you don't. And the entertainment value comes from how the person comments on what they're doing.

I personally just watch a guy who plays Hearthstone. He is calm and doesn't shout all the time like many of the younger streamers. He doesn't constantly beg for donations. Watching him doesn't mean I don't want to play the game myself or anything like that. I do play it. But I am not always in the mood to play a game. During the week after work I might be tired and just want to watch something. Since I don't have TV ( got rid of it like 10 years ago), I choose from a number of things - a movie, a TV show on Netflix or something, or a Youtube video (and that can be a video of the streamer). Just any kind of media that entertains me.

And I think that's how we need to approach this. Watching a stream (or a video of a stream) is not that different from watching any other kind of entertaining media. Not everybody likes everything, sure. I don't like streamers who are too loud, who care more about donations than the actual content they provide, or who play a role and are not honest. I saw the beginning of a video a while ago where the obvious concept of the channel was that the guy plays a hard game and constantly curses into the mic (it was called rage quit something something). And it was so obvious that the guy is just playing a role. That he would not behave like this in real life. That I absolutely dislike. But who am I to decide what people should watch or not? I also don't understand Reality TV. But I can accept that other people enjoy it. I guess almost any kind of media is valid as long as it entertains people.