“I don’t understand video game videos.”
Thanks for sharing that. That was funny. It’s been a while since I saw an article from Ellie Gibson on Eurogamer. Maybe that male/female ratio article that ranked Eurogamer so low pushed them to ask her to come back with a column.
Is it that difficult to get one’s head around watching video games on YouTube or Twitch or whatever? I find that I enjoy watching for a variety of reasons, possibly to find out if a new game might be worth trying out (since demos don’t seem to be a thing anymore) or if a game looks kind of interesting but not really my style of gameplay. I’ve watched Dark Souls runs but have no interest in playing, same for a Resident Evil 7 stream I’ve been following. Sometimes you just want to see something entertaining.
I can understand it with limitations but ultimately I find watching others play videogames (streaming or recorded) a really poor use of my free time. Like really suboptimal with little payoff. Watching streams are the worst since I cannot fast forward past tons of nonsense, downtime, and horrible pacing.
So while I might fast-forward through a gameplay video when I am making a purchasing decision, I would much rather spend my time actually playing than watching others play while inserting tons of filler dialogue, memes, interactions with viewers, and obnoxious subscribe animations. The whole culture surrounding this has become quite insufferable.
Same here, yeah. The one thing that makes Tom’s streams a good time though is that you guys are there in the comment section, and we generally have a pretty good time in the chat, just joking around.
You guys should check out some of the Let’s Plays over on Something Awful. They’re quite often very tightly edited and well commented, which can make the experience educational as well, I often find out something new when watching. Just watching some random teenager fuck around in Minecraft is a totally different thing.
The appeal is socialization and speed. Even i enjoy watching videos of games now if the Youtuber is old enough and mature (hi Qt3 Youtube channel!) enough for me not to feel uncomfortable. Also see Heir of Carthage’s Total War stuff. And if the video is well edited i can watch something much faster than i can play it. And, in strategy games at least, i can watch someone playing with “turn 100” factions rather than me spending 20 hours myself to get there.
There’s clearly some Minecraft level lemon-face ramblings that’s Not For Me but for kids, and that’s fine; and that might be what she’s talking about. Pew De Pie or however you say his name was basically just a cute guy going “oh wow!! lol” and made a career out of that, because to kids it felt like he was coolest kid in school and was asking them to hang out.
it’s not a way I spend free-time; it’s background noise that’s less important to follow moment-to-moment than a TV show or even a cooking video on Youtube, but it’s still interesting enough to flick my attention over to between bites of dinner and scrolling through, well, this place :)
You better believe it! I bring fifty years of hard livin’ to my video streaming!
-Tom
You go girl! :)
Is JeffK still writing?
This is a great article. Be sure to check the comments for the Google Maps street view of her store.
It’s sad, but still really cool.
From the article:
The disproportionate trolling that women in video games have to deal with is enough to put a lot of girls and women off this career option entirely, or push them into quitting. I’ve known many women over the years who simply got fed up with online bullshit and never getting promoted, and went off to work in a more rewarding career.
This seems like a key point form the article. When–just 4 short years ago–a very public organized harassment campaign targeted female journalists specifically I am sure it turned off a lot of working female journalists and future candidates. The low pay and high workloads just aren’t worth the reaction if you do something like cover an MRA sacred cow game in a poor light.
Not to disparage the unique bullshit that women in any games-related career face, but it’s not like “not getting promoted, low pay, and shitty hours” are unique to le deuxième sexe.
Yeah, I’m sure men have it rough as well, but to think they are equivalent is to ignore a shit ton of data on women and employment in almost every other sector out there.
With Gamergate, I can only imagine how much worse it must be in the the Video game industry then most other sectors.
Any version of this article that isn’t behind a paywall?
If you search the title and then open the article through Google it’s unrestricted. Something to do with requirements to be included in search results, iirc.
There are MT and there are abusive MT. Appears that if you appear to tweak your game to require a player to pay more money to finish or “win,” the internet mobs will swarm and take a dump on your metacritic rating and maybe your stock price.