Add me to the list of people > 40 who watch twitch on a regular basis. Mostly League of Legends, a little bit of DOTA2 when there’s a big tournament like the international. When the tournaments are on-going (like the LCS, which occurs 4 days a week, every week, for 10+ weeks in a row), that’s all the twitch I watch, as there’s a lot of content there. In the off season, there are streamers that I enjoy watching, partly because they play the same champions/roles I do so I can pick up pointers and see how the experts of the game play, and partly for their attitude, commentary, and even music. It’s sports for nerds!
I’m 53 and I’ve got a Twitch account, and follow a few people who mostly stream Elite: Dangerous. Maybe it’s due to the non-mass audience for that game, but the chat there isn’t too bad.
I’m 54 and don’t understand it, although this thread has shed some light, I think.
I mean, I watch a ton of Youtube stuff. I love Youtube.
Then I got pointed to Twitch to watch something specific, and there was a one hour countdown before I could watch it…? Every time I tried, it started the timer over. No explanation. Then I went to a current live thing and got right in.
So the primary difference between Youtube and Twitch is that Twitch is just live stuff with live interactivity, right? If that’s the case, I can see the appeal for those who appreciate live stuff, like competitive gaming.
The one hour timer thing had me baffled though.
But for me, I’m totally happy with pre-recorded and edited stuff.
Can you point me to the stream or whatever that had a “one hour timer”? I’ve been using twitch for years now, basically since they came into being, and I’ve never seen a stream where you couldn’t watch something. The whole point of the service is to serve you up adds, with content in-between (just like TV!) Showing you no content or adds seems…odd. The only thing I can think of is if there’s a particular broadcaster who has a VOD that is subscriber only, but I wouldn’t expect a counter there.
The other thing you get with twitch is a lot of content that’s never edited afterwards. I think the game I watch the most of has the company post the videos to youtube a day or so later, but it’s the exact same content.
I’ve never understood Twitch a whole lot myself either. Love Let’s Play videos or edited things like Day9 videos, but can’t get into Twitch style stuff. But then, I’m not a huge sports watcher either which I think is a big part of it - a lot of people here are saying they view tournaments and the like, so the whole e-sport connection makes sense. If I’m watching a video, it is because I want to see the flashy demo/trailer, I want to see a review/Let’s Play, or I want hints or a tutorial. And in the latter case I’d rather it be a text guide anyway unless it is something that make more sense to be seen (like non-gaming stuff - This Old House handyman guides or whatever).
I like having it on while I do something else. That’s the appeal of twitch to me.
I tend to watch a SolForge or Hearthstone stream while playing SolForge/Hearthstone myself. The chat in HS streams is usually unbearable so I just remove it, but in SolForge, where there’s usually just between 30-100 people, it’s pretty good. It’s basically just some of the community hanging out while playing the game.
Other than that, I sometimes fire Twitch up on my Xbox when there’s nothing on TV since I like having something running in the background while doing something else. Basically, after getting an Xbox One with Youtube and Twitch, my regular TV watching is almost close to zero.
It mostly really depends on how entertaining the player’s commentary is, not so much their ability to play the game (although of course they have to be quite good, at least - better than you the viewer anyway).
Beaglerush’s Twitch stream (and parallel youtube series) is almost literally the highlight of my week. But then, that’s because I’m currently bang into XCOM:LW mod myself, which is what he mainly plays. Plus he’s actually quite a witty guy in a nerdy sort of way, and always delivers a few LOL-worthy moments (e.g. when commenting on how the ragdoll physics has splayed some poor mob over some railings in a compromising position or something like that).
I think there must be more of a factor that you only enjoy these things if you’re playing them yourself than there is with physical sports. I mean, sure, people who play 5 a side at the weekend will be into watching footie on the telly too, but the vast majority of football fans are probably couch potatoes who don’t play football themselves (maybe did when they were younger a bit, etc.) Whereas with e-sports, I think it’s actually players who are interested in other watching other players.
Or at least, I can’t imagine watching some games without knowing the game would be much fun.
Very likely possibility, Giles: someone linked you to an older, recorded VOD on Twitch. Many tournaments (and some other streams) do start their broadcast early, maybe to work out computer kinks or stream settings or just to sort of announce “We’re almost ready!” and when they do so, they’ll put up a countdown timer to the actual start of the broadcast to let viewers know how long the testing/planning/hyping is going to last.
If you were linked to a Twitch VOD URL, it’s taking you to a recording of one of those highlights I mentioned earlier, and they’re designed to start at the beginning–unless the linker adds a time signature to the link. So, if the “start” of the broadcast (literal streaming) were an hour before the “start” of the broadcast (activity occurring), the VOD would always begin with the countdown timer.
It’s possible to skip forward in a VOD, but the control for it’s not intuitive if you think you’re watching live content, and moreover, VODs are always sort of buggy, so sometimes skipping doesn’t work right anyway. This is a major reason why many Twitch streamers upload VODs to Youtube after the fact; it’s a far better video storage/repository system.
The other reason that people upload to youtube is that Twitch currently has a 2 week retention period unless you mark a clip as a “highlight”, and I think that limits how long the video is.
As with some other people, my usage of twitch is as a “secondary” entertainment tool while I’m doing something else like coding. I have long debug / testing / compiling cycles for some of my work, so I have bursts of activity followed by chunks of waiting. So I actively watch when I can’t work, and listen passively when I am working. I tend to watch streamers who have good music that I’d enjoy listening to anyway, so they act as DJ’s when I can’t actively watch the stream.
I’ll defend Twitter and it may apply to Twitch: People that say “I really don’t care about when you or even Tom Cruise is taking a dump, hahaha” are only showing their own ignorance, and not actually saying anything clever or funny. (Sorry I don’t mean to insult, but I hear this frequently, and this is an anonymous internet forum, so I get to rant about it :).)
Twitter and twitch are not at all about finding out when you’re ordering a pizza. We don’t care either. What it is about is being plugged in to something you find interesting or care about. You can and do get content and knowledge sooner, less biased, and in many cases much better in terms of quality and truth than other sources. I personally don’t post on Twitter but I like it a lot, and I only follow 25 people. One small example, I follow https://twitter.com/wcronon - Bill Cronan, an environmental historian, who frequently links to very interesting articles likethis amazing map of Africa illustrating its scale. Are you interested in transit projects in your city? Activities of your state police? Behind-the-headlines meaning about the falling price of oil? Twitter. And then, all of a sudden, when someone you follow and actually do find interesting posts about having ‘an amazing pizza at restaurant x’ you might actually find that interesting too.
Anyway, to me Twitch is like that for games. You can be plugged in to what’s happening, or learn about new games, watch before you buy etc. Also a lot of the younger generation multi-task these days (more than we ever do) with twitch open while chatting with friends, studying two subjects, texting, listening to music, surfing, having a coffee and talking to their friends across the library table etc (edited)
I tried watching some Twitch streams out of curiosity and quickly was bored. I watched one guy playing DayZ and he spent the five minutes I watched running in the hills. The highlight was when he heard something and wondered if it was a zombie but it turned out to be a rabbit. He said nothing interesting. Then I watched a bit of an XCOM stream and all that did was make me want to play instead of watch. The commentary was so mundane I don’t remember any of it. Finally I tried a bit of WoW PvP. I watched a guy play a rogue and he was talking about how he liked corn and it was important not to mix it in with other vegetables but to keep it separate on the plate.
Guess you watched the wrong streams.
Mind you, I’m not near as big a Twitch consumer as my kids. I mainly watch it when I want something in the background or for the odd streamer I enjoy. The XBox One app is great for that. I primarily use it to watch League of Legends (particularly the official, commented events), Hearthstone streamers who help me improve my game, and streams of new games I’m not sure I want to buy. If you don’t like one streamer, find another one streaming the same game. And when you find one you like, subscribe for future consumption.
Wendelius
Yeah, that’s like turning on television for the first time, switching between three channels before turning off and declaring you don’t understand this TV thing.
Because, like television, most streams on twitch are absolute crap. Just like most channels on Youtube are. Or any other media for that matter.
I watch Twitch for mainly DansGaming. He streams a lot of games I would much rather watch than play and he’s not annoying or boring like most casters on Twitch. His annual Horror month he does every year where he puts up 24/7 streams of horror games he’s played is always a treat.
I occasionally watch ManVsGame and his friend Zeke as they can be really funny especially when they do streams together, but they don’t seem to do that very often anymore.
The D&D roleplaying sessions that itmeJP runs are (surprisingly) entertaining too…
I’d probably look at the popular streamers that have tons of viewers, because they probably have a lot of viewers for a reason.
Sure, by pandering to the idiot masses with their stupidity-content!!!11one
I only watch all-natural, organic, gluten-free streamers, plebe. Enjoy your CHEMICAL STREAM.
I only watch Streams for indie games no one has heard of by streamers who don’t say anything and periodically pause the game and take naps.
You’d be surprised. Many of the top-tier streamers are mostly really good at engaging the streaming chat audience. This gives them their success, but they’re as entertaining as PewDiePie - which I suppose is good for them since PewDiePie has a bajillion Youtube followers and fans.
Molly?