I’ve been enjoying the Twitch app on the Xbone lately, it’s given me an opportunity to check out people playing stuff I was thinking about playing like Warframe an Dying Light. There’s definitely a lot of chaff to sort through and some folks have some extremely annoying graphics/sound effects/shout outs that keep me from enjoying the experience but there’s some really good stuff too - I saw a dude playing Super Metroid the other day!
For most of them, it’s not really about being a pro gamer. They’re entertainers, plain and simple.
Ohh this is an entire subculture of streaming/youtubing. I don’t know how well it plays if you don’t have any kind of WWE knowledge but I find one ensemble, newLegacyINC (on youtube and streaming on Hitbox), to be ridiculously entertaining.
Hey, that’s a really good explanation, thanks!
I expect nothing less from 4rm4nd0 HYPE P3nbl4d3 my best bae.
-Todd
On the large donations scrolling, the only thing that comes to mind is the some people have more money than sense.
Now on enjoying watching Twitch-type streaming, I’m curious for those of you older ones, did you also enjoy watching other sports or following teams/players?
I don’t get it … watching streamers beyond the for spot information thing, but I also just am not grabbed by any sports, including ones I have competed in. Then again watching competitive sailboat racing is … pretty? maybe at times but hardly known for its “action”.
Honestly, the Bizzarro St. intersection between Black Twitter and PC Gaming Master Race neckbeardism is one of the strangest things I’ve ever seen. I’m relatively certain that the scrawny basement dweller LoL semipro/professional Skype hax0r is not, in any way, “on fleek” in the original intended meaning, but he seems to be having fun, so I guess that’s all that matters.
I watch a lot of League of Legends streaming, because the game is complex enough to keep me interested as an e-sport and because Riot is doing a good job of keeping a pro scene goig which allows for fandom quite well.
As for people having more money than sense, I was watching a stream a couple nights back where some guy tried to impersonate a known pro player and got called out by the streamer. At that point, a couple of the players in the game started trying to make the streamer look bad, by “projecting” stupid juvenile swear words and racist slurs onto the stream. Except for the fact that:
- The software the streamer was using auto-filtered actually objectionable words
- The people were paying $3.00 a pop in donations in order to do the projection (that seems to be how many streamers have things set up… to ask a question/make a comment as a normal watcher you donate a certain amount and the comment goes through and gets the streamer’s attention.)
Pretty sure I watched someone drop around $50/$100 over 35 minutes to try to annoy the streamer. What an interesting business model! I propose that we start essentially fining flamers all across the internet for a small amount and then continue to ignore them as always. Think of the money!
That is hysterical.
You’ve just described Kaceytron’s business model.
Exploiting idiots is not limited to Twitch.
It really is bizarre at first glance.
It looks a great deal like horny guys on camgirl sites. But that should be different, right? Those guys are trying to jerk off, and dudes are notoriously stupid when they’re horny. Thing is, the guys who just want to quickly masturbate and be on their way aren’t the main source of tips on camgirl sites. The big tippers are the ones that try to establish a rapport with the camgirls, to be their friends, talk about their day, make them happy when they seem down. Sure, they still masturbate to them, but they would never be so crass as to refer to it. That was the initial hook, it’s not why they stay. They stay for the relationship.
So maybe game streamers are like that.
When dealing with male viewers and female streamers, yes. As far as I can tell, most of it is the typical sad guy thirsting on a stripper situation. They dump money into it for the feeble interaction, voyeurism, and the off-chance that maybe, just maybe, the girl they’re talking to is being sincere with them. That they’ve somehow ‘broken through’ to the core of the girl and she’ll totally reciprocate someday.
As for the seemingly straight guys that “make it rain” for the bro players like summit1g, I have no idea.
I think it’s the exact same thing. It’s not really about sex, it’s about connecting.
I’m very much in this camp. I’ve never been a big fan of watching sports, and I have a hard time ‘understanding’ twitch. Let’s Plays and such I really enjoy, because I’m there trying to learn the game in some way. But just watching someone else play? Hmm. Even when it is competitive like LoL or SC2, it just doesn’t grab me. I’d easily believe it relates to never being big into sports watching.
See, I grew up taking turns with my brother on Railroad Tycoon, Civ, Scorched Earth (the mother of all games), Might & Magic (II), etc. Watching someone else playing a game and chatting about it seems very natural to me.
I’ve never seen “chatting” on Twitch. I’ve just seen ascii penises and people spamming the chat with inane crap.
Armando awards Pod one KAPPA KLAPPA
Depends on how many viewers are in the channel and what the game culture is like, the chat of a 5k viewer Dota2 memelord will be hitler spam but if you would watch some guy with 50 viewers play DF you would see actual conversation.
We got our first hitlerspam on the Galactic Civilizations III stream a few weeks ago. I felt like we’d finally arrived.