Do you think let's plays are getting old?

[Hana]

This question gets asked a lot on YouTube forums, in 2012 there was an estimated 505 million channels with about 60% of them being gaming oriented, simple because gaming is such an easy niche to start as it requires the least overall production equipment and well, talent.

It's an incredibly over saturated market, and your channel is essentially a see-through needle in a hay stack.

Is that figure for real?? Where did you find that figure and what percentage are other categories.

I did see this comment from someone else the other day that there are more "let's play" channels than there is an audience for it.

 

[Lightsen]

I watch quite a few lets players. and as long as theres viewers for it, they will still go strong. I think opening a 'NEW' lets play channel at this point in the market is going to give you a hard time, but if you just do it for the fun anyways theres no problem there. There's always niche games I like t watch and only a few players have done them. Its sometimes hard to find a player with a decent mic that doesn't just mumble or shout and scream.

 

[WelcomeToOlympus]

I think that now more than ever they're becoming increasingly more difficult to achieve with but I wouldn't necessarily say they're getting old. I still like watching them, whether big or small

 

[Galvin Lee]

If yours is unique in a way that only your channel has it, nope, it's not getting old any time soon!

 

[Riddikore]

I think in this day in age where everyone is on the go or is easily distracted and can quickly go to someone else's video, it's important to have a great commentary/personality instead of banking on the game itself to bring in the views. There are some LPers that I can watch even if I don't care about the game they're playing just because I don't mind hearing them talk or seeing how they'll react.

 

[Panton]

What does see-through needle in a haystack mean?[DOUBLEPOST=1430479908,1430479816][/DOUBLEPOST]What does see-through needle in a haystack mean?[DOUBLEPOST=1430480010][/DOUBLEPOST]Yeah that's one thing i like about let's plays. There really easy to make.[DOUBLEPOST=1430480138][/DOUBLEPOST]Or call of duty or any nintendo games do get old when a lot of people do it.[DOUBLEPOST=1430480240][/DOUBLEPOST]A new five night's at Freddy's. I though they were done with it.[DOUBLEPOST=1430480422][/DOUBLEPOST]Yeah it's more difficult now then in like 2010[DOUBLEPOST=1430480620][/DOUBLEPOST]Well i don't think my let's plays are unique. I just do them for fun. Though there must be someone out there that is really unique with there let's plays.[DOUBLEPOST=1430480699][/DOUBLEPOST]I was always thinking that personalty is the most important thing in let's plays.

 

[KING-SwayD]

NO!!!

 

[LJay]

I feel like they're getting extremely old. I can hardly watch even a 5 minute one anymore without looking at my phone or going to another tab... But maybe that's just me. My tastes change very rapidly. I used to be able to watch Pewdiepie for 2-3 hours on end, but now I can hardly watch him long enough to eat a sandwich. It's just so overdone these days, and there's not a good way to put a twist on it in my opinion. People just talk while they play games-- games which are the exact same on a few hundred other channels. Unless you're really damn funny, it's just not worth it anymore IMO.

pewdiepie was never really for me... as when he first broke I was a little older than his target demographic. But a few months ago, I did start watching some of the less spastic yet still goofy let's plays (markiplier etc.) and I really enjoyed them for a few weeks... then I just found myself scrolling to the end to see if there was a review or a message behind the lets play...

TLDR: It's not just you. Too much of one things gets a little boring.

Personally I was bored with Let's Plays almost immediately. I used to watch a LOT of Twitch streams when that was first coming up (and streamed a lot myself) so LPs were already more boring since you didn't have that feeling of live interaction with the player. I even got bored of watching Twitch, though, so now I stay pretty far away from most gaming content...

What is it about Let's Plays or Gaming Fun Videos that you guys don't watch anymore? Because the same thing happened to me like last year and I really can't say why I stopped watching. I got into Seananners and his group I want to say sometime in 2013. I still watched his channel specifically for the first half of 2014 and I unsubscribed halfway thru.

The main reason I started watching his channel was because he and his friends that he gamed with reminded me of me and my friends when we get on video games together and when we were kids. The best answer I can give as to why I stopped watching Nanners and Friends was because I got bored from those videos as well. They just didn't appeal to me anymore. It had nothing specific to do with the people involved but it was more like "eh, this type of content doesn't appeal to me anymore."

I feel kind of bad about it since they were the only group of Gamers I watch and that I felt were genuine friends and actually enjoyed each others company and the games they played.

 

[Kaleido]

What is it about Let's Plays or Gaming Fun Videos that you guys don't watch anymore? Because the same thing happened to me like last year and I really can't say why I stopped watching.

[...]

I got bored from those videos as well. They just didn't appeal to me anymore. It had nothing specific to do with the people involved but it was more like "eh, this type of content doesn't appeal to me anymore."

There was a few factors for me, first and foremost was getting bored with the format that everyone uses. It's become "try to cram as many bad jokes in a small amount of time" instead of "this is genuinely what I feel when I play this". It's at the point where people will be playing serious/emotional games and just cracking jokes the whole time and not paying attention to the story or what's interesting about the game. It's heartbreaking to watch people take a p**s on a piece of art like that sometimes. I blame people like PewDiePie, and tangentially Game Grumps, for popularizing the "jokes above all content" approach to LPs that ruined it.

Second important factor is TIME. When I used to watch a lot of Twitch and LPs, I was working full-time in what I thought was going to be my "career" job, so when I got home I had all the time in the world to relax, do whatever I want. This was before I was creating any kind of content so I had a TON of time to consume it. These days, I work part-time from home as a community manager for a website, I'm working on creating an indie game, and I have to make Youtube videos on top of it. This leaves me with very little time to relax or mess around on the computer. When I watch a LP these days, I get really antsy like "c'mon just get to the point". I simply don't have time to sit there and absorb it anymore.

And finally I think I just got burned out trying to keep up. I always feel like I'm 'missing' stuff if I don't watch all the content, so I end up not watching any of it because I don't want to catch up on ~10 hours of content I don't have time to watch that week...

 

[Krozjin]

I don't think lets plays are getting old at all, that's the only content I watch on youtube and I love it. 40 minute videos, whatever, I enjoy all of them. As long as the commentator is interesting I don't care what game they play, in the end I keep coming back for the youtuber's commentary or perspective on the game.