Have Gamers killed the Let's Playing genre?

[ChiakiXNanami]

Ok hear me out on this one. If you go back to when LPing became a thing in late 06 early 07 people would do games that were really not new at all. Games that have been out for a few years to many years. And the community was a lot less doom and gloom and more Teletubby toast and Sesame Street. Flash foward to the last year 1/2 and so many people seem to be doing CoD,Minecraft and new games ASAP. I can't help but feel this is why the LP genre is pretty much dead at this point. People complain if you make a single mistake in a game these days and moan at you for it. And people expect Let's Plays to be walkthoughs. And a lot of people upload Let's Play without commentary which really doesn't make it a LP at all. I'm not trying to be an old person telling kids to get off my lawn and how good the old days were I just can't help but feel the genre has become something people for only for cash at this point and people only want the new games over where it was 2006-2011.

 

[AngelSnes]

I will raise my hand to this.

And also the amount of people who literally do nothing besides hit the record button and do literally nothing, paying no attention to volume levels or video quality are saturating youtube. The amount of videos where the audio from their microphone is barely comprehensible over the game makes me sad, it's obvious they put no care or effort in to their videos.
It makes it very hard to be heard above so many.

 

[GafferGames]

I always wanted to record walkthroughs as a kid, even in like '07, '08, I wanted to do walkthroughs of Spyro games, because I was always so good at 100% them, but I didn't have the equipment. Now I do, I don't know, I enjoy making current LP's, but a part of me wants to make walkthroughs like I used to want to, before I even knew about the monetary side.

 

[ViVexx]

I'm really interested in seeing where the Let's Play genre goes with the release of the PS4/One and their Twitch integration/game play recording capability. If anything, the genre will be truly over saturated and even more competitive before long...

 

[WolfWraith]

Basically what is happening to the gaming side of YouTube is that it has become competition. Sadly, YT is no longer a community like you said they used to be teletubies and sesame street s**t. I don't mind people trying to make money, in fact if someone said "I want to make money playing video games on YT" then s**t go for it, everyone has to make a $ somehow, but it's reached a point where now, just to get 100 subs can take months (this can apply to other genres too) because some content creators upload the videos of games day 1, making it extremely difficult to rank. To make matters worse, some content creators get benefits of being able to play the games long before it's release, so by the time the game is released, day 1, there's already been videos posted of it nearly up to 12months ago. I don't blame them entirely though, it's YT's problem but YT has become so big and almost uncontrollable that it would be pretty hard to fix this issue. I also agree with the no commentary thing, I plan on doing a little less commentary but only because I f**k up way too much when trying to concentrate on commentary and playing xD Walkthroughs are also pointless now. You really only need 1-2 people posting Walkthroughs on YT, unless they do different games, because walkthroughs there's no personality just watching it to find out how to do something. It has even reached a point where you can no longer get on that bus/band wagon, no longer can you post a newer game and gain great exposure or any if you're lucky. I gave up on that crap now. I figured I'd play new games like ACIV (I'd have got it day 1 regardless of YT or not though) and mix it with old games to generate more traffic from the newer games while having fun playing stuff I wanted.[DOUBLEPOST=1385594984,1385594521][/DOUBLEPOST]I might also add that it creates a difficult cycle where no exposure = no improvement. Because not many people are watching your videos not many are giving feedback.

 

[Glup]

Its definitely become a problem, but also due to this problem, its likely to crash sooner or later. The fact that this many are already sprinting at the new releases and mainstream games, and more people join every day, it just can't stay as a thing, it will collapse. But I'm not worrying too much, as I'm not really a part of that group

Personally, I do the older games. Sesame street genre if you wish, and I happen to do Minecraft on the side, not because its a popular game, or because I want views, but because I'm actually pretty damn good at that game, and just want to share because I'm shameless like that ^^
(I've never had someone think any of my LPs have been walkthroughs though x) )

I guess I'm sticking to the original idea of Lets Playing, and I REALLY dislike those making videos with no commentary, or with no personality. If you add nothing to the game, you're basically just uploading game footage, and trying to make a profit off of someone else's work, which isn't very nice.

EDIT:

I might also add that it creates a difficult cycle where no exposure = no improvement. Because not many people are watching your videos not many are giving feedback.

THIS! I'm struggling with this! I had a YouTube account years back, and feedback wasn't a problem at all. There were so few content creators compared to viewers that there was easily accessible feedback all over the place, which is no longer there.

 

[Daemon White]

There are still good people out there, but a large percentage of the modern LP'ers seem to be repeat CoD, Minecraft, etc players. I'll let Amnesia go as a commonly played one because it's still funny to see everyone else's reactions. Battlefield can be okay, as long as it's not the usual (~360noScopEBlazeit420~) plays of it. Honest gameplay with personal voiced opinions is fine, but don't over-do things.

 

[Lanorc]

i WILL agree. a Lets play is where you bring your viewers along on the ride.. knowing they are there.... you wont just talk about the game.. you will basicly be in a situation where you enjoy the game and comunicate with your viewers...

i remember when the first lets plays i think where from WOW... and that was in 2007 i think... because wow was capable of opening another world.. and it was entertaining whatching people bring viewers to the game. hence why i played it the next year hahah..

anyway, now i see more and more of people.. recording, talking about their lives maybe about the game like " lets kill the duck" " look, its a block ." and yes,, the viewers are nto blind.

Why not say why you think you killed the duck or why the landscapes are so beutifull. this would make you more unique because games are more art then anything.. and this includes the story lines..

if more people do this NOT only wll we get a unque video of you, but you wont be copying everyone else. like when i played gta 5 ... was with all my friends ingame.. looked from the mountain and said.. "wow, i cant magine games came this far ... " and no one spoe for the next minute.

WE WANT YOUR OPINIONS! NOT THE s**t WE SEE IN THE GAME! BE YOURSELF AND NOT PEWDIEPIE! and play the games you want to.. and not the ones that come new on the market every day..

 

[WolfWraith]

Why not say why you think you killed the duck or why the landscapes are so beutifull. this would make you more unique because games are more art then anything.. and this includes the story lines..

No it wouldn't because quite a few people talk about the games. It's all personal opinion kind of. Kill the duck if you want to and talk about why IF you want to. I personally don't mind people talking about their lives because that's part of the reason you're watching their LP and not someone elses, because you're there to watch THEM play, to watch their personality flow into the gameplay, who they are, not just to watch someone talk about a game because ANYONE can do that. Saying landscapes look good is not unique it's common sense and a common acknowledgement of an element of the game that should be noticed, at the sametime it does add to personality because some people like to know what you like about the game. But I get what you're saying in a sense, some people can go a little too off topic and rely way too much on reactions as opposed to commentating when they should be. Matter of the fact is, commentating while gaming is way more difficult than some people think, especially if you're really new to it or someone who doesn't talk much at all, your focus is split so much, and for me especially, where my mind likes to wander to nearly 20-100 different subjects in less than a minute it's even harder to keep focused (I get distracted way too easily sometimes lol). I unfortunately have a tendancy to rage when I die too much as well and for me that can reduce the fun of the game a little bit and then I feel like I'm putting negative vibes into the video but apparently some people like that because it shows that persons personality. I literally had a situation where I ****** up a mission in ACIV (I think it will be part 12 of my playthrough, the 1 where you had to knock out the Assassin's) around... maybe 2-4 times in a row, because my focus was split, I had to stop talking entirely for about 2-3mins to finish that part of the game. >.> When I stopped talking, I pretty much did it flawlessly like AI was controlling Eduardo lol

 

[sirkibble2]

I was extremely hesitant to call my Battlefield 4 videos "Let's Plays" because of the saturation. I'm sick of the phrase. But in order to get any exposure as a new channel, I need to take advantage of keywords. I would prefer to call my videos "Battlefield Logs" but that won't search well. So it's this disgusting cycle that I'm stuck in.

Plus, I chose Battlefield 4 because I enjoy it and it's dynamic. It certainly helps that it's new but even when it gets old, I still plan to play it because I enjoy it. We're finding people who jump on bandwagons and it's a legitimate strategy when trying to get views. I hardly blame them. But you can tell it's not authentic at all or they're trying to be like someone else.

Let's Plays will probably die from over saturation. When? Who knows? I think the phrase may die before the concept. I know when my channel gets larger, I'm going to change the name of my Battlefield videos. But for now, myself and many others are stuck using Let's Play.