Like others, I dig the dev streams the most. They tend to get into what they're working on and the project as a whole, rather than scripted encounters to show off a specific feature or area (though they do that too). I like the beans. I'm not super into watching anyone play anything, despite being somewhat disabled and unable to scratch my own gaming itch. I've never been one for spectating sports as opposed to playing them either. I play games to interact, not pretend I'm interacting when I'm actually observing - just because I'm in my "lucky jerkin." Call me a control freak... I won't dispute it.
I do enjoy certain streamers VR has hosted, however, like Cohh. When geeks start geeking out, I get the warm fuzzies, feeling like I'm amongst chosen kin rather than the messy blood kind. Excitement can be contagious, but the real reason I'm drawn to them is that invested people tend to ask the best questions. They want the answers the rest of us care about. That overlaps with the reasoning behind devs taking community questions. Cohh is part of our community. Jim Lee was another fun one, along with a few others.
Not naming names, but the dudebro from the All-Star stream who clearly had the devs muted and was responding to his stream chat instead of playing or participating... that irked me something awful. I get that pandering to his followers is kind of his job description if he wants to eat, but it was still disrespectful to the devs, their invitation, any new viewers he might have gained, and his own normal viewers/patrons as well.
I don't dislike any of the streams, since I see them as potentially holding insight into the development that I might find valuable. I do find myself listening more than watching, since I don't care to have exploration ruined for me. You can hear the beans sometimes in tone alone too.
So, nothing new here, just echoing a lot of sentiments from above.
Hegenox said:I only watch streams of games in development that I'm REALLY HYPED about (in reacent years it was only: Pillars of Eternity 1 and 2, Torment: Tides of Numenera
It was between Torment and PoE 1. I went with PoE 1 and not sure I'm liking it that much. Only played for a couple hours so far, so we'll see.
Hegenox said:In a distant past I made the mistake couple of times when I watched streams from games in development and by the time the game came out, not only my hype was gone, but even the desire to play the game at all...
This is it for me too. I don't want to get burn out of the game I'm excited about. Plus if I watch too many streams, I'll see things that I want to discover for myself. I don't want to discover them via watching someone on a stream.
I will watch the streams, and I hate to admit why.
First of all, take a look at where streaming is. It is where it's at. It's a career path that kids want to pursue, and a very shallow one at that and like Uber driving, a pool that got filled very fast and is now very hard to make any money in unless you got there first and established a following. Or like Youtube established followers or now had to revamp your structure and get Patreons.
I wonder when John D and Cathrine T MacArthur foundation will turn from public television and on to...patreon or twitch. There's money out there, a deep well that hasn't been touched yet. Maybe when the younger generation of kids get old enough- maybe 15 years from now? like the guy that hired the guy that put WoW raid leading on his resume in "extra abilities", that the other managers refused that turned out to be a benefit 10 years later due to the now becoming commonplace aspect of working remotely and from home- just like leading a MMO raid.
But Ninja and his fortnight streaming is hot - where will he be 5 years from now? in college? end up like napster? can he code? will he get swept up by Silicon valley only to burn out?
But as this pendulum swings back, I will relish seeing ninja stream pantheon and like the all-stars- take it seriously when they fail and flail at their unplayerability, while I watch them mis read the mechanics and abilities because of the way they were taught how to play by todays games , and doubly so in a PvP environment by those who have played old school PvP ( Terry Pratchet's "Old barbarian Horde" comes to mind)
The schadenfreude will be palpable. That's why I will watch the streams, to see that.When I know what is supposed ot happen and know the streamer thinks they know what will happen and is cocky about it.
Conversely, I want to see more of the Jim Lee type streams, these were the devs failing miserably, but I knew why! and they were having so much fun. The sandbox nature of the danger in that and in bad pulls when you know what is supposed to happen, is enjoyable.