New report claims gamers spend more time watching videos about gaming than playing games

https://sopuli.xyz/post/19792415

New report claims gamers spend more time watching videos about gaming than playing games - Sopuli

Lemmy

That’s me for sure these days. Back in high school I used to play at least a couple of hours every day. I have a gaming PC and a Steam Deck but probably play a few hours a month. But I’ll happily watch several hours of Twitch each day while I’m relaxing.

Probably just getting older and busier, haha.

As a (probably) even older guy I find it the weirdest thing ever. “watching games being played”. It’s boring AF.

Sure, I can’t t play counterstrike effectively anymore. Sure I am the one with the most deaths in helldivers2. Doom eternal is just way too twitchy for me. I’ve become too slow. In mechwarrior 5 I have too put the difficulty on story/easy and aim assist on. Which hurt my old ego the most to be honest.

But doing it still beats the shit out of watching it.

/start_old_man_rant

Especially these days when every streamer is an egocentric manchilds screaming their head off in a totally scripted “episode”. Or girls in bikinis only because it sells. Can we just leave that in hooters? And everything is bought and paid for. You’re watching a commercial. Or do you really think that logo on his mike just happens to be in view? Or the brand of the gaming chair?or that cupboard behind him filled with lights and gaming gear? Its ultra consumerism. And the begging for money. Fuck off. Really.

I hate it.

I miss total biscuit. That was entertainment.

/end_old_man_rant

I mean, the thing that people watch twitch for is mainly the person/people on the stream, the game is a backdrop, rarely the actual focus

And not everyone is ego-centric like you’re saying? I mean, there’s literally tens of thousands of streamers. Don’t just look at the biggest ones that probably mainly appeal to kids, i.e. a different audience than you. Chances are the kind of people you would enjoy watching are just smaller and more niche

New report claims people with hobby spend more time watching videos about hobby than doing hobby
Watching someone cut a dovetail by hand is a lot more interesting now that I know from experience how hard it is. And maybe I'll learn a trick to make my next ones better.
And its cheaper to watch someone do it. Quality timber and tools are expensive.
And less annoying to your neighbor if you’re in a neighborhood. Plus how many tables can you actually fit in a house?
Cutting dovetails implies by hand - power tools exist for it, but those using power tools generally use different joints.
My neighbor does not make dovetails, then.
I'm not surprised. They are very hard to make correctly and not that much better than other options that are easier to do. they are a "holy grail" of wood working skill for a reason. I've done a dozen in my life and the best is so awful I want to burn an otherwise nice creation to hide the evidence.
Dovetail sounds like a bird. It’s not a bird, right? Right?
I use one of those big metal paper choppers to cut doves tails.

A dovetail is a type of joint that doesn’t require fasteners and only uses the material (usually glue for wood).

It was more funny when I didn’t know that :(

But thanks! I kind of expected it’s something like that :D

Does knowing that the name comes from one of the join elements (left side) looking like the tail of a dove, improve that?
Execution is a small part of “the planning”, man. That ain’t even fair.

If I want to do my hobby, I need to make time for it, whereas if I want to watch videos about my hobby, I can do it on the toilet. It turns out it’s a lot easier to watch than make time for a hobby, hence why I do more of it.

If I didn’t have to work, I’d spend more time doing my hobby. But I do, and I have kids, so hobby time is quite limited.

Plenty of people have a twitch stream open whilst playing a game.
Weird! 🤷‍♂️ Do they watch the twitch stream when their game is loading?
It’s like having the tv or radio on whilst doing something else.
No, they stare at both monitors simultaneously like a Chameleon.
“She’s got Marty Feldman eyesss”
Hi, I’m plenty of people

It’s time for game publishers to think about in-game video as something beyond marketing alone," said Rhys Elliott, games analyst, MIDiA Research. ‘‘By reclaiming video engagement, publishers have the potential to unlock new revenue streams, like advertising, and drive growth.’’

Lmao, what a takeaway. Guy is struggling to earn that paycheck.
Reminds me of the business plans of the business guys from Ready Player One. “We estimate we can sell up to 80 percent of a user’s visual field before inducing seizures.” 😂
Groooowwwtthhhh! It's all about that Groooooowwwtthhhhh!
Please bro just a little bit more groooowth. I promise we’ll unlock all the money in the world if we can just have a littile more grooowwth.
You don’t really know it until you stop watching videos for like a week. Suddenly you want to do your favorite things again; try things yourself again.
imagine if this was about football fans
I can only watch so much football as can a rare other people like me. If I am watching football I want the view of one position. I don't care that the buarterpacv got sacked on the play, how did the running back avoid the defense in his attempts to become open for a pass - or some such that I want to emulate when I nevt play. (i think that is a likely thing - I consider football too dangerious to play so I'm guessing - in reality I'd prefer to see other sports that I'm likely to play)

buarterpacv

That’s a fascinating way to spell… Presumably “quarterback”?

i can’t make heads or tails of this reply :P

“how did the running back avoid the defense”, i’m assuming there should be a “to” in there? who runs back? i can’t parse it…

They went with American football, where “running back” and ”defense” refer to positions.
…huh.
The game most of the world calls "football" is called "soccer" in the US. We have a very popular game we call "football" in the US that is unrelated to "soccer", instead it is related to rugby (still very different from rugby, but there is a relation)
strange
Welcome to the world. There are strange things all over. Sit back and enjoy laughing at the ride.
oh i gave up on that a long time ago
The interesting part to me is that you can watch football even when/if you can’t play football, but you could be gaming instead of watching.
Nah, I can’t game while I’m doing the dishes but I can watch a video just fine
You’re taking too long to do the dishes.

There are more chores than dishes:

  • folding laundry
  • sweeping and mopping the floor
  • fixing the car
  • going through the mail
  • changing the sheets

That’s when I watch/listen to streamers, I almost never do it when I could otherwise be gaming. I’ll occasionally listen/watch while gaming though.

Hal fixing a light bulb (from Malcolm in the Middle S03E06 - Health Scare)

I think this is pretty familiar for most of us.To everyone who watches this: please check out this youtube creator called nartharie . He has created some of ...

YouTube
I feel this so much sometimes…
I don’t only do dishes. Also, there are short videos.
Watching sports is a useful activity when you confined to a hospital bed for a month or two as has happened to people I know. In one case they wouldn't be allowed to game, even sports were in danger of being too exciting for their condition.
Logic does not check out. Like they’re both activities I can do on my couch? Okay sure, I guess. Just like I can watch a video about knitting even if I can’t knit, but I could be knitting instead of watching!? Complete nonsense…

Wouldn’t be me. I don’t like streams. When I’ve had twitch drops i wanted to claim I’d just mute the tab in the background to get the time limit needed.

I don’t have the attention span for streamers. It’s like golf. Might be fun to play but watching is another matter.

This, how people can find watching more entertaining than playing is beyond me. I tried watching people play my favourite games on twitch to see what it was like, I got bored out of my brains in minutes.

The closest I can do is watching gameplay videos on youtube, from people who do extremely creative things that inspire me for future playthroughs - but even then.

To y’all watching streams: I’m not judging you, you do you. I just don’t understand you.

Well, for example; I like to watch LeagueOfLegends streams but don’t like to play it anymore.
I’m 4 years clean from league and I still dream about it sometimes
all ex-league players who i’ve spoken with (myself included) refer to league of legends and breaking free from it as if they were raised in a cult or dealing with life-ruining substance abuse that still affects them to this day

I don’t watch streamers, but I’ll watch videos like ‘which is the best weapon for [X]’ or ‘how to optimize production in [X].’ I’ve watched stream highlights like SovietWomble’s bullshittery, or IAmCrusty’s psychopathic VR vids. Once you get stuff like that into your YouTube algorithm, there’s a lot of it. It’s gaming content you can consume when location or time constraints won’t let you actually game, and that’s a larger chunk of my day than when I can sit down and play.

You can’t have stream highlights without a stream. Even if no one watches the stream, the infrastructure and technologies have to be there. And I can see where some audience members of those highlights would be attracted to the raw stream, trying to catch the ‘good stuff’ live, the same way some people watch NASCAR hoping to see crashes as they happen.

For me, it’s audio in the background that I can interact with if I want.

Sometimes the people are funny too, but it’s not like my first monitor. Streams are a second monitor thing, with me doing something on the main. Reading, gaming, writing.

Also sometimes I’ll watch the various leagues to see people do games I’d hate to play do really really well at it.

Yeah I’ve only ever found 1 game play chann on YouTube that I enjoy watching, Macie Jay who makes compilations of his stream for YouTube. He’s incredibly creative playing R6, it’s really fun to watch. But in general I don’t get watching someone play a game when I could just play it myself.

I prefer to play, but I don’t have time to dedicate to it. I can listen/watch a game stream while working, on the toilet, or doing chores around the house. I can only play in the evenings and weekends, and only when my kids are otherwise occupied or in bed.

Yeah, watching is worse than playing, but it’s better than doing neither.

I usually open streams on a second monitor while playing, unless the game demands my full undivided attention for extended periods of time. It’s more of a case by case basis for me.

I did the same when I was playing WoW a long time ago, watching stuff while doing mining routes and whatnot. But to be fair, I was doing it because the game itself was a drudgery that I got skinnerboxed into playing and pretending I was enjoying.

So I ask this to you: is the game you are playing not entertaining enough, that you have to watch something with it in order to feel entertained? If so, why not play something else that captures your whole attention? It’s your time, shouldn’t you be spending it with things you actually enjoy?