Different Player Types but One Community

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This time, I think about the skewed view some viewers might have on the contents of Let’s Play videos: they like to see that the gameplay follows their own approach to the game.

Creating and publishing Let’s Play videos (LPs) not only is a creative activity, but also a way to share own gaming experiences with a world-wide community. Also, LPs allow a player to track the own gameplay and document decisions which can be very interesting for later evaluations in the case of a computer game that requires a lot of decision-making.

Aside from simply sharing the own gameplay with a large audience, LPs also provide the opportunity to discuss approaches and solutions with the audience. Depending on the genre of the game and the frequency with which new episodes are released, viewers can also provide suggestions thus actively helping the player or collaboratively developing vast builds.

However, the content creator also has to be very careful how to approach and treat the viewers and their suggestions, respectively. Vice-versa, viewers also need to understand that the content creators might have a different approach to the game and might not necessarily want to play it in the most efficient way. Instead, it is more about just playing the game as it is without optimizing everything like a player who is enjoying the game without recording it.

As a content creator, it is important to tell a good story with the gameplay which can also include a lot of wrong decisions. These wrong decisions can lead to a more entertaining LP series as things are suddenly way more complex or result in more funny moments. In addition, while the underlying idea of offering help is much appreciated, content creators might want to experience the game themselves without being guided by their viewers. Being guided can drastically reduce the entertaining aspects of a game when a player likes to make own experiences and learn form them.

In conclusion, the content creator is just a regular computer game player who likes to simultaneously entertain others with their gameplay. This, however, also includes that, unless they ask for it, they like to explore the game on their own without being directed by their viewers. Viewers, on the other hand, might already have a more in-depth experience with the game and like to provide help to the content creator to see them succeed. In this process, they might accidentally overlook the fact that it’s not necessarily about efficiency but simply fun.