Game spectatorship: Let’s play videos

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 is the fifth part of the video game / e-sport spectator series. This time, I’ll focus on „Let’s play“ videos (LP). I’ll mostly explain my own obervations of watching LPs and thus try to define what „Let’s play“ videos are.

A LP is a full video coverage of the playthrough of a computer game, which is, in most cases, commentated by the player. A playthrough of a game in case of a LP has not necessary to end with the beating of the game [1]. Players can even stick to some contraints like playing until a particular character dies or playing until the player gets defeated by the game without reloading older save games [2][3]. In this case, a LP ends before the player beats the game.

LPs belong the user generated content [4]: In most cases, LPs are uploaded to video platforms like youtube and aren’t created by professionals.

A playthrough of a regular video game takes several hours (in most cases between 10 to 30 hours). Therefore, a LP is split into several videos and thus creating a movie series [5]. Recipients of a LP series are following the story of the computer game not by playing the game itself. Instead, they’re watching every part of a series and thus are experiencing the same story as the player. However, they do not have the experience of the importance of their own decisions in critical situations. This removes one of the key aspects of experiencing a computer game: the oppurtunity to be in control of the situation. Watching a LP is like watching a movie or reading a book: The recipient can’t influence the actions.

One very interesting fact about LPs is the additional narrative part: A LP is recorded while the player is progressing through the game. During this process, the player is interacting with the game and reacting to events. In this case, the player becomes an additional actor of the full gameplay coverage [5].

On the one hand, the player is interacting with the game itself. A certain part of the entertaining aspect of watching LPs derives from the uncertainty of the player’s actions. As the recipients are watching a LP episode, they’re thinking about the situations the player is in. They start making up own solutions how to deal with a particular situation. However, they’re not in control of it. Thus they’re entertained by watching how the player’s actions unfold.

On the other hand, the player is creating another story arc to the gameplay by commentating the own actions or by speaking as if the player is the own avatar or a person directly involved in the current gameplay situation.

Commentating the gameplay let the viewers experience how the player’s feeling about the situation. By doing so, the LP are loaded with an additional narrative part: the experiences of the progressing player. This might be the most entertaining, when the game caught the player off guard [5].

Acting as if the player is a part of the game can be quite entertaining as well. The player can respond to communications of the game:
Game character: „Hello!“
Player: „Hello!“
The viewer of the LP gets the impression, as if the player is directly responding to the game and thus interacting with it.

Finally, players can act as if they’re the own avatar. This mostly happens while a role-playing game is being played. The player starts talking to non-player characters and is reacting to new situations as if they are really in that particular situation [6].

As a conclusion, LPs are special form of experiencing the gameplay of computer games. The gameplay can be enhanced with an additional story arc through the interaction of the player with the game. Even if the recipient of a LP can’t take actions in the game, they can experience the whole gameplay of it. Finally, the accompanying commentary creates an important aspect of the entertainment of watching LPs.

[4] Daugherty, Terry.; Eastin, Matthew, S.; Bright, Laura (2008): Exploring consumer motivations for creating user-generated content, in: Journal of Interactive Advertising, 8 (2), pp. 16 – 25.