Why do you like/dislike game streaming?

Shellhead wrote: I generally dislike it because I can read more quickly than most people talk, so receiving information via streaming is at more of a plodding pace. Especially since the kind of people who do streaming seem to be the kind of people who express themselves in a rambling and tedious manner. The slow pace makes it less interesting than most other uses of my free time, but requires enough of my attention to make multi-tasking less viable. I can't listen to music while listening to streaming. I can't look at other sites or I miss the visuals of the streaming game. And due to the rambling, it just goes on an on for longer than I can endure.

The same can be said about video vs written word for reviews as well.

I did go through a short phase where I liked watching Sweet Anita's streaming. She's a gamer with Tourette's.

southernman wrote: Ha ha - this is brilliant , I just realised that everyone seems to be talking about video gaming streaming - probably the actual topic is about that as well - and I was talking about a boardgame stream ... classic out of touch non-video gamer here.

I intentionally made this thread broad so that we could talk about either/or, or if you have different feelings about each.

n815e wrote: I also find it relaxing to listen to other people doing things.

Grin grin, wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more?

Shellhead wrote: I did go through a short phase where I liked watching Sweet Anita's streaming. She's a gamer with Tourette's.

There's four of those in our gaming group ... ...

i love watching streams, and will often put them on in the background of doing other stuff if im around the house. i do interact more with Mario Maker 2 streams, because im generally watching people playing hard kaizo levels and looking for cool levels to play or sending my levels for people to play etc.

I generally don't watch stuff on Twitch because I'm not particularly interested in watching dead air while people consider their moves or wait for others to take theirs. It's the same reason I tend to avoid TV with commercials. My time is a bit too precious to me. OTOH, I will watch videos on YouTube because they've been edited to remove all of that. For example, I watch Brian Kibler's Hearthstone videos on YouTube regularly. But I rarely watch his stream. I'll occasionally watch gameplay videos of board games I like for the same reason, but I don't regularly watch anyone's streams.

Gary Sax wrote:
I like game streaming. I usually use it in the background at work if I'm doing something mindless. If I'm doing real talk part of it is because I mostly interact with my coworkers and my wife in person day to day---I have plenty of friends but we are fragmented around the country and mostly text. It feels good to me to hear a friendly voice doing something I like in the background, it gives me low key good vibes and, yes, parasocial relationship

If I haven't suggested Team Covenants Marvel Champions videos, I profusely apologize. I love to listen to those guys in the background at work. Tbey are so chill. And they are very good at casting...They are always aware that they are visiting with the 100 people not immediately in the room.

I like to watch Flats or Emongg play Overwatch in the background too.

Like most old people, I find most of the streaming content outside of my few narrow interests to be senseless and a waste of everyone's time.


I do have a buddy that does a weekly podcast if him and his friend watching Karmen Rider. He has a lot of fun doing it, and I can think of worse ways for a bachelor to spend his time.

I can't stand them. My kid watches a handful of minecraft and fortnite streamers and it is all crap altered voices to sound like a child or monotone recitals of stuff from what sounds like east european/russian infiltrators.

He does like a few that are legit good gamers so I can at least appreciate their skill but most of them just keep up a steady stream of nonsense that is appealing to kids.

For myself, I wish folks would get to the point if I'm watching a video to solve some gaming conundrum, the rambling prolonged style to get to a 10 min video or whatnot is very frustrating.

haha, any of you who have streams or VODs you like please pop them in the other thread that is about the streams you've been watching too!

Shellhead wrote: The slow pace makes it less interesting than most other uses of my free time, but requires enough of my attention to make multi-tasking less viable. I can't listen to music while listening to streaming. I can't look at other sites or I miss the visuals of the streaming game. And due to the rambling, it just goes on an on for longer than I can endure.

I feel the same way.

While I enjoy watching streams and popping in and have even streamed a few times myself, the truth is that they tend to be too slow and rambling for me to truly enjoy them. I often feel I want to get faster to the "interesting part" but it takes too long. I end up multitasking and, in many ways, it's a way of wasting time. I would probably be happier if I focused on doing something in particular or playing on my own terms.

I do like watching a couple people play, like very good TF2 players or pro Magic players drafting. If they do Awesome Games Done Quick, it's a riot and I recommend checking it out because it's a lot of fun to watch.

I used to feel the same way about video content as Shellhead and co. I much prefer text over visuals, I'm a fast reader and can effectively skim to find out the sections I need to pay attention to when looking at a wall of text. Over the last couple of years I've started to enjoy more and more video content. The key learning for me was to a) run everything at 2x speed. That means not actually watching streams live, and b) realise that a lot of these formats are a kind of evolution of talk radio. Nobody expects you to be giving your full attention to the full thing so don't bother. I still prefer a tightly edited video over a stream and a tightly edited written review over a video but I now see the merits of the different formats.

As mezike mentioned, watching a game in action over a stream can give you a lot of insight into how they play; much more than a look at the rulebook. I'm sure many of us have looked at a game in motion at a store or convention and gotten a good idea of what it's about. This is the digital equivalent of the same thing. They're also useful to getting a grip on games that are complex or difficult to get played; Gary Sax and I managed to actually play Voidfall because we had watched a stream before hand. A video tutorial and the rulebook would've extended that first play by a few hours. I recently started watching 18XX streams because I'm fascinated by the genre but my local group is unlikely to give them a go.

The other benefit of game streams is also something I learned from podcasts and talk radio - as you get to know your hosts the parasocial relationship you build is comforting in its weird way. Especially when hanging in person has been so difficult recently, feeling a little less alone by "hanging out" with folks online is a nice way to fill the gap, even if you're just eavesdropping on some group's conversation.

TLDR: Game streams are good for complex games and good for background noise.