Are those ?Let's Play ?Videos? bad for the gaming industry ...

I know this is a very vague thesis that I?m drawing up here, and I can only speak from my own point of view and from those of a couple people I talked to about it. My statement is, that video-series like this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vi0WSKZzyls are potentially harming the video game indutry.

*Edit: This article is NOT intended to be against Let?s Play Videos ? I love them! ? It should more question the quality of (some) video games.

Let me start off by stating that I used to be but ain?t any more a hardcore gamer. There had been quite a few titles I kind of wanted to play and I was really interested in buying them, but here is why I didn?t buy those titles:

You usually don?t want to buy a pig in a poke. So I went to browse for ingame gameplay videos of those games on youtube and stumbled across a ?Let?s play? Video? (I?m talking about on of these:?http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vi0WSKZzyls), basically a screencapture of someone playing through the game together with commentary of the player. So I started by watching the first part, however at the end of the first part I thought ?Well, this was fun ? how does it continue?? ? so I watched the next part and the next part? more and more losing the desire to buy the game and play it myself. After I was done watching all parts(not all in one session ) I had completely lost the desire to play the game myself since I already had seen everything and knew how it ended, however I did NOT feel less satisfied like finishing a game myself. And this happened with not only one title, but several that I considered buying.

Meanwhile I?m at the point where I pretty much only watch Let?s Play Videos, instead of playing a game and here are my points why:

• I don?t have to pay $50 for a youtube-video
• I get to see everything in HD, no matter how bad my system is(even on mobile)
• I don?t have to go through the hassle of installing a 10GB+ game
• I can fast forward boring parts or skip parts
• I can relax after work and?don?t have to think while watching?or I can choose to figure out the next steps myself and then say ?Yes, I would have done it the same way?
• It?s just as rewarding as figuring out something by playing myself

I know that there is of course a big group of people, who won?t agree with me, who would put nothing over playing a game themselves and I do get their point.
However by looking at channel-statistics of accounts like this one:?http://youtube.com/user/Toegoff?or this one:?http://youtube.com/user/RealistReviewer?you can clearly observe quite a trend towards watching games instead of playing them and this thesis was also backed by quite a few people I was talking to who told me that they didn?t buy a game because they did watch it on youtube even though they did like it.

So at this point I would be interested how many people there are, who have done this, because I think there is quite a bit of money lost by industry because of peoply like me.

Another question is: Who is to blame? ? Is it because games are still the same as many years ago just with slightly different content and a better graphics? Or is it because my habits as a gamer have changed, that I prefer watching a game instead of playing it?

?

Source: http://indiegamr.com/are-those-lets-play-videos-bad-for-the-gaming-industry/

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