Castlevania Lord of Shadow 2. Loved the first one and 2 was just bad. I wish they would have kept it as a God of War clone, with stunning visuals, game play and music
I enjoy more arcade style racing games so over the last few years the ones I enjoyed the most were burnout paradise and the remake, trackmania, and forza horizon 4 and 5
Why? Lilith was the best siren gameplay in the series. Yeah, ol Randy fucked her up real good with their dogshit writing, but her character never really changed. I’ve never been able to seriously pick up another siren character because nothing compares to phasewalk.
Why would I watch your channel when I could watch someone else’s? A good answer to that question is how you grow an audience. I watch a lot of fighting game content on YouTube, and I can find value in Maximilian Dood for being good at explaining the legacies of old games or what makes new ones tick; I can find value in commentary and breakdown from those who win major tournaments and break down the subtleties that I might have missed. But there are hundreds of channels YouTube wants to show me of people playing those same games with no reason for me to actually click on them in the first place.
I made what people seem to think are a couple of good video tutorials to teach Skullgirls quickly. It’s got a reputation of being exceptionally hard, but I disagree, and I thought I could explain them quickly. They worked, but the more general fighting game tutorials I made after that didn’t do so well. Maybe there isn’t as much demand for them as I thought, or maybe they just weren’t as good. Still, I was making something that I felt like people couldn’t easily get elsewhere.
I think there are broadly speaking three main categories of let’s players: hypemen, analysts, and tryhards.
Hypemen focus on being boisterous, high energy, and fast paced. They focus on entertainment value above all else, even above the game itself.
Analysts take things a bit slower. They aren’t trying to be the best at the game, but instead like to play a variety of things and talk about their experience playing or insights related to the game.
Tryhards are usually either pro gamers or very close to it. They usually play a smaller number of competitive games trying to be very skilled at them. The enjoyment of these streamers comes more from seeing someone excel, and potentially learning from them if you play the same game.
My point with this is all of these routes are proven ways to engage an audience, so having interesting things to say isn’t a necessity.
That being said, this is an entertainment medium we’re talking about. If you aren’t entertaining in some form then I don’t think you’ll find much success. It’s a learnable skill, so don’t be discouraged if it doesn’t come without practice
Only possible thing I could maybe add or tweak would be… expand ‘hypemen’ a bit more to include… well, at least an attempt at some kind of comedy.
Maybe split this off into its own group?
A lot of earlier gaming youtubers… at least seemed to be trying to more or less do live playthroughs or after playthrough reviews that… basically just tried to either ad lib, or write a script with as many relevant jokes a possible.
I keep emphasizing ‘tried to’ and ‘attempted’ because many of these schticks just… sucked, lol, or quickly fell apart into a depressing cynicism spiral.
Granted, you seem to be focusing mostly on live streamers, specifically lets players, as opposed to the older, sort of gen 1 of youtube video game content people, where a lot of it was just… i dunno man, i just recorded myself playing a game, shrug.
…
Also, at this point, there may be at least two other distinct kinds of… video content about playing games, types of people, excluding esports amd speedrunners, but nvm anyway:
…
Roleplayers.
There are a lot of streamers that just pick some roleplayable game or roleplay mod or whatever of a game, and I think that’s … kinda its whole own thing, where a lot of the content/style is … i dunno, you could call it maybe a real time soap opera generator, a number of these people will actually learn or construct a whole fleshed out voice and personality for their character… but also a lot of roleplayers will more or less just basically be asshole trolls/bullies.
…
‘I am bad at games but cute’
Many vtubers, pickmes, also not pickmes but actually interested in games, but also very unfamiliar with them.
This is a whole other style or genre, where the appeal comes from… well, theoretically it could include other extremely naive / inexperienced noobie video gamers, but realistically, its mostly the appeal of viewers parasocially having a mostly submissive but also earnest psuedo girlfriend.
Probably worth noting that this can be a consistent schtick, or can… often evolve into ‘hype(wo)man’ or ‘tryhard’.
This is imo distinct from just being cute and also being any other kind of streamer… because the ditzy cute naiveity is strongly emphasized, often to a ludicrous degree, as well as the lack of skill and amount of unforced errors… and this is the whole point, to evoke sympathy.
…
Also, now that I think of it, this could maybe qualify as distinct:
Meme/Joke/Ludicrous self imposed goals or restrictions video game player.
The whole concept of this is to basically attempt to do something completely absurd in a game, to play the game ‘wrong’ in a way that is at least in broad concept, humorous on its face by how ridiculous it is.
Like uh i dunno… play through RDR2 but you have to never use a horse, ever, or play through Morrowind without ever increasing any of your stats, naked playthroughs of Dark Souls, aim for some nonsense/meme strategy in Hoi4, play competetive Madden or Fifa where your entire team is 4’ 6" and weighs 600lbs, kill yourself as fast as possible in a game that is designes for that to not be able to happen, win a racing game going entirely in reverse the whole time…
Just wacky zany shit.
Usually this translates better to a youtube format thats cut down from a livestream, but those livestreams can get decent numbers as well, and you can also tie in your viewers to the whole thing, maybe they get to decide some new absurd task or make some decision for you at some point.
Thanks! I think you’re right that there could definitely be more granularity to what I said. I was trying to go as broad as I could, which of course leaves out a lot of detail. Good thoughts about other possible categories. I don’t disagree with any of it.
I actually haven’t ever seen the roleplayer category you’re talking about, but I’m intrigued. Is there anyone you’d recommend?
If I had to give a name to the joke streamers you mentioned, I’d probably go with challenge streamers. I think that definitely falls outside of the categories I said, but I also see a lot of streamers that do fall into the three I made up dabbling with that kind of content here and there, so there’s probably some crossover too.
Hey, I took your framework and ran with it, collaborative effort =D
But uh sadly no, perhaps ironically, either I’ve aged out of really enjoying livestreams, or the… content and or platforms have basically just become quite generally off putting to me, I haven’t really watched any livestreams or livestreamers in a few years now, beyond basically a bi-annual check in, followed by a sigh, lol.
So I don’t really know any current roleplay type streamers I could suggest… but it theoretically wouldn’t be too hard to find one?
Basically, you’d wanna look for some kind of … serious, adult only roleplay community for some game, and then see if any of them stream.
Ideally, just uh, instantly nope out of any RP community that has its own MTX scheme of any kind, those basically all devolve into bickering and cliques and internal power struggles … in the actual community, outsidd of the roleplay.
Also ‘challenge streamers’ yes, good, this is much more succinct than my ramblings, haha!
And yeah, you’re right that… these aren’t all perfectly exclusionary boxes, they can mix and match a bit, blend somewhat… but they are all perhaps good basic conceptual starting points for some kind of… grand unified theory of videogame oriented content or something.
EDIT:
Fuck, I just finally actually read your username.
Thats clever, I like that =P
Ok, bed time for me, I’m nodding off, uh, woof, lol.
I mean that children (squeekers) are not allowed in these RP comms/streams, because they very often tend to be extremely immature and petty, and very often just… ‘RP’ as a self insert, powertripping bully/troll/outright fascist, do shitty shit like stream sniping to intentionally ruin other people’s RP.
But uh, that’s my personal preference away from such content.
Such content is… imo, depressingly… often quite popular.
I am trying to more emphasize that there are some examples of what I would say is more quality, diamonds in the rough.
I never got super info their videos, but I think the DreamSMP would count as the roleplayer category. Honestly, when I think about my childhood Minecraft YT channels, Aphmau was the main creator of RPG-like “tell’s a story though Minecraft” content (MC Diaries, MyStreet, Dreams of Estorra [RIP 😭], etc ).
Anyway yeah, there’s a subcategory of people who I think like to roleplay in their games and make a creative, original story out of it. I think another modern example would be the Your Average Hylian, a channel that makes silly content focusing around LoZ, like “What Hyrulean ads would be like” or “Hyrule Cooking Show Parody”
I am not super familiar with the actual content and nature of these streams, but if your descriptions are generally accurate, then yeah, these all sound like good examples:
You throw yourself into a gameworld by genuinely treating it as reality, more than as a game, like TTRPGs where the RP is more than ‘murder hobo’ or ‘i am an extremely obvious joke/gimmick/reference character’.
I remember randomly stumbling upon, at one point, a Japanese youtuber who did / is doing a playthrough of Kenshi, and then goes back and sort of invents dialogue between her party of characters, to try to build an interesting storyline and do character development, out of what is basically a reactive sandbox… they’d voice the characters with an AI gen, or perhaps more old school voice generator, have the dialogue in english and japanese subtitles, kind of uh… ren py story based game or like fire emblem style cut scenes, interspersed between clips of gameplay footage, sometimes superimposed on top of it.
Now, this was very niche and isn’t really representative of what is popular or hugely succesful, but it is an example of another way that you can approach some kind of video game rp content to… more or less try to make something like an anime out of it.
Search “online tournament X” where X is the name of the game you want to play. Tampa Never Sleeps does tournaments for the likes of Street Fighter 6 and Guilty Gear Strive every week, for instance. They’re all free.
Yeah, it’s definitely possible. Online brackets are free sometimes, but don’t expect to never pay anything. Most events have a nominal fee to create a prize pool.
First thing first, figure out what you want to compete in. You probably already have a list in mind of some games you like to play casually or spectate, right?
Then, you need to find the community for the game(s) you’re interested in. I think it’s usually going to be found in a Discord server these days. For example, if you’re looking to get into a fighting game, this page might be a good start: wiki.supercombo.gg/w/…/Discords One you find community, they can help find events to enter, give advice, share resources to learn from, and of course practice with and/or against you.
For some games, even better if you can find an online community that’s specific to both your game and your region. You can start from the general community, ask around there, and hopefully drill down to something closer.
Another note on paying: you can find opponets or groups online to play serious matches with for free, before you enter anything.
But paying an entry fee is not gambling at all - you will lose that money 100%, if you’re not already experienced playing against serious competitors. Think of it more like buying a movie ticket than a lottery ticket.
It’s crazy good, or you can use the slightly less good chesscom for $49.99 (first month then $69.99).
I love the puzzles on lichess, they are taken from played matchs where a mistake were made and there are literally millions of them of all kind of difficulties and types 💖
Fighting games are great for this. Street Fighter 6 is great (and the biggest). But there are others (Tekken, Mortal Kombat, Guilty Gear, Super Smash Bros, loads more and more upcoming new ones). Fighting games have usually have local clubs/events where you can play casual matches. They’ll also do local tournaments, and there will be bigger regional and national competitions to find. But it’s a great starting experience to go to a local tournament and lose £5 entry fee by losing 2 back to back best of 3’s.
as an addenum, if you live by a major university, most universities have a weekly tounament for various games. if you arent up to snuff yet, there will likely also be casual setup, or better, bring your own setup to play casuals on with others. (e.g low effort one would be a pc version of a game running on a laptop for a mobile setup)
dont be intimidated and think you also have to register for the tournament if you arent experienced yet.
Children enjoy being popular and frequently want to be what they think is “cool” when they grow up.
Astronaut, rock star, doctor, Hollywood actor, and now YouTuber is on that list.
Kids see popular YouTuber. They want to copy.
Its also why so many kids fail at being content creators. They arnt trying to be content creators, they are trying to be “YouTubers” and miss the point entirely.
You have to enjoy the creation and art aspect of it. The popularity is just a happy accident if it happens.
That's good to hear! I'm looking forward ot trying it. I used to love mountain biking when I was younger and I was reeeaaasonably good at it, but I've had enough sports injuries in my life so that's at the wayside by now
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