Let's Plays: How much do they harm their source material?

Off-Topic
#1

First of, a short explanation on what Let’s Plays are, in case you have never heard of them before.
Basically, someone records their playthrough of a game, be it with screenshots or videos, commentates their playing, and others watch said person.

So the question is: How much does that finantially hurt or benefit the game being Let’s Played?

Of course, there doesn’t exist an obvious answer that can be applied to every game ever, so I’d like you to discuss when LPs are beneficial and when they are not.

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#2

I think the additional exposure generally (not always, just more often than not) outweighs the loss of sales. A vast majority of people who watch a Let’s Play wouldn’t have heard of or bought the game otherwise, and it’s very possible that by the end of it, even if they don’t buy it themselves, they’ll go on to recommend it to other people. And I think this applies to VNs as much as it does any other game.

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#3

I think it harms Visual Novels in particular, largely because they don’t have much of a “play” aspect to them. You can just watch someone read it and get the same experience. If I could just have someone read me a book they own whenever I want, I’m not gonna waste my money buying the book in future.

If we are talking about Video Games however, it really depends on the content and depth of a game. Some games benefit from it and some don’t. A linear experience won’t fair well.

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#4

That is actually something I didn’t even take into consideration yet. However:[quote=“Karifean, post:2, topic:3394”]
And I think this applies to VNs as much as it does any other game.
[/quote]

I see a lesser incentive to buy the VN after you watched a read-through online. I mean, you have already seen the story by then, so why read again? Maybe that hypothetical person would buy the VN years later, when he wants to reread the story, but for that he’d first have to be someone who wants to reread stories. And to look at the recommending example, what hinders the person recommending just recommending the LP instead? Same basically goes for games that have a high emphasis on their story, especially if the one watching doesn’t really care about the gameplay.

Games where a Let’s Play can really only be beneficial are those that are more about the gameplay. Games like Minecraft, Super Mario or even 100% Orange Juice. As for these games, you probably more want to play them yourself, as your experience will definitely be different from the LPer. Come to think of it, that can even happen for LPs of RPGs. I know there have been times where I started watching an LP of an RPG and stopped watching because I’d rather experience the story myself. However, I feel that that reaction is more rare.

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#5

I’d agree that LPs are generally beneficial to games financially. LPers reach a pretty substantial number of gamers, giving games a greater scope of exposure than they’d have without them. Even personally I’ve bought Ace Attorney games because I watched LPs and decided they were worth the money, although admittedly that would be the only time an LP has influenced a purchase of mine.

I think people just generally trend towards supporting things they like. I guess you can argue LPs might cause a loss of sales from people who watch and then decide they wouldn’t like the game, when otherwise they might’ve just done a blind purchase. However, I don’t think this outweighs the sales and essentially free advertising gained from those who watch and decide to support it because they liked what they saw.

I also think LPs are good as far as transparency is concerned. If a developer releases a shitty game, and then lose a lot of sales because several LPs showcase the bad qualities of a game, I certainly won’t be crying about it.

VNs are a little bit of a grey area, I think, because of the aforementioned lack of gameplay. If you watch an LP of a VN, you’re basically getting exactly what you’d get if you actually played it yourself (unless there’s commentary). I’d still think it wouldn’t impact sales much, because someone who’s purchase is negatively influenced by an LP probably wasn’t going to just go and buy it on the off chance they might enjoy it in the first place. Conversely, someone who doesn’t have any significant exposure to a game probably wouldn’t buy it, but if they watch an LP and like what they see, they might go out and buy it to experience it for themselves.

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#6

I see LPs as extended ads for games, but I can definitely see diminishing returns for certain types, such as VNs. A Let’s Play is best when it’s about a gameplay-heavy thing, which is why FailRace is practically endless free publicity for the better driving sims and racing anything out there at the moment.

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#7

I feel that they benefit Video games and VN’s, because if someone truly loves the experience they had with the Let’s Play and it was a “blind” one at that for the viewer, than they would support their love for the game being played and go purchase it themselves anyway, and with VN’s, you can always re-read or get it yourself eventually espcially if you’re a true fan of it. Because true fans of the VN would want a copy for themselves, it’s just so neccessary! :smile: :blush: But depending on the Let’s Player, they can tarnish the VN’s/games’ experience by being overly silly, or going off-topic too much, when some viewers might prefer for the LPer to just focus on the VN and take it more seriously, including me, but I prefer reading VN’s first, and then watching a playthrough on YT afterwards, because I want to experience it normally first, without someone commentating over it, but that’s just my preference! :smile: :blush: (Unless I’m introduced to it through someone in a LP and I stop watching it after I get interested to then go read it) :smile: :blush:

#8

I, personally, show little to no interest in a simple playthrough with a voice over of the player, actually, the voice comments annoy me (I would rather prefer wrotten ones), I think that a videogame is something you should experience yourself on your own, and while check a video won’t hurt, if you do this before you even play the first time this will surely hurt your first-time experience.

I usually only check satire LPs, those humouristic ones that can make fun of several aspects of the game and make jokes, and I limit them to those games I have already played, that is the only way that this kind of experience feels fun to me, I have no interest in watching a simple video when I can’t enjoy the game’s contents myself.

Harmful? Yes and No, it depends on the genre and how the video is made, VNs and some video game genres may have not too much gameplay to show actually, so once the user in question sees all what is of interest through someone else, they will have no interest in playing themselves, which will hurt sales.

On the other hand, other genres may help sales, like games that rely mainly on multiplayer or those with a fun or quirky gameplay that is worth experiencing at least once on your own.

The answer to this… it’s as simple as it depends on the factors in question for the game, we can’t generalize this, you could say every game is a world on their own.

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#9

Depends on the type of game it is. A game that is meant to be play over and over again (example fighting games, multiplayer based games done in rounds… ect) they most likely profit from it. Games that are more of one shot games like vns suffer from it more. I feel like some types of game would be way better off if there were no lets plays.

I think it is sort of dumb you can play the full game and people can just watch it without paying anything. I am never going to buy that game firewatch, cause I saw most of it on a stream. Then again, in the days of gaben and humble bundles… half of the 700 or so games I own I haven’t even redeemed lol. Then half of those redeemed games I barely played… Games are cheap now days as long as you don’t buy them when they first come out and wait for sales.

I think it is silly that there are famous casual gamers… that makes… no sense…If you can’t make a good review, play the game well or have some topic about the game to discuss, you shouldn’t do videos or get views, too bad they do though. Sure it shows you like that game, but so does a good review, and it explains why you liked it. Streaming is way better imo, because only if you are lucky will you see the full game, It also helps build communities. it still has the same problems, but it is lessened because it is a one time thing. You are way more likely only to see a part of the game, which causes you to buy it. (still debatable however.)

The ideal is when the YouTuber interacts with the devs in some way. If you get permission I guess it is okay from a lega viewpoint, though I still wouldn’t watch a casual they are trash imo.

#10

I disagree. Not everyone is looking for a review or some info about the game. I look for content creators that talk little about the actual game they are playing. I’m not interested in games, I’m interested in personalities. I don’t want to watch the next big game being played, or watch a guide for a 4x game, but I’ll have fun watching a group of people play Civ or interact in a multiplayer game with a big server. Yogscast, Gamegrumps, Scary Game Squad or the like.

I dislike streaming because it’s like a large unrewindable Youtube video without any of the professionalism of YT. All the boring bits still in there, audio levels not well managed, coughs and empty space left in. Give me a well edited video I can watch whenever.

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#11

The only types of Let’s Plays I have some concern over are ones that both just autoplay a VN without any commentary and pump out the episodes as fast as possible, possibly the whole game on a release day. That adds nothing to the experience and is purposely competing with game sales.

I really enjoy a good Let’s Play of a visual novel with player commentary/extra voicing, though. It’s cool to see different viewpoints on the story live.

#12

I think this really mostly depends on the content creator. To be honest, when it comes to VN LPers, the entertainment that the audience is looking for is mostly on the particular content creator or what his/her reaction or experience and perspective would be on that VN. The risk that there are people who are going to just watch the full LP without buying the VN will always be there, but the payoff of more people checking it out and trying it for themselves is far more valuable and it actually works as a guaranteed advertisement. (on me, that’s for sure XD)
In some way, it does pose a harm to the source material, (especially VNs) but the only way we can know for sure is if the dev approves of it and also if anyone could perform a study on how LPs can boost or weaken the financial potential of a game. Some devs see it as a way for people to talk about the game more and to be more mainstream, and without LPs, games like Minecraft would never have gotten unbelievably popular and profitable. On the other hand, you’ve got devs who see it as copyright infringement, such as Nintendo, and that people can see a lot of the content without even buying it, which in some way is understandable.

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#13

I am just looking for more than that. When I said good at the game, I didn’t mean super good, Just good enough where you actually know what you are doing. When I see a mario maker video with millions of views of horrible levels and a fool who probably has never played a mario game in his life, it makes me wonder if the guy put any effort into this at all. Oh but he is so funny… So… you can’t be funny and know about the game? He puts video making effort into it, but no gaming effort into it. I am not saying the channels you watch are bad, just saying it takes more effort than just being funny and having a good setup/editing. There are so many casuals who just say a bunch of false things about the game because they don’t know what the game really even is. When somebody says, “Oh that is how you do this very basic thing in this game.” it makes me roll my eyes. But then they just edit that out so you can’t figure out that they have no idea what they are talking about.

Let’s plays in concept are okay, but it is more of the community I think it is really bad. Too much focus on themselves rather than the game at hand, I want balance. I am watching a video game video because I am interested in the game… They are reaching too hard for quick views / personality building rather than quality.

Well you are right about streaming, I just find it fun to have live chat with the other viewers and the streamer,more interaction. It is more of a community. Also the smaller the channel the more interaction you are likely to get. It does sometimes get too crowed in chat in the more popular streams, then the benefit of this is lost.

#14

I think part of the humor in those kinds of videos is in the lack of knowledge. The frustration slowly builds up and influences what and how something is spoken about. I think those kind of moments work best when they are used sparingly though, not a fan of those screamy youtubers, which strangely enough a lot of VN YTers happen to be.

There’s the difference then. A lot of people don’t watch for the game.

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#15

I respectfully disagree on this point, if only because I think some base knowledge (and having enough control to not spoil the viewers) is important to making sure the experience isn’t frustrating for them. If you go in with a degree of technical proficiency, or just the ability to learn really fast and follow instincts that won’t betray you, you can get away with that and generally go in, y’know, smooth-like.

Go in knowing jack and not learning all that quickly, and, well, you’re basically DarkSydePhil, and nobody wants that.

#16

I don’t think it really ruins or harms its source material. I know that there are some people that can’t play a game because they don’t have a decent PC or the game console that the game’s released on, so even watching that game’s Let’s Play videos is enough for them. Of course, playing a game and watching a game’s entirely different, but either way, you experience the game as is.

#17

But that would be exactly those that don’t buy the game, so one could argue that that is potential money lost for the company that made the game. Granted, in your example, these wouldn’t have the money to buy the game anyway, so you could argue for the other side as well, that, when the LP wouldn’t exist, these wouldn’t have bought the game either.

That’s kinda besides the point, however. Maybe you saw the question as “Would it be harmful for the presentation or experience the creator intended?”, but I was more interested in the financial aspect of this question. Which is the aspect which was discussed here mostly.

#18

Well, if one has a decent PC, he’d also have enough money to buy a game. Personally, I’ll buy a game that I liked even if I watched its playthrough or pirated it, because I want to own the game and play it by myself. For example, even though I finished Danganronpa’s PSP version, and Danganronpa 2’s pirate copy, I’ll still buy them both on Steam, because I want to support the producers, and I want to see those games in my collection and get the achievements and all. So, the outcome of whether a person’ll buy a game or not depends on his personality I guess. Also, I want to point out that nowadays, we can hardly see a game’s demo, so we won’t know if it’ll work on our PC, or what kind of game it is, if we don’t watch its videos, or play its pirate copies. It’s partly companies’ fault that they’re too lazy to release a demo.

#19

If we’re talking about a party game or a multiplayer game then I’d say the same, but for anything else (a story focused game I guess) I won’t waste my money because I’ve already experienced it.

On the other hand, I enjoy watching Let’s Plays of games I’ve already played.

#20

Old post but I will say I have to disagree with that. Although it is true that vns don’t have too much of the play aspect, just like any other games, the feeling (personal experience) when you play it yourself will have to differ from watching a playthrough especially since when you play it, it is your choice and your game. Experiences may be equal but the feeling you get will differ. In that context, I agree with[quote=“Karifean, post:2, topic:3394”]
I think the additional exposure generally (not always, just more often than not) outweighs the loss of sales. A vast majority of people who watch a Let’s Play wouldn’t have heard of or bought the game otherwise, and it’s very possible that by the end of it, even if they don’t buy it themselves, they’ll go on to recommend it to other people.
[/quote]
Once again a personal experience but after watching a play through of Rewrite, I played it myself and forced my friend to play it as well.