Podcast Episode #25: To Let’s Play or to Not Let’s Play

Rob, Drexy, Ben, and Shaun discuss some of the latest news in or around E3, among other sources, and then dive deep on whether or not watching Let’s Plays can corrupt the gaming experience.

0:00:43- Intro
0:02:22-WH40K Gladius mod and Zephon discussion
0:12:33- Galactic Civilizations IV
0:17:04- Epic exclusivity being used as beta testing, Old World
0:24:41- Hooded Horse E3 interviews
0:29:58- Rumours of Firaxis making a Marvel tactics game, other games being revealed at E3
0:31:36- Interstellar Space: Genesis 1.3 update
0:34:17- Main topic: How watching Let’s Plays affects our own experience with a game
1:00:01- Sign off

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8 Comments

Daniel 5 years ago

I must agree. I always have trouble learning new games, but I find almost all Let’s plays to be extremely boring and useless, including the one’s, sorry to say, most of you guys do. Just watching someone play a game and try to figure it out as they go is not interesting. What would be helpful would be a short informational video point by point of the specific ten or so things in a game that you found difficult to figure out along with a well-thought out explanation of what you learned. For Interstellar Space, for example, there is no in-game Civilopedia type help, so there are questions that I have that I find difficult to find detailed answers to. This is where a good help video would be useful. Thanks for the conversation!

eXplorminate 5 years ago

No offense taken! I can totally understand! That’s why we had this conversation!

Daniel 5 years ago

For what it’s worth, I will add that I actually do watch a lot of Rob’s and BattleMode’s Let’s Plays and enjoy them as easy listening while I’m cooking or focusing on something else. So if you get a lot of views with them, great for you. However, please consider my idea of the occasional focused and concise help video covering specific points of a game that you found difficult to fully understand yourself, if possible.

eXplorminate 5 years ago

That’s great! And honestly, it’s great feedback! I think it boils down to time, as “help videos” take much more time to organize, edit, and compile than a regular “Let’s Play”. But it’s food for thought and I think it’s something we’ll try to start doing!

Trifler 5 years ago

My experience has been that if I need help learning a game, I’ll look for a tutorial guide first. I do enjoy watching Let’s Plays for many types of games, but not all. I often watch if I’m trying to decide if I want to buy a game. Or, I’ll often watch a Let’s Play for a game I’ve already played quite a bit to see if I can get some new ideas, or if I can share ideas of my own. Thus, I mostly enjoy YouTubers who recognize that I’m trying to help, and not just throwing shade. I do avoid watching Let’s Plays for adventure, adventure-like, and some RPGs that I might want to play, because that can definitely ruin the experience, but if I’ve decided I’m not going to play it, then I enjoy watching those as well.

I can’t say I’ve ever had the experience of not seeing the point of playing a strategy game after watching a Let’s Play. Maybe if it was one I wouldn’t enjoy playing to begin with.

J Argyle 5 years ago

This was an epiphany for me: exploring the game mechanics is part of the fun of the game, and once you really know those, the game loses its appeal.
The economic, building side usually is very static and repeatable. I wonder if there is a way to shake that up from game to game, such that you have to figure out how the twists on the mechanics each game. Something like the tech tree from Sots, but for the building trees or whatever development system they use.

Omar Hamza 5 years ago

It’s funny because personally, I think my views on Let’s Plays have changed over the years. I remember watching a lot of YouTubers like Quill18 for a variety of games. It was actually Quill that got me into the Paradox games, specifically CK2 and EU3. I would watch them and get more interested as I learned to play them through watching a series.

Nowadays, I really don’t enjoy watching Let’s Plays. If I want tips or to learn a game (like Dominions 5) I’ll find a tutorial series or a guide, or even better a tips and tricks video (I really liked BATTLEMODE’s tips and tricks for Shadow Empire for example).

Speaking of Shadow Empire, that’s probably the last time I really enjoyed watching a Let’s Play from Tortuga before the game was released to the public. I think these days, with the number of games that I can play, I’d rather spend time playing the games than watching them. There are more games than ever that I want to play and not enough time to do so. I also do enjoy learning the mechanics of a game on my own, to a certain degree. There’s nothing better than when the mechanics start coming together as you play a game!

David 5 years ago

Great show guys. Listening to what you were all saying about Lets Plays has led me to review my own thinking about that whole issue. I think it probably is best to go in blind and learn as you go; but still what Rob was saying about Distant Worlds holds for me too. I dont think I would have made it into the game only for Larry’s videos.

Podcast Episode #25: To Let’s Play or to Not Let’s Play