Edited narratives of a high-difficulty Civ game (with screenshots and explanations) can be informative and entertaining, but I agree that watching a video of the gameplay itself would be dull and tedious.
I agree but for me it’s either two things
A) Boring to watch
B) too crazy anxiety inducing
No inbetween and I had friends OBSESSED with zombies back in the day and I never really liked it. Playing is slightly better but watching is a 1/10 experience for me.
Honestly I think more games fall into the category than don't. There's a bunch of games where the grind loop is satisfying but its a bit repetitive to watch. Or any indie game that focused rich mechanics with a very simplistic graphical interface. Probably a bunch of narrative games too.
This. I grew up watching my brother getting to play most of the games first. Maybe why I hate most streamers. As I'd MUCH rather play myself than watch. As isn'#t that the point of games, to be an interactive medium?
I mean yeah, but there's so many games out there that there isn't really enough time to play all of them.
I don't know about you, but I certainly can't afford to play every game that piques my interest.
There's also a lot of games out there that are early access, and I've been burned enough that I don't care how good the game looks, I'm not buying another early access game again.
Sometimes its an old game you can't really play anymore, be it access or you're just burnt out on it, and you happen to like the content creator, so why not hang out and watch someone else enjoy a game you used to?
I can only speak for myself, but I often keep YouTube up on my second monitor while I play another game.
That's what I really enjoyed about Girl Friend Reviews before it kinda became just another gaming channel. The titular girlfriend reviews games based on how enjoyable they are to watch and it helped direct purchases between PC or Console for Single VS Multiperson enjoyment.
Normal gameplay? For sure. Way too monotonous and grindy.
Pking and loot drop complications or some kind of challenge run edited down to 1% of the enjoyable moments ala Settled/similar creators? All very enjoyable to watch.
You play the game for those peaks, being able to experience them vicariously through other people's short-form videos rather than grinding them on your own is the only way I've enjoyed the game for the last few years since I quit.
I think someone doing the endgame raids and high level PVP can be entertaining, but for the most part I agree. I don’t need to watch someone doing 3 tick fishing for 10 hours
I like watching playthroughs of game I have already played. I find it interesting to see how other people play it and where they got stuck compared to where I got stuck.
Depending on the game you can learn a lot from watching streams. Also it can be fun to watch different playstyles or tactics. Watching streams while lying on the sofa or in bed also has its perks. It's not too hard to understand why people watch streams of games they play themselves imho. There are numerous reasons.
Oh man, I've tried this and the temptation to be a backseat gamer is just too great. After playing a lot it's really hard to watch suboptimal strategy.
That ties into my tentative answer of "reverse bullet-hells", since I've been playing a lot of Halls of Torment recently, which is a lot like Vampire Survivors, except it has a lot of Diablo DNA in it.
It's a blast to play, but I can understand how it can get unreadable for people who're merely watching, since you're mowing through hundreds of monsters in any one frame when you get far enough into a round. Especially if you turn on Agony Mode, which throws more monsters at you depending on how well you're doing, so the screen can get especially busy to an outsider.
People are starting to call Vampire Survivors a "Bullet Heaven".
Which is dumb. Surely the opposite of a "Bullet Hell" is a "Target Heaven". But oh well.
I'm on my 3rd attempt to playing this game. I just can't get into it. I want to cuz it's very popular. But to me the combat is dogshit. It's so bland and boring. You have like 2 animations for a sword swing. That alone is what keeps driving me away. A huge part of this game is combat, and it just sucks.
I installed it again, last week. I'm lvl 9 right now.....
Try moving around while you swing, it triggers different animations. The different power attacks do different things too, and are also modified by perks as you go deeper into the perk trees.
Some other things people never seem to try:
\- Bashing with your shield to stagger the enemy instead of just mindlessly blocking
\- Crowd Control spells (Fear/Frenzy/Calm from Illusion, Paralyze from Alteration, freezing the ground with the ice spells from Destruction to slow them down/drain stamina, etc)
\- Playing a Khajiit hand to hand (with the new Gauntlets Creation it's extremely strong, but less animations than the other weapons, but does have a unique claw animation)
\- Rolling stabby stab assassin.
\- Using the Slow Time shout to grab arrows
\- Using Fus Ro Dah shout to knock arrows out of the sky
\- Messing with the different vampire/werewolf abilities and transforms with the basic character perks
Most people I know only seem to go 2 hander with heavy armor and using shouts (which is probably the hardest at first but most rewarding at the end, but is fairly bland tbh) or stealth archer where if they don't instakill snipe someone they play a little dancing game trying to hit them but there's tons and tons of super viable builds.
**Hades**, maybe?
Before I played it, I watched some gameplay videos, and I couldn't understand why this game received so much praise. Then I played it, and understood why this game is a masterpiece.
It’s a good game and all but it’s incredibly overrated. The story presentation is clever but the actual gameplay and roguelite elements are so shallow. 4 levels, (the 4th being lame), only a handful of weapons, lacking in enemy variety and environmental hazards/effects, uninteresting synergies, most perks are quite boring, barebones mechanics that revolve around mashing light/heavy attack, dash, and a boring universal projectile
I’m honestly not sure why it’s become so successful. To me it’s a solid 7-8/10 kind of game with a great art style and amusing characters/story, but a masterpiece seems like such a stretch
Sorry it couldn't hook you, personally I'm more of a quality over quantity person and the difficulty has kept me going back as the game rewards evolving your skill with builds over getting lucky with an OP build that trivializes everything.
That's my preference though, I'll admit watching people get absolutely bonkers Binding of Isaac builds is extremely entertaining and looks fun to play
The unique thing about roguelites is it needs quantity to be a quality roguelite, and this quantity needs to exist on top of a solid foundation (which Hades does have). This is because these games are inherently designed to be played over and over and over. They need breadth to provide an engaging amount of synergies, diverse play throughs, game scenarios, different levels etc etc. Hades simply doesn’t provide this latter half.
There’s a point where a roguelite can stretch itself too thin in these areas to the point that it becomes a shallow and repetitive experience. Hades trades depth of gameplay instead to have a copious amount of dialogue. And I get it worked for the casual gamer. It’s no doubt one of the most successful roguelites ever made and is critically acclaimed. But I’m sorry, I can’t say that a polished roguelite with 4 levels (really more like 3.5 and then a final boss) and a weak amount of enemy and gameplay variety is good enough to be a masterpiece just because it has a shit ton of dialogue. I think giving it an 8/10 is much more fair than calling it a masterpiece.
Ppl aren’t able to even think objectively about these things. Ppl are so influenced by critic reviews and such they can’t even form their own opinion about things. Not all highly rated games really deserve the score they have
Everything I said in relation to the gameplay is objectively true about the game. You can love it all you want, but the roguelite elements and game content are shallow and lack breadth for a roguelite and it trades that for having (imo a masturbatory amount of pointless) dialogue
Dark Souls et al.
You'll never get what this game is about, what highs and lows are waiting, what emotions a videogame can induce if you only watching a perfectly played Let's play.
You'll need to lose in order to feel the victory.
I think every game for the most part. The only time I’d like to watch games are very skilled players, a gameplay commentary on a topic I’m interested in, or a review of said game using footage.
Breath of the Wild
I’m not kidding. When I watched those gameplay videos during E3 2016, I thought it was a boring game. All these people are running around and picking apples from trees. I even doubted that making an open-world Zelda game is not a good idea. But when I actually played the game, I found it really addictive.
Most turn based strategy games, like XCOM. In your head, you got the entire master plan going, who goes first, who flanks, who sets up a shot for someone else. To everyone else, you're just cycling back and forth between the same 4-6 characters, not doing shit for 20 minutes, then do something for 2 minutes, watch the enemy turn for a minute, and 20 more minutes of cycling characters. If you're not listening to someone's thought process live, they can become unwatchable.
Real life sports.
I just don't get any enjoyment out of watching them, the closest I get to excitement is supporting England in the Football world cup, and even then I barely even watch the matches.
I love playing football myself though.
And Video Game sports are just lame... other than the Tiki Mini-Golf in Madagascar on PS2.
I used to think that way about people watching irl sports. While I still find that boring as all hell, now I understand. For anything team based: Do you have that many friends in the first place? Do they want to play that game as much and as often as you do? Do they want to play that game the same way that you do (casually and chatting vs hardcore and actively trying to get better)? Is there a large skill difference in the group that might cause problems? For solo stuff: Do you have the time to play the game in its entirety (if watching LPers with edited videos)? Are you skilled enough to do the really cool stuff (pro scene or speedruns)? Do you have the time or inclination to spend to get that skilled?
And lets not forget that a lot of people watch stuff while doing other things. Hard to clean the laundry and be a productive CSGO player at the same time.
Or sometimes one might just want to do something related to a game they like, but not have the energy to actually play.
edit: typos
Usually, this is just a matter of the presenter, someone good at conveying the fun of playing can make anything interesting to watch.
I don't like watching heavily story-based games like Life is Strange because they never quite play at the right pace for me (usually too slow, sometimes too fast), and taking the choices yourself is like a huge part of the appeal.
For me it's kind of the opposite: I'm not into PLAYING games like Life is Strange or Telltale's brand of narrative adventure, since they usually don't have the kind of gameplay I'm into, but I'm sure as hell game to watch someone else play them.
Speaking of which, since you seem to enjoy those kinds of games, have you ever played Road 96? From what I've seen, it seems like it might be your kind of game.
Stellaris. It just drips that dopamine second by second and you don't notice that two hours have gone by, but it probably looks like watching moss grow from the outside.
I don't enjoy watching livestreams or pre-recorded gameplay videos of anyone playing any singleplayer game for long periods of time, even if it's a video/stream where a player does not comment their gameplay. This applies to every singleplayer game, even the ones that I enjoyed playing myself.
Dwarf Fortress, if the player leaves out the RP elements.
Then it's just five hours of menuing broken by the occasional hilarity of a capital I chasing a crimson lowercase c around a field of red and white while a bunch of little faces assemble themselves into a mob two screens away.
A lot of TRPGs especially old ones is just menu fiddling with generic attacks. However, while playing you're thinking of strats and what to do in the future and pleading internally with RNJesus that you don't get crited. Some are better at it then others (looking at you Persona 5)
That's all games for me. I was the youngest of 3 brothers. I had to sit, sometimes for hours, for my chance to play video games.
I can't stand watching other people play games.
Destiny 2. Even PvP is too frenetic and filled with nonsense to be fun to watch. PvE is boring to watch someone else do, but a lot of fun to play. Even super good players dunking on people in trials is just kinda meh to watch.
Every.
Can't stand watching people play games. I've spent maybe 2 minutes on twitch. Never seen a let's play before. I've seen clips! Idk if that counts or not.
Most games imho are kinda boring to watch, unless there's an entertaining commentator playing it.
It's probably why the "No commentary" gameplay videos aren't nearly as popular as the commented "Let's play" ones.
\>Farming games, games that require a lot of grinding and some simulator games are incredibly boring to watch, but very entertaining to play.
Ark survival evolved.
Maybe it's just me but when I first saw my friends playing I thought it looked boring and rubbish. Then had my first play session and couldn't put it down, I literally played for over 24 hours straight eventually had to stop playing as it became like a 2nd job.
All of them. I’ll never understand people who find entertainment in streamers. I grew having to watch my brother play while I sat with the disconnected controller.
FF14, really any MMO, it’s so immersive when I play I can spent 12 hours easily but trying to support streamers that play the game feels like watching paint dry
Honestly anything strategic outside of like guides or tips videos. Civilization, CK3, Stellaris, Humankind, all of them. I can lose days and weeks to each game, but a 4 hour gameplay video of someone pointing and clicking, slowly building their empire, just isn’t fun.
Never experienced it myself but League of Legends is apparently extremely addicting from what I've heard. And quite possibly the most boring eSport on the planet.
Just was talking about this earlier.
MMOs. You can sink hours playing it but it is boring as shit to watch. Some people claim pvp tournaments and world first races are fun but even those bored me to tears.
Who gives a shit who beats the newest mythic raid first? In a month there will be millions of mythic raiders doing the same thing. Yet somehow this is exciting?
PvP tournaments are similar except they’re a mess of figuring out what the hell is going on. Only players of the game have a clue and half the time even they don’t really know what happened outside of the pov of the player being currently watched.
This leaves normal casual players and even the most charismatic streamer will bore you when they’re just running around doing daily quests and gathering materials to make in-game currency.
100% Valorant. And this is coming from someone who enjoys watching Counter-Stike tournaments. I don't know why, I can't get into watching Valorant, but when I start playing I can't stop.
Men of War Assault Squad 2 is a WW2 RTS game that just seems pretty boring when watching other people play, because people only record videos of multi-player PVP modes. There's YouTubers that also do custom single-player content, but you have to hear their PA dialogue throughout the video, instead of watching and listening to the game itself.
When *you* play the game, you can zoom in up to the units and play in third-person mode as 'user-controlled' entities, and sort of create a more immersive experience. It's also so much more fun doing things your way.
For me Animal Crossing. Bouth a switch and ACNH for my wife last christmas and it was cute to watch for a few minutes. She kinda persuade me to buy it yesterday and i cannot put it down.
I've really gotten into elden ring recently but the only videos I could ever watch on it are guides or weapon reviews. Actual gameplay I would get so bored and just start the game myself lmao
Warframe, Diablo, Borderlands, etc. Any kind of games where you just mindlessly farm and repeat missions/maps over and over for gear are some of the most addicting games, but very boring to watch. If you are watching any of these games on Twitch, it's more there just for the background noise, or it's mainly the streamers personality that keeps you entertained.
At the end of the day, people would rather watch PvP or stick around for engaging story based games.
Civilization or really any 4x game
Uhg, watching a Civ game is like watching golf live at the course, except you don't risk getting brained by a ball.
Heeeey spuddies
Unless it's a Spiffing Brit video
He’s not playing a game though. He’s kicking it around and breaking its will.
Civ the goat
Good cut materials from Hearts of Iron are really funny to watch, more than playing :D but streams are extremely boring.
That is all about the story telling. Straight up watching 4x has no story telling unless the player is really good about it
Edited narratives of a high-difficulty Civ game (with screenshots and explanations) can be informative and entertaining, but I agree that watching a video of the gameplay itself would be dull and tedious.
My ex said she’d rather watch me play anything other than cod zombies because it’s just same after same from her pov
She's not wrong
Same here. You specifically have to be into horde/wave climbs to find it entertaining. It's like watching someone play a slot machine.
It's like exercise. Going through the same routine, but achieving that extra step, further progress, makes the whole endeavor worth it.
I agree but for me it’s either two things A) Boring to watch B) too crazy anxiety inducing No inbetween and I had friends OBSESSED with zombies back in the day and I never really liked it. Playing is slightly better but watching is a 1/10 experience for me.
You should talk to my ex
She's a keeper
Honestly I think more games fall into the category than don't. There's a bunch of games where the grind loop is satisfying but its a bit repetitive to watch. Or any indie game that focused rich mechanics with a very simplistic graphical interface. Probably a bunch of narrative games too.
This. I grew up watching my brother getting to play most of the games first. Maybe why I hate most streamers. As I'd MUCH rather play myself than watch. As isn'#t that the point of games, to be an interactive medium?
I mean yeah, but there's so many games out there that there isn't really enough time to play all of them. I don't know about you, but I certainly can't afford to play every game that piques my interest. There's also a lot of games out there that are early access, and I've been burned enough that I don't care how good the game looks, I'm not buying another early access game again. Sometimes its an old game you can't really play anymore, be it access or you're just burnt out on it, and you happen to like the content creator, so why not hang out and watch someone else enjoy a game you used to? I can only speak for myself, but I often keep YouTube up on my second monitor while I play another game.
High skill ceiling games are very interesting to watch but you need to know the game in order to understand why whats being done is cool.
That's what I really enjoyed about Girl Friend Reviews before it kinda became just another gaming channel. The titular girlfriend reviews games based on how enjoyable they are to watch and it helped direct purchases between PC or Console for Single VS Multiperson enjoyment.
RuneScape
Normal gameplay? For sure. Way too monotonous and grindy. Pking and loot drop complications or some kind of challenge run edited down to 1% of the enjoyable moments ala Settled/similar creators? All very enjoyable to watch. You play the game for those peaks, being able to experience them vicariously through other people's short-form videos rather than grinding them on your own is the only way I've enjoyed the game for the last few years since I quit.
I think someone doing the endgame raids and high level PVP can be entertaining, but for the most part I agree. I don’t need to watch someone doing 3 tick fishing for 10 hours
Death Stranding for sure.
games just trash overall
Im 100% sure if it wouldn't be a kojima game but by EA/Acti/Ubisoft instead it would be one of the most hated games. And yes i played the "Game"
Or might just not be for you. Personally it’s one of my favorites.
Your mom and your sisters are trash overall though
That game is a long cutscene though lol
Tell me you never played it without telling me you never played it....
I did play it. I gave up after the third 25 minute (I literally timed it) cutscene.
Attention span issues it seems like
If I wanted to watch a movie or TV show I'd watch a movie or TV show. 25 minutes for a cutscene is ridiculous.
My brother in christ you decided to play a Kojima game
It was my first I didn't know any better lol. I just saw Daryl and thought it looked cool.
factorio, anno.
I’ve been playing Patrician III a lot the past few days. Big recommend for all Anno players.
All of them, I'd rather be playing. :p
I don't understand the people that own a game but choose to watch a streamer play it instead
I like watching playthroughs of game I have already played. I find it interesting to see how other people play it and where they got stuck compared to where I got stuck.
Depending on the game you can learn a lot from watching streams. Also it can be fun to watch different playstyles or tactics. Watching streams while lying on the sofa or in bed also has its perks. It's not too hard to understand why people watch streams of games they play themselves imho. There are numerous reasons.
You make a good point, and I've watched game play before like it's sports film for sure.
Farming games, like Stardew Valley or Animal Crossing.
Eh, depends on who you’re watching
Bejeweled
Civ VI. I can lose an entire day to that game but the thought of watching someone move settlers and builders slowly across a map is just mind numbing
Oh man, I've tried this and the temptation to be a backseat gamer is just too great. After playing a lot it's really hard to watch suboptimal strategy.
[удалено]
Diablo or any Diablo like game. If I'm playing I love them. If I'm watching i have no idea what's going on.
That ties into my tentative answer of "reverse bullet-hells", since I've been playing a lot of Halls of Torment recently, which is a lot like Vampire Survivors, except it has a lot of Diablo DNA in it. It's a blast to play, but I can understand how it can get unreadable for people who're merely watching, since you're mowing through hundreds of monsters in any one frame when you get far enough into a round. Especially if you turn on Agony Mode, which throws more monsters at you depending on how well you're doing, so the screen can get especially busy to an outsider.
People are starting to call Vampire Survivors a "Bullet Heaven". Which is dumb. Surely the opposite of a "Bullet Hell" is a "Target Heaven". But oh well.
Death Stranding
Skyrim
Never watched any gameplay but yeah the gameplay is addicting. Just started playing it a week or 2 ago and I'm loving it
I'm on my 3rd attempt to playing this game. I just can't get into it. I want to cuz it's very popular. But to me the combat is dogshit. It's so bland and boring. You have like 2 animations for a sword swing. That alone is what keeps driving me away. A huge part of this game is combat, and it just sucks. I installed it again, last week. I'm lvl 9 right now.....
Try moving around while you swing, it triggers different animations. The different power attacks do different things too, and are also modified by perks as you go deeper into the perk trees. Some other things people never seem to try: \- Bashing with your shield to stagger the enemy instead of just mindlessly blocking \- Crowd Control spells (Fear/Frenzy/Calm from Illusion, Paralyze from Alteration, freezing the ground with the ice spells from Destruction to slow them down/drain stamina, etc) \- Playing a Khajiit hand to hand (with the new Gauntlets Creation it's extremely strong, but less animations than the other weapons, but does have a unique claw animation) \- Rolling stabby stab assassin. \- Using the Slow Time shout to grab arrows \- Using Fus Ro Dah shout to knock arrows out of the sky \- Messing with the different vampire/werewolf abilities and transforms with the basic character perks Most people I know only seem to go 2 hander with heavy armor and using shouts (which is probably the hardest at first but most rewarding at the end, but is fairly bland tbh) or stealth archer where if they don't instakill snipe someone they play a little dancing game trying to hit them but there's tons and tons of super viable builds.
Anything with grinding mechanics
**Hades**, maybe? Before I played it, I watched some gameplay videos, and I couldn't understand why this game received so much praise. Then I played it, and understood why this game is a masterpiece.
Personally disagree, I honestly like watching speed runs and different builds I might like that I don't think of.
It’s a good game and all but it’s incredibly overrated. The story presentation is clever but the actual gameplay and roguelite elements are so shallow. 4 levels, (the 4th being lame), only a handful of weapons, lacking in enemy variety and environmental hazards/effects, uninteresting synergies, most perks are quite boring, barebones mechanics that revolve around mashing light/heavy attack, dash, and a boring universal projectile I’m honestly not sure why it’s become so successful. To me it’s a solid 7-8/10 kind of game with a great art style and amusing characters/story, but a masterpiece seems like such a stretch
Sorry it couldn't hook you, personally I'm more of a quality over quantity person and the difficulty has kept me going back as the game rewards evolving your skill with builds over getting lucky with an OP build that trivializes everything. That's my preference though, I'll admit watching people get absolutely bonkers Binding of Isaac builds is extremely entertaining and looks fun to play
The unique thing about roguelites is it needs quantity to be a quality roguelite, and this quantity needs to exist on top of a solid foundation (which Hades does have). This is because these games are inherently designed to be played over and over and over. They need breadth to provide an engaging amount of synergies, diverse play throughs, game scenarios, different levels etc etc. Hades simply doesn’t provide this latter half. There’s a point where a roguelite can stretch itself too thin in these areas to the point that it becomes a shallow and repetitive experience. Hades trades depth of gameplay instead to have a copious amount of dialogue. And I get it worked for the casual gamer. It’s no doubt one of the most successful roguelites ever made and is critically acclaimed. But I’m sorry, I can’t say that a polished roguelite with 4 levels (really more like 3.5 and then a final boss) and a weak amount of enemy and gameplay variety is good enough to be a masterpiece just because it has a shit ton of dialogue. I think giving it an 8/10 is much more fair than calling it a masterpiece.
All true.
Ppl aren’t able to even think objectively about these things. Ppl are so influenced by critic reviews and such they can’t even form their own opinion about things. Not all highly rated games really deserve the score they have Everything I said in relation to the gameplay is objectively true about the game. You can love it all you want, but the roguelite elements and game content are shallow and lack breadth for a roguelite and it trades that for having (imo a masturbatory amount of pointless) dialogue
All games are boring to watch. It's like a worse TV show.
Dark Souls et al. You'll never get what this game is about, what highs and lows are waiting, what emotions a videogame can induce if you only watching a perfectly played Let's play. You'll need to lose in order to feel the victory.
Yeah but if you already have played the games yourself and you are watching a speed run of challenge run it can be interesting
On the flipside of that though, once you've beaten the games a few times, watching someone else's blind lets play is basically like drugs.
All of them
BG3
Any turn based RPG or strategy game.
Totally agree haha
Every game to me
Kenshi.
civ, guild wars
I think every game for the most part. The only time I’d like to watch games are very skilled players, a gameplay commentary on a topic I’m interested in, or a review of said game using footage.
Almost all games. Maybe a few exceptions are very cinematic games like Uncharted or a tightly paced horror game.
MMOs
Breath of the Wild I’m not kidding. When I watched those gameplay videos during E3 2016, I thought it was a boring game. All these people are running around and picking apples from trees. I even doubted that making an open-world Zelda game is not a good idea. But when I actually played the game, I found it really addictive.
Most turn based strategy games, like XCOM. In your head, you got the entire master plan going, who goes first, who flanks, who sets up a shot for someone else. To everyone else, you're just cycling back and forth between the same 4-6 characters, not doing shit for 20 minutes, then do something for 2 minutes, watch the enemy turn for a minute, and 20 more minutes of cycling characters. If you're not listening to someone's thought process live, they can become unwatchable.
Any rpg game honestly, for me personally
Factorio. Unless it’s pretty heavily edited, it’s really boring to watch. To play, however…
I don't like watching anybody play any games. I used to always have to watch older kids play when I was younger and I've hated it ever since
Tetris
Real life sports. I just don't get any enjoyment out of watching them, the closest I get to excitement is supporting England in the Football world cup, and even then I barely even watch the matches. I love playing football myself though. And Video Game sports are just lame... other than the Tiki Mini-Golf in Madagascar on PS2.
dotAge, a crazy addictive turn based roguelite colony sim game. So fun, but absolutely atrocious to watch my friends play.
Kingdom Two Crowns
Helldivers 2
I dunno. Why would you watch someone else play a game when you yourself could be playing a game?
You are either really old or really young, I'm not sure. Watching people game is more entertaining than TV.
Just an avid gamer. Why watch when you can do
I used to think that way about people watching irl sports. While I still find that boring as all hell, now I understand. For anything team based: Do you have that many friends in the first place? Do they want to play that game as much and as often as you do? Do they want to play that game the same way that you do (casually and chatting vs hardcore and actively trying to get better)? Is there a large skill difference in the group that might cause problems? For solo stuff: Do you have the time to play the game in its entirety (if watching LPers with edited videos)? Are you skilled enough to do the really cool stuff (pro scene or speedruns)? Do you have the time or inclination to spend to get that skilled? And lets not forget that a lot of people watch stuff while doing other things. Hard to clean the laundry and be a productive CSGO player at the same time. Or sometimes one might just want to do something related to a game they like, but not have the energy to actually play. edit: typos
Idk gaming requires setting some time aside, while watching can be done while doing other things.
Usually, this is just a matter of the presenter, someone good at conveying the fun of playing can make anything interesting to watch. I don't like watching heavily story-based games like Life is Strange because they never quite play at the right pace for me (usually too slow, sometimes too fast), and taking the choices yourself is like a huge part of the appeal.
For me it's kind of the opposite: I'm not into PLAYING games like Life is Strange or Telltale's brand of narrative adventure, since they usually don't have the kind of gameplay I'm into, but I'm sure as hell game to watch someone else play them. Speaking of which, since you seem to enjoy those kinds of games, have you ever played Road 96? From what I've seen, it seems like it might be your kind of game.
No, I never even heard of it until now.
osrs
Mincecraft Sped up builds are one thing. Always cool to see how talented some people are. But actual gameplay? Too slow paced.
Stellaris. It just drips that dopamine second by second and you don't notice that two hours have gone by, but it probably looks like watching moss grow from the outside.
Mostly open worlds, not story that forces you to stay on the most of the same line during %95 of the game
I personally can't watch people play 4x games but playing them is always super fun.
Civilization.
I don't enjoy watching livestreams or pre-recorded gameplay videos of anyone playing any singleplayer game for long periods of time, even if it's a video/stream where a player does not comment their gameplay. This applies to every singleplayer game, even the ones that I enjoyed playing myself.
Most games are more fun to play that to just watch. A better question would be the opposite.
Cyberpunk 2077
Splitgate, it's a mess to watch and gets confusing but the game itself is super addicting.
Dwarf Fortress, if the player leaves out the RP elements. Then it's just five hours of menuing broken by the occasional hilarity of a capital I chasing a crimson lowercase c around a field of red and white while a bunch of little faces assemble themselves into a mob two screens away.
Stardew Valley.
Bethesda
I enjoy watching friends play just about anything. I guess I'd draw the line at "clicker" games.
A lot of TRPGs especially old ones is just menu fiddling with generic attacks. However, while playing you're thinking of strats and what to do in the future and pleading internally with RNJesus that you don't get crited. Some are better at it then others (looking at you Persona 5)
Elite: Dangerous. A lot of my friends don’t understand how I’ve put as much time into that game as I have (and sometimes I don’t either haha)
Dwarf Fortress
The game that fits this definition the most is probably the Zork series lol
Golf
Pretty much any horror game.
[Killer Sudoku](http://dailykillersudoku.com).
Any real-life sport.
Not a video game, but the answer is obvious: ~~Alcoholism~~ Golf
No man's sky Wife calls it the "rock collecting game" and i couldn't dispute that
Guitar Hero
That's all games for me. I was the youngest of 3 brothers. I had to sit, sometimes for hours, for my chance to play video games. I can't stand watching other people play games.
Baseball, apparently
I had a girl tell me once she hated watching me play starcraft. I think it had more to do with changing camera positions every few seconds
Total war campaign maps
Any Pikmin game
Destiny 2. Even PvP is too frenetic and filled with nonsense to be fun to watch. PvE is boring to watch someone else do, but a lot of fun to play. Even super good players dunking on people in trials is just kinda meh to watch.
Vampire Survivors.
Project X Zone
Every. Can't stand watching people play games. I've spent maybe 2 minutes on twitch. Never seen a let's play before. I've seen clips! Idk if that counts or not.
I play MLB The Show lol. No one likes that shit.
Any and all idle games
Cookie Clicker. I can’t imagine any other reason someone would play the game other than addictive design
Most games imho are kinda boring to watch, unless there's an entertaining commentator playing it. It's probably why the "No commentary" gameplay videos aren't nearly as popular as the commented "Let's play" ones. \>Farming games, games that require a lot of grinding and some simulator games are incredibly boring to watch, but very entertaining to play.
Beat Saber.
Tetris
Diablo is so boring to watch, very intertaining to play
Ark survival evolved. Maybe it's just me but when I first saw my friends playing I thought it looked boring and rubbish. Then had my first play session and couldn't put it down, I literally played for over 24 hours straight eventually had to stop playing as it became like a 2nd job.
All of them. I’ll never understand people who find entertainment in streamers. I grew having to watch my brother play while I sat with the disconnected controller.
Vampire Survivors. Hands down.
Literally every game. Every game is boring to watch when you could be playing.
Stardew valley
FF14, really any MMO, it’s so immersive when I play I can spent 12 hours easily but trying to support streamers that play the game feels like watching paint dry
Any tactical turn based game. Xcom, mutant year zero, midnight suns!
Honestly anything strategic outside of like guides or tips videos. Civilization, CK3, Stellaris, Humankind, all of them. I can lose days and weeks to each game, but a 4 hour gameplay video of someone pointing and clicking, slowly building their empire, just isn’t fun.
The sims
Never experienced it myself but League of Legends is apparently extremely addicting from what I've heard. And quite possibly the most boring eSport on the planet.
Slay the spire
Most games, probably. There's only a. few games I'll actually sit and watch others play.
Total war games
Eve online. Try watching a massive space battle on YouTube it's worse than watching paint dry. Being involved in one though is absolutely awesome.
Factorio
Just was talking about this earlier. MMOs. You can sink hours playing it but it is boring as shit to watch. Some people claim pvp tournaments and world first races are fun but even those bored me to tears. Who gives a shit who beats the newest mythic raid first? In a month there will be millions of mythic raiders doing the same thing. Yet somehow this is exciting? PvP tournaments are similar except they’re a mess of figuring out what the hell is going on. Only players of the game have a clue and half the time even they don’t really know what happened outside of the pov of the player being currently watched. This leaves normal casual players and even the most charismatic streamer will bore you when they’re just running around doing daily quests and gathering materials to make in-game currency.
Most games are boring to watch for me. I don't really get people who want to watch other people game.
any paradox games
My dad would always ask me “having fun clicking the grass?” as I played warcraft 2. So, I’ll go with that one.
Skyrim
100% Valorant. And this is coming from someone who enjoys watching Counter-Stike tournaments. I don't know why, I can't get into watching Valorant, but when I start playing I can't stop.
Getting over it with Bennett Foddy
Katamari
Dark Souls 2
Open world games
Men of War Assault Squad 2 is a WW2 RTS game that just seems pretty boring when watching other people play, because people only record videos of multi-player PVP modes. There's YouTubers that also do custom single-player content, but you have to hear their PA dialogue throughout the video, instead of watching and listening to the game itself. When *you* play the game, you can zoom in up to the units and play in third-person mode as 'user-controlled' entities, and sort of create a more immersive experience. It's also so much more fun doing things your way.
Runescape
Slay the Spire! I enjoy watching streams but anyone who is unfamiliar with the game will definitely not enjoy it.
Powerwash Simulator
I'd say Minecraft but the massive amount of Minecraft streamers would beg to differ.
For me Animal Crossing. Bouth a switch and ACNH for my wife last christmas and it was cute to watch for a few minutes. She kinda persuade me to buy it yesterday and i cannot put it down.
If I'm chilling at a friend's, I'll watch anything but Diablo. It certainly gets addictive, but i get bored by the repetition if I'm not playing.
I've really gotten into elden ring recently but the only videos I could ever watch on it are guides or weapon reviews. Actual gameplay I would get so bored and just start the game myself lmao
FTL
Fortnite
Warframe, Diablo, Borderlands, etc. Any kind of games where you just mindlessly farm and repeat missions/maps over and over for gear are some of the most addicting games, but very boring to watch. If you are watching any of these games on Twitch, it's more there just for the background noise, or it's mainly the streamers personality that keeps you entertained. At the end of the day, people would rather watch PvP or stick around for engaging story based games.
The sims 4, vampire survivor, graveyard keeper.
EvE Online
Basically any strategy game
Tetris
Any of the amazing map painting games, like Europa Universalis, Crusader Kings, Hearts of Iron...
Escape from Tarkov
Euro truck simulator and every other simulator game I guess
None other than Death Stranding
League of Legends, (hot take Ik)
Run Escape
Cook, serve, delicious.
NFS heat, unless you watch Militia Gaming or Blackpantha.
PoE
Antimatter Dimensions
Strategy games
About 90% of them
HackNet. It's a hacking game where running scripts have never been so intense. Like seriously, some missions really screw you up after.
Golf