What do you love/hate about the LP hype?

[Milady]

Let's Plays are nothing new. They do, however, seem to be becoming more and more "mainstream" in the gaming community in general. My knowledge on the latest generation of consoles is limited, but it seems like the PS4/Xbox One are making it easier and easier for people to record themselves playing whatever it is they're currently working on. In my lurking about the forums, I see references made to them more frequently, the latest issue of Game Informer that showed up on my doorstep seems to have a whole spread dedicated to the LP craze.

I never found LPs terribly interesting before I began to develop better friendships with some of the regulars here. Then I found that I immensely enjoyed watching them play through games. When you already know the person doing the recording, it's less like watching an LP and more like sitting in someone's living room watching them play through a game. You can recapture that feeling of going to a friend's house to see that new game you haven't been able to get your hands on, or that is just a little too difficult for you to manage on your own. With strangers, that more intimate level of excitement is gone, and I lose interest.

On top of that, everyone seems to record everything. I suppose that it's the internet and there's an audience available for just about anything, but in most cases one of my favorite quotes from Planes, Trains and Automobiles comes to mind: "Y'know, not everything is an anecdote, you have to discriminate! You choose things are funny or mildly amusing! You're a miracle! Your stories have none of that! They're not even amusing accidentally!"

So what do you guys think? Do you have any LPers outside of EP that you enjoy following? And if you record your own, what is it about the process that you enjoy?

[Inferno.]

Good thread!

I bloody hate how everyone's recording themselves gaming and now they're streaming it to Twitch too! No one cares! You'll never be famous on the Internet, stop trying!
We also don't need to see any more FPS commentaries and Minecraft let's plays, seriously.

In all seriousness, I am subscribed to one LP channel on YT and that's GameGrumps. I'm not interested in anyone else enough

[Ragnar]

I think I've gotten to hate them. When they first started to become a thing I thought their purpose was basically to be like a FAQ, so if you got stuck somewhere you could simply watch the bit you're at to see what you're doing wrong. But It seems to me that they're making a sect of beyond lazy gaming fans, who don't even play games because they can just watch them.

I was chatting with random internet people elsewhere on the net the other day about Drakengard 3. There were several people that believed the inclusion of a Japanese VO track in the US release was pointless, because they'd already watched the complete game in Japanese on YouTube. Shit like that annoys me

[Englebert3rd]

I don't mind a few of them, but especially hate them if they are about indie games. I don't watch them completely, I'd rather play the game to be honest and I agree with Ragnar's post about gamers becoming lazy. My videos aren't Let's Plays, but really gameplay videos with commentary. It ain't different from a Let's Play but at least I don't push it to 20+ episodes.
I'm not planning to become famous and I don't think I'm amusing at all, I just want to do it and it's in a way, a bit of history preservation.

[The Almighty MegaMan]

What I hate are the spawns of the let's play community, rather than the idea itself: the "fans".
"LIKEZ IF SHITPICKER BROUHGT U HEER LOL"
"OMG LETSPLAYER SAID X ABOUT Y"

Same principle why I hate p-.
No wait, better not even mention it.

[Cookie Monster]

I couldn't care less about LPs from people I don't know.

I never watch the LP of a game I pretend to play. Way to ruin all the fun..

I find it to be quite silly to watch something instead of playing it (if you have the means to do it). Games are meant to be played, movies are meant to be watched.

That's all I have to say on the subject. And I'm in good mood too!

[Sheras]

Good thread!

I bloody hate how everyone's recording themselves gaming and now they're streaming it to Twitch too! No one cares! You'll never be famous on the Internet, stop trying!
We also don't need to see any more FPS commentaries and Minecraft let's plays, seriously.

In all seriousness, I am subscribed to one LP channel on YT and that's GameGrumps. I'm not interested in anyone else enough

Better hope Roxas doesn't see this

[Gypsy]

Good thread!

I bloody hate how everyone's recording themselves gaming and now they're streaming it to Twitch too! No one cares! You'll never be famous on the Internet, stop trying!

Yeah it's stupid. Same thing is happening with random nobodies that stream modo on twitch. NOBODY CARES ABOUT YOU. STOP IT.

I was chatting with random internet people elsewhere on the net the other day about Drakengard 3. There were several people that believed the inclusion of a Japanese VO track in the US release was pointless, because they'd already watched the complete game in Japanese on YouTube. Shit like that annoys me

ಠ_ಠ

I mean what in the actual eff?

I've only ever watched some LPs posted here, mainly to laugh at Roxas. As a whole, I do not really care about them.

[Sheras]

ಠ_ಠ

I mean what in the actual eff?

I've only ever watched some LPs posted here, mainly to laugh at Roxas. As a whole, I do not really care about them.

I have watched two from here, Gare playing some random horror indie game, and Foggy playing whatever Sonic she did.

[Onomatopoeia]

The only times I watch LP's are to have some sort of background noise while I'm doing something and I'm not in a music mood. Other than that, the closest I get to LP's is Penguinz0 (Cr1Tikal). I like his videos because I find him hilarious and he does more than just gameplay videos. Plus, he donates any money he makes from youtube to charity, so that makes me like him that much more.

[Sheik]

Mostly everything I wanted to say has been said already. LP's are a real plague as of now. I don't hope they end, I just hope they calm the fuck down. Your BEST LP MOMENTS OF 5 MINUTES AGO isn't something I consider entertainment, whoever does consider that entertainment is lying.

[Aeolus Aeneas]

Let's Play is dead, and has been for a while now. It's basically just a corpse kept alive by morons like PewDiePie and the crazed fans who would otherwise be in a cult if not for the fact that they're shut ins and 12 years old.

If I do watch LPs, it's by people who actually know what they're talking about when it comes to the game, and they ACTUALLY talk about the game. No memes, no forced comedy, no nonsense; they know the game, they love the game, and if something funny is said, it's natural. I much prefer somebody LPing a game that they enjoy than just doing it because it'll get views or some fan requested it or somebody made them a game to play.

Am example would be ChipCheezum and General Ironicus. Both know what they're talking about when it comes to games, and if one doesn't the other explains. The editing is great, they do post commentary, release cut and uncut audio for games, so you can have them talking or not talking over the in game voice acting, they DON'T read in game text to you like you can't read yourself and whoever it playing the game has practiced to the point where they almost always know every little secret, and they will show it to you while being good at the game.

And for all the other terrible LPs, there's retsupurae to tear them apart.

[ace99]

Let's Play is dead, and has been for a while now. It's basically just a corpse kept alive by morons like PewDiePie and the crazed fans who would otherwise be in a cult if not for the fact that they're shut ins and 12 years old.

First of all, I would kill to be Pewds. The guy has a (quite frankly) hot girlfriend, enough money to do whatever, and one of the best jobs in the world.

Aside from that, Let's Plays can serve two purposes for me. One is to determine if I even want to play a game. Without rental stores, (ALL of them have disappeared in the last three or four years around here) Let's plays are the best way to see a full game in action.

The second purpose is to be entertainment. Something I have noticed about Let's Plays is that the most successful players are not the best players. They are the most interesting/entertaining players. Pewds is terrible at games, but is huge because he is entertaining to a lot of people.

Let's Plays are dead. I know that. The new Youtube copyright permissions have made it that way. Streaming is the future, and I have seen channels get to the point that they can make money in a couple of months. I wanna be a part of that.!

[Milady]

One thing I do like about LPs is that they have the potential to make a particular gaming experience available to you that you wouldn't otherwise have. For example, I enjoy watching Gare's LPs not only because I consider him to be one of my good EP friends and generally a cool guy, but also because he focuses on PC games that would under normal circumstances be inaccessible to me.

[Beelzebub]

The only LPs I've ever really watched are Rays and Drags. I don't find LPs by strangers to be all that interesting to watch. Also I'm usually not too interested unless it's an LP of something somewhat impressive. Like Drag doing a no-death run or Ray when he finished Battletoads. I know from experience that those particular things are difficult to achieve. Why would I want to watch some idiot that I don't know do an LP of COD/BF for the millionth time. It doesn't interest me in the least.

Also one sub-section of LPs that I really never understood are "tool-assisted" speedruns of games. Like I give a crap how fast you can play through a game using cheats and glitches. It's not a feat, it's retarded, and anyone can do it. Finish a difficult NES game without dying and I'll be impressed.