Let's Play Videos

This paper details central social aspects of the Let's Play phenomenon, and makes implications as to why it could be considered a social aspect of gaming. It draws on multifaceted psychological theories, and seeks to at least partially answer the questions regarding the " newness " of Let's Plays and whether they serve as a new social platform in the increasingly widespread gaming audience.

For this study, I conducted qualitative research to explore and identify key aspects of Let's Play production and consumption. This involved interviewing three individuals who had been involved in Let’s Play production for a long time. All of the informants came from very diverse cultural and socio-economic backgrounds, and produced very different types of Let's Play videos. As a result, this research provided an insight into Let's Players' motivations, selfrepresentation, and methods of video production. Based on these interviewees’ responses, we can infer that Let's Play videos contribute to a contemporary need-fulfilment related to both socialisation and entertainment. This need, however, comes not only from the audience but also from the Let's Player themselves. The research investigated how Let's Play communities and producers contribute to the contemporary videogame industry, and how the phenomenon is used by videogame producers to market their products. The research also explored ethical issues, censorship, and harassment. Ultimately, the research aimed to provide a foundation for further academic research in the field.

Master's Thesis in occupational- and organizational psychology from 2014, detailing central aspects of the Let's Play phenomenon and why it has attained such a high degree of popularity. A thematic analysis was conducted, giving rise to 5 specific themes relating to the need for media content, social factors, commercial factors, the role of technology and the role of the Let's Player.

Supervisor: Ingunn Hagen.

Este trabalho analisa o fenômeno da espectatorialidade nos videogames desenvolvida dentro de comunidades gamer online, mais especificamente as práticas do assistir e as tendências de consumo de vídeos no estilo Let’s Play e game streams em plataformas de audiovisual como YouTube e Twitch. Para isso, constrói-se uma reflexão sobre o voyeurismo nos jogos através da história e o desenvolvimento da cultura de produção, compartilhamento e consumo de conteúdo audiovisual na comunidade de fãs, seguida da análise e discussão de conceitos e estudos de autores das áreas de game studies, Comunicação e dos fenômenos da recepção, com intuito de compreender o apelo do assistir nos jogos como atividade preferível ao jogar em si, entendendo suas dinâmicas, motivações, influências, e as relações criadorespectador-comunidade presentes no assistir nos jogos como cultura e fenômeno social.

This work analyzes the phenomenon of spectatorship in video games within online gamer communities, more specifically the practices in watching and the trends of consumption of Let’s Play videos and game streams on audiovisual platforms such as YouTube and Twitch. For this, we build a reflection on voyeurism in games through history and the developments in the culture of production, sharing and consumption of audiovisual content in the fan community, followed by the analysis and discussion of concepts and studies by authors in the fields of game studies, Communication and reception, in order to understand the appeal of watching games as a preferable activity than playing itself, understanding its dynamics, motivations, influences, and the creator-spectator-community relationships present in watching games as culture and as a social phenomenon.

COEMA, D. Práticas do assistir e o voyeurismo nos jogos digitais: Consumo de Let’s Play e game streams na comunidade gamer. Niterói. Universidade Federal Fluminense, 2020. 78 f. Trabalho de Conclusão de Curso (Graduação em Estudos de Mídia). UFF, Niterói-RJ, 2020.

This article examines contemporary practices of playing so-called Idle games and watching YouTube videos of performed gameplay through the prism of interpassivity theory. Despite its prevalence in philosophy, the theory has rarely been used to examine the burden of contemporary media – but also its liberating potential. I suggest how in a constant state of interactive media's demand for feedback, vicariously experiencing gameplay through others can be constitutive of gestures of avoidance and disengagement, thus acknowledging in part media's demands on one's self. The interpassive actor allows for the cybernetic system to operate without responding to their always-on logic, allowing for critical examination of the system as whole. The article showcases how idle games, while adhering to interpassive analysis, nonetheless partially reproduce the conditions of the game industry if not the gameplay itself. Specifically, they cement the anticipation of action and follow the templates of other interactive gaming practices reminding the player of the constant need to check, react and engage with the game. Finally, I highlight how the detached observation of the Let's Plays is more in-line with the proposed notion of resistance, through its affordance to bring para-textual aspects of gameplay and position the viewer as a critical analyst of the games' production conditions. You've been logged out due to inactivity.-BlackBoard's expired session message.

Let’s plays are a new and very popular internet phenomenon forming part
YouTube’s and gamer culture. In these Let’s Play videos, the so-called Let’s
Players engage with their audience and the game. In doing so, they interact in
different participation frameworks. The following paper sets out to identify and
describe the properties of those frames.

This paper outlines an alternative genealogy of “non-narrative machinima” by the means of tracing a parallel with different cinematographic genres. It analyses the circuit of production and distribution of such material as a field for modes of superplay, in which users both compete and collaborate. Doing so, it proposes that the recording of playthroughs, a practice seemingly secondary to videogame consumption, might constitute an essential part of its culture and development, creating meaningful interfaces between players and industries.

The popularity of video streaming sites like YouTube has had significant impact on various mediums, not least of which is video games. YouTube Gaming, one of YouTube’s most popular subsections, has been rife with controversies since its emergence. These controversies, often revolving around race, sexuality and gender highlight potential problems with YouTube’s content control and shape the formation of the culture in the YouTube Gaming community, and indeed the gaming community at large. Videos under this heading range from game reviews and analysis to Let’s Plays, which feature gameplay footage and commentary from the player. This paper aims to examine how YouTube Gaming controversies affect notions of gamer identity. Looking at a variety of case studies, YouTube’s interrelation with the inclusiveness or exclusiveness of gamer culture is explored. These case studies range from PewDiePie, the most subscribed to YouTuber overall, using the N-word and making anti-Semitic jokes to the harassment of Anita Sarkeesian following her video series Tropes Vs. Women in Video Games. However, case studies included also exemplify the possible positive aspects of YouTube Gaming, as it allows a deeper level of interaction between fans and developers, strengthens the visibility of fan communities and has the potential to dismantle rigid ideas about the variety of people who play games or consider themselves gamers. Finally, this paper briefly considers the role YouTube itself plays in this area of gamer culture, acknowledging the impact issues surrounding monetization and copyright infringement have on the survival of this community.

Videogames contain, preserve, and contest history. Waves of new games in the world of 'newsgaming' leave commentary on the US elections while political games ludify US foreign policy. Despite (and perhaps because of) this, the videogame industry itself has long been in need of archiving against the risk of going obsolete or getting simply forgotten. Following the call by the Preserving Virtual Worlds project at the Library of Congress (echoed in the 2009 " Before It's Too Late: A Digital Game Preservation White Paper "), and in the light of the industry's exceeding commercial success in the US and worldwide, a great number of institutions (not limited to the project partners, i.e., Technology, Linden Lab) began in the 2000s to archive videogames or took their archiving practices a step further. By the second decade of the new century, as a result, videogames are more widely archived and made available to access via online and offline platforms such as the Internet Archive, the Library of Congress, and Strong: National Museum of Play. What is more, the player narratives of the games (the so-called 'Let's Play' narratives) have been archived more consistently through forums such as the ever expanding Let's Play Archive. Offering an overview of these preservation policies and archiving practices in response to the nature of videogames as a medium of unprecedented profit, a platform for espousal of art and technology, and a prime example of postmodern ephemerality, I cast a close look in the paper at yet another site of documenting the industry, that is, documentary films that examine the making of videogames. The examples I look at include the documentaries Thank You for Playing (2015), Video Games: The Movie (2014), Indie Game: The Movie (2012), Us and the Game Industry (2014), and the 'gaymer' documentary Gaming in Color 2014). Next to the archival practices to preserve the video games themselves and to record the gamers' experiences of video games, I argue, filmmakers interested and sometimes directly involved in the industry attempt in these titles to document the development of videogames, the human and artificial intelligence behind them, and the virtual worlds surrounding them.

Was ist der Mensch ohne Welt? Der Mensch befindet sich in einem andauernden Wechselverhältnis zu dieser Welt. Dieses Verhältnis kann sprachlich gedacht sein. In Form von Erzählungen stellt das Subjekt einen Selbst- und Weltbezug her. Gegenwärtige sozio-kulturelle Lebensbedingungen und die voranschreitende Mediatisierung und Technologisierung machen neue Formen der narrativen Selbst- und Weltrepräsentation notwendig. Gerade in den letzten Jahren haben sich Let’s Play-Videos zu einem populären Format der Jugendkultur entwickelt. Im Zusammenwirken von Screencasts eines Computerspiels und kommentarhafter Überlagerung durch die Einführung gestalterischer Elemente ergibt sich ein neues, eigenständiges Videoprodukt als Manifestation des Selbstausdrucks und der Weltverhandlung. Dies wirft die Frage auf, ob Let’s Play-Videos als neue medial-narrative Erzeugungsformen von Selbst- und Weltbezügen gelesen werden können. Aus der Beantwortung dieser Frage ergeben sich Hinweise auf Rezeptions- und Produktionsmotive von Let’s Play-Videos, die auf das anthropologische Grundbedürfnis sich selbst in der Welt in einer sozialen Gemeinschaft zu veräußern, zurückgeführt werden können.