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Comment by Phillips126 | Hacker News Reader

Unable to read the article currently (company network restrictions) but my Wife and I have a late night hobby of watching people play horror games on YouTube. The games we watch need to be a bit more interesting than cheap jump scares (interesting stories, etc) but its so fun.

We even installed a projector and pull down screen in our bedroom for the "movie theater experience" :)

Some games we enjoyed:

    - Outlast
    - Outlast 2 (not as good as original)
    - Resident Evil 7 (really good!)
    - Alien Isolation
    - Until Dawn

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I was surprised how much I actually ended up enjoying watching other people stream their games. I just couldn't grasp why Twitch was so popular, and why people just didn't play the games themselves - until I finally watched some streamers. It's like they were able to box the younger sibling experience -- the older sibling is playing whatever game, and the younger is there watching and enjoying the experience (perhaps with a disconnected controller they can randomly press with no actual outcome). Over the month of October I saw some horror streams as well - and there is something really nice about sharing the jump scares etc with a group of people, even when you aren't playing.

It is an odd thing to explain to someone. "So.. you watch other people play games? Why don't you just play them yourself?"

When you are playing games (especially horror) you are really in the moment and focused on the objective. When watching someone else you can lay back and laugh when they jump out of their chair (and sometimes spill your popcorn as well).

I personally prefer YouTube however as I find the Twitch apps to be clunky and I don't really care for the so-fast-hard-to-read chat. I tend to find people that focus on the horror genre and check in with them every so often for new content.

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