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Comment by xSwag | Hacker News Reader

While OPs statement might apply to single player video games where there is just one generic campaign. I feel the need to mention that this is not the case with all games, specially sandbox games such as Minecraft and multiplayer games such as Starcraft and Call of Duty along with a ton of other games.

Let's Play videos are great for the gaming industry, specially indie game developers. For example, Minecrafts success was partially due to all the Lets Play videos that were created on Youtube. Its essentially free publicity for video games. The prime example of this would be Seananners[1] who made a video that currently has 1.5M views. In addition, Lets Play videos allow players to preview the game before they buy it to get to know the game and see if its worth purchasing. A trailer is not always enough.

Disclaimer: I launched a website dedicated to Lets Plays 2 days ago (http://commentato.rs)

[1]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bAMaNYrJ4o

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For example in Minecraft, Let's Plays can give you ideas for things to build, maybe even outright copy, in your own world. This works because it's a huge open-ended game with rich game mechanics.

Maybe if your game is a linear pseudo-Movie that can be fully substituted by a few LP videos, you have something to worry. But that's not LPs damaging the game industry, that's the game industry churning out unoriginal and, frankly, lame games.

True! So maybe one can hope, that LPs are kind of forcing the industrie to rethink their strategies just repackaging old types of game(ofc not every company is doing that, but a lot games are basically the same).

Even linear pseudo-movies aren't necessarily damaged by Let's Play videos.

I watched an entire walkthrough of Batman Arkham City, but the combat system was so awesome/fun-looking that I'll eventually buy the game myself and play it (probably even go back and buy Arkham Asylum too, as it has the same combat system -- though an earlier version).

That said, I also watched through the entirety of Max Payne 3, and it didn't make me all that excited to run out and buy it. It mostly made me remember how the bullet time became less fun after hours of using it in actual game play (in the first 2 Max Payne games). In reality, it was just the story that would have driven that game for me (and in the end, I didn't really like the story that much anyways).

I used to burn some time when my son was young by sitting him in front of the attract loop of games in places like Dave & Busters. The more things change...

Minecraft has a bunch of great Lets Play-ers. If nothing else, they've prompted me to buy /more/ games (like Vessel) because I see a video of someone starting a play-through and it's like a sneak peek into a game that may not offer free trials.

Also - slightly off topic - I can't tell you how many times a game has lost a sale because they didn't have some sort of free trial I could play to see if it was worth my money.

Yes, you are completely right about that - of course it does not apply to any type of game, however I would say it could be the case for any game that has some kind of story or plot or levels embedded. There are quite a few titles, that I did not buy thanks to those videos: ranging from Indie-title like LIMBO to AAA-titles like Diablo III - I think Lets Play Videos are great! - Of course you cannot replace a good session of multiplayer-fun with friends(or strangers) - but I still believe that they might potentially harm (sectors of) the gaming industrie, even though I like them a lot!

Heads up for you website! (just as a feedback: why the mandatory signup/registration?)

Mandatory signup is enabled because the website is aimed towards the not so well known lets players as it helps them get noticed, the concept of the website is the users follow games as opposed to one person playing one video game. Users need to be following games to have content in their feed. Also, the website is currently in beta stage where features are still being added and bugs are still being fixed (its essentially a MVP) which is why its not yet opened or advertised to the general public. Furthermore, its also to reduce load as its currently on a very low spec server.

The only place I mentioned the website is /r/letsplay. You can see the thread here: http://www.reddit.com/r/letsplay/comments/xptph/hey_rletspla...

The Minecraft youtube community is huge.

There are the well known groups (Yogscast; Mindcrack; the machinima groups) and then there are some sub-genres - RacefortheWool, Minecraft tourny, Redstone Development Foundation etc.

A few people noodle around on Minecraft, and then get bored. A quick look through some Youtube let's plays quickly gives a vast variety of game styles to try. People could try "superflat hardcore survival", or have a go at a Vechs map, or include redstone magic wire, etc.

Good quality let's plays enhance the game experience, and open up the game to different styles of play, or to new weird stuff the player might not have known about.

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