Comment by reitzensteinm | Hacker News Reader

Comment by reitzensteinm | Hacker News Reader

The author is assuming that people not buying games because of let's play videos is a bad thing for the industry.

He's right that it happens, but it's actually a good thing.

If a game is so boring and forgettable that watching a Youtube video is an effective replacement, a player who purchases it will not be satisfied with the game. This directly harms the industry, because it disincentiveses people from purchasing more games in the future.

Ideally, you want to match up games with people that want to play them. Crappy games should sell zero units, and people shouldn't feel burned having spent their hard earned cash. Let's play videos aren't perfect, but they're a damn better solution than text reviews or advertisements.

Disclaimer: I'm an indie game developer that's just released the first alpha of my game [1], which has gotten most of its attention so far via let's play videos (made by myself, and others). So I'm biased in that direction, but I would have said the same thing a year ago when I was making Flash games.

[1]: http://www.underthegarden.com (shameless plug)

"If a game is so boring and forgettable that watching a Youtube video is an effective replacement, a player who purchases it will not be satisfied with the game."

This I disagree with - the same goes for great games that are heavily story oriented (perhaps something like Alan Wake or Dreamfall). I'm not saying you get the full experience watching the YT video, but I think the OP's point is that you get enough value that the delta from actually playing the game isn't worth $50.

I think you just made his point for him.

What makes games interesting as a storytelling medium is the degree of interactivity. If a game is heavily story-based but I can get all (or most) of the game's value just by watching a youtube video, is there really any benefit to it being a game, as opposed to a movie or TV miniseries or whatever?

Why not just use the game's engine to tell your story and release it as a made-for-youtube movie? Maybe with some clever narration a la the best let's play creators? I have no idea how the margins would be compared to a game, but if your game is going to bomb because everyone gets all the value just by watching some guy record himself playing it, you might as well be that guy.

I hear where you're coming from, but I think different people just like different things about games, and my bias is towards games that have strong stories. Take Mass Effect an an example - for me personally, the most interesting part of the game is making decisions and seeing how the story progresses as a result. I like to pew-pew the aliens as much as the next guy, but I'm most interested in seeing how character X reacts to action A. I'm not alone - the reason so many people were annoyed about the ending was that they wanted to find out what happens to the characters that they'd grown attached to over the last three games.

Now you're right that they could absolutely release the story of Mass Effect as a (really really long) film, but I like to have choice in how the story progresses, and I don't want to watch lots of different movies with all the choices played out. Having that control makes me feel more engaged in the story than watching it passively.

Not everyone will feel that's worth the price of entry for a game - I do.

I think you're missing the point of what I said. I didn't say that story-based games should be movies rather than stories. I said that if games don't utilize the interactivity of the medium, they may as well be movies.

If the interactivity is what draws you (as it does in your example of Mass Effect), watching a video of someone else playing the game is not going to be nearly as satisfying as playing the game yourself.

My point was that the only games whose sales will be materially affected by Let's Play videos are the ones which may as well be movies anyway.

Nice shameless plug. Can you give us the twitter summary of your game? The screenshots and site look cool and really remind me of Clonks, another game that I played a long time ago.

Thanks! Hopefully not derailing the thread too much... (Fires up TweetDeck)

You land on a deserted island. Survive the elements, build shelter and craft tools, explore the environment. Find your way home.

So... Minecraft with an end destination?

That was my first thought on reading the description, but the screenshots give a very different impression.

It seems as though any game with crafting in it will bring on a Minecraft comparison.

The homepage is worth checking out for the Annoying Cockroach Edition - good way of potentially turning some pirates in to customers.

You're right, that's description fail right there. I had a few characters left over, so how about:

You land on a deserted island. Survive the elements, build shelter, craft tools, explore the environment. Find your way home. Not Minecraft.

It sounds like a Minecraft clone.

> So... Minecraft with an end destination?

Minecraft has an end destination: the End. It wasn't there since day one, but the "story" parts of Minecraft have been added gradually in game updates.

I know about that, I'm meaning Minecraft pre-End.

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