Or, ya know, what're your opinions on streaming in general for those of you who don't do it?
Since I fall into this category ... I have an extremely limited worldview of streaming. 99% of them I just see as guys who play video games for an audience. This is almost certainly an over-generalization.
However, over the last year and especially the last few months, I've fallen into favor with the streaming community Vinesauce. Most people know who they are if for nothing else than Vinny's corruption streams which have raked in a noticeable amount of views on YouTube. I personally have undertaken a "full time" position specifically of editing out Vinny's Tomodachi Life stream, another one that took off amazingly well simply because he runs it like a soap opera that stars "creeps and weirdos", mostly made up of weird caricatures of some video game characters, some custom ones, and others.
Anyway, what really drew me into this stream was the right balance that Vinny and his crew seem to share. They're popular enough that a good deal of the general Internet population know of at least some of them, but not so popular they can't largely interact with their community, most notably their general chat. Even with a viewership of 1,000-4,000 (typically does hover somewhere in between), Vinny still manages to randomly pick out random chat messages and perform shtick to keep things interesting. And finally to top it off, posting art relevant to the stream is encouraged, which leads to a bit of an "art gallery" that follows the end of almost every stream. This is a really neat formula that I had never heard of before. I haven't watched all of the thousands of streamers on Twitch and elsewhere so I have no authority to call it unique (although it is to me personally), but I will say it's absolutely what's hooked me. I will watch streams of games I have little to no interest in just because Vinny's got that sort of showmanship that keeps it good otherwise.
Of course, I focused mainly on Vinny here since he's the "leader" and best known, but each streamer has their own identifiable personality and it usually dictates what kind of show they run. Like Vinny will seriously play "good, mainstream" games like Zelda, and yet also play ridiculous Indie games or broken games, and of course his infamous live corruption shows. But then there's Joel, arguably the second most popular, who likes to pick out bizarre DOS games or Japanese arcade titles or whatever else that can just provide a surreal experience in the realm of the forgotten. Joel makes it work by always sounding like he's enjoying himself even over the stupidest or otherwise dullest things. He made a very bland golf arcade game into a childish romp.
So, having said all that, streaming in general doesn't interest me. Vinesauce's showmanship in the way it streams does. It's not just watching someone play games, it's an interactive experience, and the different streamers all bring something to the table. It does mean that people gravitate towards some of them and not all of them, but I don't know if that's a bad thing necessarily.
I don't know if that gives you anything to take away from this, and I may very well be a minority in not just liking to watch video games get played. But suffice to say, if you want me to really watch a stream, I'm expecting a clear personality behind it, not just some guy vegetating over a controller. I guess because I can do that all by myself.
