This new YouTube channel that has racked up nearly 200k subscribers in its first month. The conceit is that it reviews video games from the POV of someone who does not herself play them (much) but regularly watches her live-in partner play... youtube.com/channel/UC2eEG…
It got me thinking about whether game *designers* factor in this aspect of gaming. Lots of games are played in the presence of others. Sometimes it’d others who don’t play but will sit with the player for a bit to share the experience; sometimes taking turns with the controller.
(And, of course, there’s a whole cottage industry of YouTube Let’s Players—some with millions of subscribers who, for one reason or another, regularly tune in to watch an entertaining stranger play games. Though that’s probably a different animal.)
As the reviews make clear, a good game is not necessarily a good backseat game. Something like Dark Souls may be lots of fun to play (if you’re a bit masochistic) but is probably agonizing to watch someone play. Uncharted is more or less like watching a movie...
Whereas a game like Detroit: Become Human or Until Dawn can probably be almost as engaging for the person who’s not holding the controller, because it’s about slower paced choices that can be made collaboratively. They’re single player, but you can effectively play together.
In those cases, the difference in appeal to the non-player observer comes down to pretty fundamental mechanics. I doubt there’s a way to make Dark Souls fun to watch (except in the case of an inhumanly skilled player) without altering it beyond recognition. BUT...
It seems like there are lots of choices designers can make that would make a game more or less enjoyable for a non-player in the room without fundamentally altering the nature of the game. And my sense is this isn’t something designers consciously focus on too much.
Is narrative conveyed through dialogue or lengthy text? How legible are choices made with the controller to an observer (even when it’s adequate clear to the player what they’re doing)? Are there significant choices paced to permit observer input?
How easily can what’s going on be followed by someone walking into the room in medias res, or dipping in and out? Can that observer glean enough to make useful suggestions—say, if the player is stuck on a puzzle?
Obviously the core game experience is the player’s experience, and you wouldn’t expect designers to sacrifice that for watchability, but I bet many games could be tweaked at little cost on that front to make them more engaging for... let’s call it a “participatory viewer.”
(I am assured by multiple people that Dark Souls can be fun to watch others play. So maybe that’s a bad example. Or maybe you’re watching very skilled players. I’m pretty sure it would be boring to watch ME play.)
Like, yes, I’ve watched Faraaz Khan effortlessly dismantle a few Dark Souls bosses without taking a hit. That’s entertaining because the visuals are cool and you marvel at the skill. But that’s not the same as watching (or hearing from the next room) the same fight 20 times.
A few people point out that designers are increasingly factoring in Twitch/YouTube consciously. Which makes sense—that can be some of a game’s best marketing. But it probably encourages somewhat different design choices than an observer in the same room.
Also Twitch streamers are, on average, much more skilled than the modal player. I am enjoying the hell out of Celeste right now. It would be incredibly boring to watch ME play—and you couldn’t change that without gutting the game—but someone a lot better than me, maybe.
They’d still die a lot. But they’d probably improve faster, so you wouldn’t be stuck watching someone fail the same screen for ten minutes.
