What are your YouTube preferences?

What do you like seeing in youtube lets plays? Do you like commentary? Do you like music? Do you like none of the above? I'm going to start recording soon after I get some new parts and was wondering what people liked and didn't like. Thank you for your time.

I like Let's Players like Helloween4545, Cryaotic, MajorSlackVideos.

Music for background noise. Sometimes educational things.

I like entertainment.

joe-ilya said:

I like entertainment.

Then what kind of gameplay videos do you find entertaining?

on the entertainment side i usually watch unhealthy amounts of my little pony related stuff, star wars nonsense and yugioh crap

i also like watching videos of people drawing

Mostly music, but sometimes I check out games. My true preference, however, is to avoid cancer, so I try really hard not to look at the comments.

Let's Plays are something I almost never watch, unless I'm just curious how a game looked. So for me, no commentary is a must.

Just to clarify, MrGlide, you are talking about doing Let's Play right?

Let's plays, video game streams, h3h3productions-esque reaction videos, blogs, vlogs, audiobooks, walkthroughs, speedruns, bad unboxings, humorous videos, critic videos, music; basically entertainment.

Piper Maru said:

Just to clarify, MrGlide, you are talking about doing Let's Play right?

for the most part, I also want to do tutorials as well. Mapping/modding and to Show people how to be better at certain games so they can further gain enjoyment out of them.

MrGlide said:

for the most part, I also want to do tutorials as well. Mapping/modding and to Show people how to be better at certain games so they can further gain enjoyment out of them.

That's respectable, I know I would like to see some mapping/modding turtorial videos.

The things I most dislike in such videos are people talking over the game, and music being dubbed over the game that isn't part of the original soundtrack.

So, more of a fan of longplays than "Let's Plays".

Tutorial videos might be one exception where commentary could be actually helpful.

I usually only watch let's plays where someone is analyzing a game or commenting on it in a critical way. I have zero interest in watching a personality make hilarious jokes -- with the exceptions of Yahtzee and Conan O'Brien.

I'd like to watch videos of a nordic-looking guy doing lots of fake over the top screams and maybe occasionally paying poor people to hold up signs with slurs on them, does anyone have any suggestions?

Ling, you got me to lol literally out loud

XD, that wasn't a smart move on his part. Speaking of pewdipie, those are the exact kind of videos I'll never make personally. Besides, I'm too shy to ham it up in front of a camera like that.

MrGlide said:

XD, that wasn't a smart move on his part.

Are you sure? It got him roughly additional million subscribers.

Linguica said:

I'd like to watch videos of a nordic-looking guy doing lots of fake over the top screams and maybe occasionally paying poor people to hold up signs with slurs on them, does anyone have any suggestions?

Do you ever have an opinion that is your own? I'd bet dollars to peanuts just a couple years ago you were one of the many, many guys replying "wow you're so cool hating on pewpewpie" whenever anyone complained his content was shit.

j4rio said:

Are you sure? It got him roughly additional million subscribers.

Lost him some huge business deals.

Vinesauce is good, Tested with Adam Savage is great, 3kliksphillip is good, Super Best Friends play can be funny. I used to skateboard, so the Braille skateboarding channel is awesome.

It takes a lot for me to enjoy a LPer, Mythbusters was the best show ever, and a lot of YouTube is either garbage or my standards are spoiled rotten by the sheer amount of content on the Internet.

Fail compilations (my absolute favorite), music videos / compilations, tutorials, speedruns, game glitch compilations.
Playthroughs with commentary are often dumb and cheesy, I can't stand vlogs, and I never care about someone's reactions / criticism, unless it's acidic and sarcastic enough. Too much of the internet is arrogant and spoiled.

I'm probably stating obvious things here, but here's a little checklist for making a good lets play, from someone who's never made one but streams occasionally, and has watched a handful on YouTube.

1) Play games you enjoy.
No really, that is a must. I have watched Let's Play videos with swordlesslink. You can really tell the difference from when he's having fun to when he's not feeling the game. The difference makes the video become really dull and near-depressing. Play a game you enjoy so you can express that enjoyment and react to the things in the game with legitimacy.

2) Don't play game's you've played before unless you have something new to show us.
By that, I mean, don't play through a game such as Doom unless you have a LOT of unknown trivia / glitches / facts about the game you can sprinkle in along the way. This way you can give much more

3) Talking is a must, but don't talk too much.
With this, I mean comment on what's going on, but don't be scared to be silent for a minute. If a part of the game gets intense, let your viewers feel intense with you rather than have you TELL them it's intense.

4) Cutscenes.
NEVER skip cutscenes. Try your best to never talk during them either.

5) Video editing is OKAY!
If in your playthrough you ran the wrong way for 10 minuted because you thought there was a little secret area or totally misunderstood the objective, that's cool, but it's probably boring to watch, so be willing to edit that out to save everyone 10 minutes of potential boredom.



Have fun! :D

Linguica said:

I'd like to watch videos of a nordic-looking guy doing lots of fake over the top screams and maybe occasionally paying poor people to hold up signs with slurs on them, does anyone have any suggestions?

I like seeing Doom 3 mobile games. I enjoyed that. Thank you.

For watching video gameplay for research purposes I just use Longplays.

I'm not one for commentary really. Hearing AVGN and his friend yell at every Monday playing video games turned me off from the entire channel rather than "just watch the videos you want to." Its also staggering two audio / video geeks have such poor microphones for the past decade. Not to mention their speaking voices versus yelling voice volume. It seemed like their friend who was good at video games is calmer and I wonder if that's why he's better.

What's worse is hearing people slam the buttons with controllers or the clacking and rocking of a keyboard. I'm fine if its me using a mechanical keyboard, but hearing it with commentary gets annoying quick. Then I will usually hear the commentary say every so often "I don't know about you guys but I like the sound of a mechanical keyboard."

On the other hand, Zero Punctuation's Let's Play with his friend was a great Let's Play because the two of them could banter. A high school educated smart, physically weak, success seated next to a high college educated dumb guy with muscles stuck in a financial limbo. They never yelled, but did raise their voice in heated debate. That was the one I could listen to as I played FTL once a week.

The once a week method employed by Zero Punctuation is perhaps what kept their longevity with me. I've liked so many Youtube content providers who then move over to the "near daily let's play model" that I just grow to hate their voices. Some streamers churn out 8 hours of content for 5+ years. Its staggering. At that point I have a feeling even fans pick and chose what games they want to watch.

Who the hell wants to hear gamers talk?

Most of the time when I bring up gameplay vids, it's 'cuz I need help on something. The rest of the time it's to link someone else to a longplay where the asshole behind the controller or keyboard keeps his mouth shut.

I feel that a good part of Let's Players on YouTube are pretty similar to each other and honestly kinda stale. In fact, I only watch one Let's Player because he has a unique style and doesn't cave in to the latest trendy shit.

MrGlide said:

Lost him some huge business deals.

None of which matters a diddly squat when he makes roughly 10 grand a video. He's already settled for retiring. Hurt are those hundreds of people behind the scenes that worked for him.

Walkthroughs when i'm stuck, for alt. ways to complete a certain mission or something else, parodies of Der Untergang, watching obscure movies that cannot be found anywhere else, longplays sometimes, politics, gun documentaries, WW2 stuff, cars and sometimes watching my own videos.

Rambling commentary with smooth jazz, nice.

Piper Maru said:

I like Let's Players like Helloween4545, Cryaotic, MajorSlackVideos.

I love Helloween4545!