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Slowbeef posted:I was gonna start with something good, but gently caress that, because there's one guy I wanted to talk about for awhile. ZiloanOP is - or was - a twitch.tv gamer, paralyzed from the waist down. He got about $20,000 in donations from people watching his livestreams. It's scarecam LP type of stuff, but for a good cause, right? So while we're talking about this guy, I watched Diablo 3 streams pretty religiously for the first 6 months of Diablo 3's lifetime and through doing so I found Zilian's stream as well as plenty of others. I really disliked Zilian the whole time, irrespective of any disability fraud. He was just a real dick to his chat and even to his girlfriend who he'd have on a separate cam covering another quarter of his screen. Anyway, fast forward to the last couple of months, these guys run a 24/7 stream taking shifts playing video games in their "streamer house", at the helm is a dude called Inigo who is all right if not a bit of a goofy pothead, he took the Zilian drama and ran with it though, one thing they did was grab a wheelchair, fake beard and grey hat like Zilian wore and did random poo poo with it in their old stream house. Apparently the wheelchair is even signed by Zilian, which kind of just paints how big of a scumbag he is, that he shrugs it off enough to sign something that's being used to make fun of the poo poo he pulled. Either way, he's a total scum gently caress and I'm glad he got caught. Edit: Oh, DSP has already been mentioned. Well what about the time that I pissed off his girlfriend despite never addressing her directly before she tweeted at me. Sundowner fucked around with this message at 18:27 on Oct 10, 2013 |
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Oct 10, 2013 18:19
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infinitycanvas posted:Here's something pretty bad I found while preparing an LP for the Flash Games thread. It's of a flash RPG, where not only is every single line of dialogue read, but read by different people for each character during a live stream. To say it's an unorganized mess is an understatement. You know how when you're REALLY tired but you're fighting it, then you start to nod off but you're aware of it happening so you immediately feel disoriented? I just got that in the opening 15 seconds of that video.
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Oct 10, 2013 19:25
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I'd like to bring something up regarding GiantBomb or specifically Patrick Klepek's content that probably relates very closely to something most people (my self included) hate with LPs. Sadly what I'm talking about is subscriber-only content (a subscription I wholeheartedly recommend paying for if you enjoy GiantBomb's regular content) but Patrick does a show called Spookin' With Scoops where he, as an extremely avid horror fan, plays a bunch of scary games. He does have a face cam but until recently he noted he didn't even know there was the whole facecam super sp00ky LP thing on YouTube, so he just did it as a means to show his "genuine reactions". What makes his playthroughs infinitely more tolerable is that he's already a very engaging and well spoken person, he's analytic but only when he needs to be and I tend to find his show is more enjoyable with a camera than the times he's experimented without it. One thing that really sold me on his show was when he did his first batch of Oculus Rift horror games/demos, just last week. With his camera that show was infinitely more intense seeing how one would react to horror they can't immediately escape from. It's a wee bit weird watching the gameplay from just one of the "eyes" of the Oculus but for the purposes of the stream/show it worked. After his first Oculus Rift show I was convinced I wanted one once they hit commercially, solely for horror games as it looked so intense. After his second Oculus Rift show I'm convinced I don't want one. I'd never have known that had I not seen his show with the facecam. I think a camera has it's merit when it's the right person doing it and when it's abundantly clear that they aren't doing it for cheap views or laughs from the audience. Spookin' With Scoops never airs on youtube and it's accessible only to subscribers, which makes it feel a tad more genuine than say, pewdiepie, who might have played many of the same games Patrick has on his show. Unfortunately "the right person" is few and far between. That and the fact that GiantBomb are a very video-centric site probably has me more accepting of seeing their faces than any other gaming outlet on the net. Sundowner fucked around with this message at 04:46 on Oct 11, 2013 |
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Oct 11, 2013 04:43
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His "descriptions" are "astounding"...
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Oct 11, 2013 16:34
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So I have a bit of a pretty uncommon perspective on the whole networks and youtube money bullshit. In my teens, well before I joined SA and had any semblance of "taste" when it came to making or watching video game videos, I was making lovely Call of Duty videos and was approached pretty much the week Machinima launched their Directors program. I was one of the first few they rolled up. The general idea was that I would send them videos regularly for their channel and I'd get paid a cut of the ad rev from it, this later evolved to Network Partnerships once YouTube launched that with a chance for "everyone" to get one and from that point I was making enough to call it a living. That is to say, if I wasn't 17-18 and living with my parents, I could maintain rent and amenities pretty comfortably. I made and vaguely maintain friendships with some guys who are doing ridiculously well now and surprisingly a couple of them are really down to earth and nothing like their YouTube personas. A couple of years ago I left Machinima when all of the shady aspects of their contract started to get kicked up publically. It took me a solid week of skype calls, emails, complaints and "threats" to get out of my contract. They would not let me go until I basically lied to them and told them I breeched their contract (I think I said I signed a contract with a new network, which I had been planning to do, I just had to sign it and fax it, but hadn't gone through with yet). Eventually after basically pleading for an hour to get out on the last day of the week, they let me out. I moved to IGN who were cool but paid lovely. After leaving IGN I realized "YouTube money" was a loving waste of time so I just partnered up with a very open and creator friendly network called Curse who have their contracts 100% available online and fully transparent. I now don't even concern my self with my old poo poo, nor my "current" partnership. I joined SA a few months ago and the site quickly made me realize the error in my ways. That said, I wouldn't go back and change it. Earning £600-1000 a month as an 18 year old? gently caress yeah. That was when YouTube was at it's peak for relatively fresh gaming content and it wasn't the homogenized pile of poo poo that it is now. Hi, I'm Sundowner and I'm an ex-YouTube Star(not really).
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Oct 11, 2013 18:52
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OwlFancier posted:I know of Curse as the folks who run the minecraft forums and seem to do a bunch of stuff for MMOs too. Eh, I "quit" for a half a year at first due to disinterest and focusing on college (in hindsight I was being angsty, I think) and then came back to a real YouTube partnership, a year later views started to dwindle for me and a lot of people I knew and over the years I just fell to obscurity, maintaining a small viewership which was fine but ultimately I wasn't in control of my income what so ever and the bigger other channels got, the less time and money networks had for smaller channels. At it's peak I had 50,000 subscribers and good percentage of that as regular views but it was clear I was on a downhill slope in terms of subscriber retention probably 2 years ago now. It was a cool thing while it lasted but I ultimately grew kinda bitter about it (not any more) and put it behind me. A couple of cool old viewers have stuck with me, which is nice but it's not even remotely within my interests to do it again. LP is a good hobby and pass time, it was not a fun job in the end. I'm sure it is for my friends who have broken 1 million subscribers, though!  Lazyfire posted:WoodysGamerTag + WingsOfRedemption. Both Grade A assholes. I had the displeasure of being around Wings a few times in the Call of Duty commentary video hayday. Woody is on another level, he's a total oval office. Wings has done what you described since day one and I'm surprised he even built as large an audience as he once had but then again there were so few guys doing it and such hype around COD commentary that everyone gained subscribers for doing it, no matter how lovely and reprehensible some of the people were. I mean maybe I'm an rear end in a top hat too but I'd like to believe otherwise. I never did get sucked in to the meta game of subznviewznsubznviewz. Sundowner fucked around with this message at 19:12 on Oct 11, 2013 |
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Oct 11, 2013 19:07
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Viewer retention is always going to work like this. You'll get many clicks of people curious to see if your video is something they'll enjoy or not. The views probably plateau because that's the base amount of people interested enough to continue watching and that initial spark of curious viewers left. It has gone the same for ever LP I've ever done from years ago 'til my SA LPs. It's just how it is. I'm sure we're all contributors to that initial spike of views, too. How many LPs have you watched the first update of only to confirm you aren't interested? Edit: or I guess I was beaten :P
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Oct 11, 2013 20:50
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Oh hey look, something relevant! Arin and Danny from Game Grumps are doing an AMA on reddit so, maybe that'll be interesting? Or just 100% wacky zany goofy answers, but hey, they were mentioned and it seems people are relatively easy on them as far as big time youtubers go. Edit: Eh, turns out they're responding to a lot of questions via video response, so take that as you will. I don't have the patience to click through and wait for everyone one to load before I hear the inevitably silly answers they give. Sundowner fucked around with this message at 02:51 on Oct 12, 2013 |
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Oct 12, 2013 02:45
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Zain posted:Just makes me sad rear end-hats like that are the ones that'll "Show off" the Oculus Rift. Something like that will be the first exposure people will get. By the end of the video I got motion sick from him cocking his head like a spazz. It's a shame Spookin' With Scoops over on GiantBomb is premium-sub only content because it's doing a drat fine job of convincing me of purchasing the Oculus Rift where nothing else has convinced me thus far.
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Oct 13, 2013 00:21
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Lazyfire posted:Where are you guys finding some of these people? Everyone I've ever had recommended to me by YouTube has been a terrible mix of the worst LPer qualities instead of interesting or informative. I used to find some decent LPers by using search strings like this, and I'm not exaggerating: quote:Let's Play -newrelease -newrelease -newrelease -pewdiepie -tobuscus -minecraft -commentary -slender -scarecam -facecam -reaction -scary -"Gameplay commentary" -"Let's Play Walkthrough" And any other common words used in terrible generic LPs with a - beside them usually cuts it out of the search. I stopped doing this a long time ago because it became useless as more and more people wanted to be like those I'd be trying to filter out, yet they'd be nobodies who's names I couldn't possible filter out. In short, it's really hard to find interesting non-SA LPers on YouTube because of how bloated it is with copycats of the guys at the top.
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Oct 14, 2013 15:54
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Facecams outright don't fuss me at all unless it's a clear attempt to reel in viewers because of their ~hilarious reactions~ and what not. Streamers especially get a pass in this regard, whether or not they're speedrunners. A lot of guys actually try and run shows on twitch, go look up MANvsGAME for an excellent example of this (hey, he'd be a good restutalk guest if you want someone with years of experience in video game live stream money making). The guy puts a lot of effort in to the live mixing of his show and he has intros and intermissions and all that. He greenscreens himself so he's taking up as little of the game screen as possible. I like it because he addresses chat by looking directly at the camera and he's quite physical so seeing how he acts and reacts to chat is nice. As long as it isn't there as a focal point of the content rather than just a component of it, I'm usually fine.
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Oct 17, 2013 15:59
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I just found someone trying a new tactic attempting to circumvent the whole "first video gets the most views" thing - just trick people in to thinking all of the videos are Part 1!  (not that it worked for him either way)
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Oct 17, 2013 19:22
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HGH posted:Speaking of Minecraft, I figured this was the best place to ask, but how the hell did the Yogcast ever get popular? I tried to watch some of their stuff because everyone can't stop singing their praises but it felt unbearably unfunny, obnoxious, or flat out boring. What exactly am I missing here? I'm not a fan of Yogscast but I can respect what they've done with the game and furthermore I can respect that they admitted when they were sick of it. They had a whole team of people write and create very elaborate stories and maps that they would be relatively blind to, and they would adventure through it so there was a nice mix of unscripted and scripted stuff and they do appeal to a much younger audience. I don't find them all that funny but I do feel they're on par with the likes of Game Grumps in terms of how I see their videos, which is just background noise and bite-sized bites of hit or miss entertainment while I'm eating or whatever. I don't watch either often but they have their merits despite not necessarily meeting the standard of quality that forum goers might expect. I find it hard to really criticize them. They've made a pretty successful job of being entertaining personalities for kids. I know my nephews love them and I'd sooner want them watching Yogscast over Pewdiepie or someone like that.
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Nov 6, 2013 17:54
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So I just got done watching HarshlyCritical play SOMA and thoroughly enjoyed it even with the facecam - because (at least now vs his older videos) he doesn't just scream like a baby and seems to, er... think critically so it's often nice to see him ponder or react to something heady in a game like SOMA but that's besides the point. I've been checking some of his other LPs and maybe it's just because he covers a lot of indie and Unity based games over more polished games like SOMA or AAA titles but I'm not getting into them as much, so... I'm looking for some other good youtube LPs of horror games that aren't atrocious. Just looking for LPers who seem like good people and might actually be considerate. Facecam or not I don't care, that poo poo really doesn't bother me in the slightest. More peeps like HarshyCritical would be perfect, honestly.
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Jan 12, 2016 04:20
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Yardbomb posted:Yeah, HarshlyCritical's gone on record saying some of his much older videos are bad, because of course at the very start there was still some hamming up going on before he'd gotten a proper identity, but for a while now he's gotten out of it and it's so much funnier seeing someone just dryly react or laugh to lovely indie horror jumpscares, rather than screech at pin drops. Yeah I ended up checking out some of MrKravin's videos off the back of perusing HarshyCritical's related channels but I dunno, I just can't get into his videos. He seems like a really nice guy and all but his playthroughs are so vanilla and don't hold my attention as much.
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Jan 13, 2016 05:29
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Niggurath posted:Ya know, among all these horror based youtube LP'ers, the thing that gets me nowadays isn't so much the face cams or the over acting...it's just the limited selection of games they choose to do. Seriously, how many times can someone watch an LP of 'Five Nights at Freddy's' done? Even if it's different people doing it, it's a pretty limited game. I mean I guess it isn't really a new thing considering how long people rode out Slender and people want to try to emulate whatever is popular, but it's just a shame sometimes considering lesser known titles out there. I'll at least give people like Harshly or Cryaotic for reaching beyond the same four or five games, though it still seems like every LP'er has to have an LP of Undertale on their channel. This is my issue too. I'm not a huge horror game fan (not because I'm scared of them, but because along the lines of what you said every game is a slight variation on The Next Big Thing that month) and honestly I don't want to retread ground that's been covered here and elsewhere on SA a thousand times but honestly... honestly I think facecams actually bode well for good horror games as long as the LPer isn't a massive baby or pewdie rip off. I loved the addition of a facecam to Harshly's SOMA LP because when the game would pull out a weird twist or a character would say something peculiar it was actually more entertaining to see his reaction rather than just seeing the game come to a halt because he's paused to lean back in his chair and take in what just happened. Actually seeing those respites adds a sort of gravitas to his LP. I mean, I understand why people dislike facecams but I personally watch LPs for the personality that someone brings and how they uniquely approach a game - if I want to see just the game I'd either play it or find a commentary-less playthrough/long play. So trying to find an LPer that checks all those boxes is tough, actually. Sundowner fucked around with this message at 17:00 on Jan 13, 2016 |
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Jan 13, 2016 16:58
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Procrastinator posted:Except with proper editing you'd just cut to the face when something like that happens instead of the lazy "plaster my face over part of the game the whole time" thing. Dias posted:I mean, if you're doing a personality-based LP, it could work, as long as you do the cuts as an "instant replay" type of thing, and resume the game video from where it stopped. For jumpscare games that would work perfectly, and for everything else, as long as you were careful about when and where to cut, it could do just fine. But it's way too much editing effort for something no one would give a gently caress about, let's be honest. That would be terrible. People don't NOT do that because it's an editing nightmare (because it isn't, really) people don't do that because it's a dumb idea basically. I mean it could work in a more realistic "show" type of arrangement, like if a person or group of people decided to go professional on it and make a show revolved around playing scary games on a couch but some random youtuber? Nah. It either has to be whole hog pro setup or just a bog standard facecam throughout - otherwise it would look extremely jilted and corny and take away more from the game than just slapping a face in the corner. It is possible to have a facecam LP that both engages the viewer with a personality and shows off the game adequately. As long as you're not going into a facecam LP expecting to see a rigorous dissection of the videogame then it's pretty easy to enjoy them for what they are.
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Jan 13, 2016 18:57
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Dias posted:Yeah, and that was exactly my point. If you are personality-based, you can get away with that sort of presentation, but it requires a different format and editing process (which is too much of a pain for most Youtubers, even if it's not that complicated). But most LPers just fire up the game, plug in the webcam and whatever happens, happens. What, no. There are plenty of "personality based" LPs out there that feature just a standard facecam that aren't on the level with pewdie and friends. I feel like I'm leaning too heavily on him (but he is good!) but HarshlyCritical brings a personality to his LPs and yet he does horror facecam LPs that are really good despite falling under your "most LPers" category? Plus calling it "personality based" is pretty dumb because even LPs on this site, including the more stern and informational ones all have a "personality" because there's still an individual behind every word said and every decision made in the process. This is why I don't get bothered by facecams because the whole concept of LP is already pretty silly and I'm watching them specifically because there's a potentially interesting person playing a game I might be curious about or sometimes better yet a game I never thought I'd be interested in suddenly becomes interesting because of the LPer. So the notion that a facecam is any weirder baffles me, it's just a natural extension of lathering raw footage of a video game with 30 minutes of your voice at a time. You need a certain amount of ego or at least to enjoy the sound of your own voice to keep doing LP at that level. Sure there are cases where someone does an LP because they want to show off the game and then they never do anything beyond that but youtubers in particular are usually already far past that point. Sundowner fucked around with this message at 19:28 on Jan 13, 2016 |
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Jan 13, 2016 19:24
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Dias posted:what the gently caress are you arguing about dude I said nothing about facecams being bad or anything what I know you're not saying they're bad. My post was addressing what you said about having to be a "personality based" LPer to "get away with" (your words) doing weird jilted cuts to reactions in horror games but I was just saying that all LPers are "personality based" and that cutting away to footage is dumb. I was basically bloody agreeing with you and just adding that the notion of "personality based" is kinda silly because every LP is just that.
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Jan 13, 2016 19:31
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Dias posted:Man, that was a convoluted way of saying that then. And there's a marked difference between a LP that focuses on the game and how the game is played and a LP that focuses on the LPer reaction to said game. I just short-handed it to "personality-based", as in "the LPer is a personality", not "the LPer HAS a personality". To be fair with you, tho, 99% of YT LPs fit the second category anyway. The editing thing is what I already said, it could work on a different format. Oh sure I know there's a difference between a casual youtube LP and an LP with a bit of effort put in to service the game but those LPs (at least, how I perceive them) are still just as much about the person as the game. I mean... it's a person talking over a video game when they have nothing to do with the content of the game at all. Maybe I'm the weird one but I can't separate those two concepts. Like I said, if I truly just wanted to see a game I'd watch a long play or find one of the many commentary-less channels... but specifically finding an LP on here or on YouTube is still about finding an interesting person to listen to, right? :S
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Jan 13, 2016 20:03
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Dias posted:I get what you mean, but there are people that do LPs where they take time to explain "oh, this mechanic works like this", "you can do this to defeat that boss", etc. Then there are stuff like SBFP and the Grumps, where they mostly just bumble through a game unless it's one of their favorites, and you're watching it for the riffing. Of course, even in the first format you need to be engaging and interesting - AGDQ is basically that done live and some people just die out there -, but it's not so much about you as it is about the game you're playing. That's a fair enough assessment I guess. Let's Play. It's a dynamic thing! haha
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Jan 13, 2016 20:16
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Can't you look up trademark claims on USPTO? Has anyone looked up what fun and wacky ways people have tried to claim "Let's Play"? I read yesterday that Sony tried to trademark it in some form but it fell through.
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Jan 13, 2016 21:55
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Procrastinator posted:When I said 'cut to' I meant 'show in the corner like always', the phrasing was my bad. Just from a game design perspective it's a little tilting that the effort we put into UI design gets smashed by an additional video stream that really only needs to capture a fraction of what is shown. Right on man. I mean, talk about yer audio designer getting shafted by some nerd talking over everything they slaved over for months so's a bunch of strangers get to in-a-round-about-way experience the game for free. Actually on a serious note someone on twitter actually suggested something when I was talking about facecams - like a way to enable and disable on the fly aspects of a video. So you could have a button that closes the camera or mutes the dialog. I mean, it's never gonna happen because YouTube certainly won't implement that functionality and it'd be a huge gimmick but it's one way it could work. Instead of trying to find a way to smartly edit it, you could just give the viewer a choice. Edit: I was so intent on making that sick gag at the start of this reply that I forgot to read the second paragraph in which you basically described exactly what my second paragraph described. I need coffee. Sundowner fucked around with this message at 20:35 on Jan 14, 2016 |
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Jan 14, 2016 20:32
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