Slashdot Mirror
How Game Streaming Went From Shaky Webcams To the PS4
An anonymous reader writes "A slightly different take on Sony's PS4 semi-launch this week. This article traces the history and growing trend of capturing/recording and streaming your gameplay on the internet, from the early days of Let's Play articles with screenshots to today, where pro-gamers make money by playing live on Twitch.tv, and the technology is built into the PlayStation 4: 'Multiplayer video games have been around since the beginning — just look at Pong. Sony's real breakthrough with the PS4 might not be the specs, but its ability to turn every game you play into a multiplayer one.'"
HAHAHA!
Tell that to AVG/VGA, AVGN, Angry Joe, PewDiePie, TobyGames, Game Grumps, Machinima...the list goes on. Basically, what I'm getting at is that people already make a living off of "Let's Play" videos on YouTube/TwitchTv/Rev3.
How about you stop telling people what to do? Nobody cares about your "never gonna happen" attitude when it's already been done.
Heads up gamers, nobody wants to watch videos of you playing games, especially not your family or coworkers who are not 60-hour-a-week gamers, so please stop sending us Youtube links, okay? I'm never going to play in the NFL and you are never going to make a living playing games in your mom's basement, deal with it.
I'm not particularly interested in streaming video about games, but seeing the popularity (also regarding viewers) in these services I won't say that nobody wants to watch these kind of video.
Where have you been hiding? There is a massive audience for watching people gaming. Perhaps a game that you haven't played nor will you ever. Perhaps an old game that you are unlikely to ever touch. Perhaps you're watching a very skilled person in a competitive game. Maybe someone with great commentary and an enjoyable sense of humor. I sometimes enjoy watching people game (or sometimes just have it on in the back ground) the same way I would enjoy watching people participate in any sport that I competed in, myself, at one time.
Youtube is filled with this and the successful ones have hundreds of thousands or even millions of views. The entire twitch.tv network is built on nothing but live streaming gaming.
The only real problem is the incredible copyright headache that is involved. I don't see how anyone can find doing this worthwhile, when confronted with the reality of the imbalanced and unpredictable copyright that could turn your hobby or livelihood (yes, some of these guys make a living at this, apparently) upside down overnight, just because someone decided to target your stream with a DMCA slap.
Another poster, below, already mentioned a lot of people making serious money doing this for a living. Some less than others, but there's a lot of money to be made for some of these guys simply for playing a game and recording it (or live streaming it). Why shouldn't they, if there's an audience for it? Granted, some are better than others. There are some that are built around nothing but personality (for example, that PewDiePie guy who is obnoxious and spastic and only appeals to toddlers) and some that are built around skill. Others around explaining tips or tricks or offering walkthroughs.
Seriously, there are guys streaming their gameplay on youtube that earn six figure salaries from it. It's insane.
I . . . don't think you understand this article.
Heads up gamers, nobody wants to watch videos of you playing games, especially not your family or coworkers who are not 60-hour-a-week gamers, so please stop sending us Youtube links, okay? I'm never going to play in the NFL and you are never going to make a living playing games in your mom's basement, deal with it.
Typical /. fallacy - "I don't want something so it means nobody else wants it either."
Other posts have pointed out, these videos are popular, so what you think is irrelevant. What's more, _I_ have on many occasions would wanted to show my other gaming friends of my gaming, be it a new game I would like to introduce them to, or some cool or funny stuff I encountered.
Yeah, I know, that's what people with friends usually do, so I guess it must be a totally foreign concept to some basement dwelling /.ers.
Lets hope Publishers and developers don't decide that now every game must have a multiplayer component, no matter how little it makes sense. I'm looking at you Dead Space.
I cant wait to stream used games...
Oh.
I laugh every time I watch it.
As an added benefit you can skip the boring parts!
I'm guessing this line of reasoning also applies to why some women love soap operas more than actual relationships.
To be fair, that's my general attitude, also. I guess it's just human nature. That's why I responded to that previous Slashdot article about the open source emoji stuff by kicking in a few bucks. Sometimes I find that is a good way to counter my initial reaction of "I AM OLD AND WHAT IS THIS NEW THING I AM SO SCARED OF YOUNG PEOPLE AND NEW IDEAS!"
Anyway, I find watching people playing games fun, because I like playing games. Same way I like watching some sports, because I used to enjoy playing them. And of all the drivel on youtube and other streaming services, people playing videogames are far more constructive and less hideous than most of the content. Good on them for doing something potentially constructive (which is weird to say about video games, in a way).
Heads up gamers, nobody wants to watch videos of you playing games, especially not your family or coworkers who are not 60-hour-a-week gamers, so please stop sending us Youtube links, okay? I'm never going to play in the NFL and you are never going to make a living playing games in your mom's basement, deal with it.
So, you're saying that people should stop with all the NFL-videos and other sports both online and on TV because they will never become professional players themselves? Hmm, an interesting proposition. Getting all that crap out of the TV and various online services is a lofty goal, so I support this idea.
I've watched some of the SSoHPKC walkthroughs and it doesn't seem too insane. Established youtube channel with ads and 10k-50k views per 10 minute spot. Sounds like better ratings than what some of my local TV stations get.
"The Adobe Updater must update itself before it can check for updates. Would you like to update the Adobe Updater now?"
Sony's real breakthrough with the PS4 might not be the specs, but its ability to turn every game you play into a multiplayer one.
This is not a breakthrough. They already did this with the PS3. Every time I turned the thing on I found myself stuck in a multiplayer game. When I wanted to stream Netflix videos, I'd spend 30-60 minutes in a tug of war between Sony, Netflix, Content Owners and Content Pirates... The Content Pirates would get an edge on Netflix, which would update its software to keep the Content Owners happy, but Sony would make the customers update over their network and lock up the machine for an hour once a week. That game got old so I stopped playing. When I wanted to use OtherOS, I found myself stuck in a multiplayer game between the hobbyists, Sony's marketing department, Sony's software developers, and Sony's legal team. Ultimately, that game got old too, so I stopped playing.
One would think Sony would learn from this, but even if one head of the Sony hydra learned, it couldn't focus on the concept for very long because the other heads are too busy snapping at it.
The REAL hardware is a low latency encoder block in ATI's GPU, that is used to create an H264 video stream that ANY modern device downstream, including tablets, can decode. This is the same tech used for the 'tablet' controller provided with Nintendo's WiiU. Essentially, open standards (for wireless and decoding) and a special on-the-fly encode block provide the ability to have low latency wireless monitors, the very thing Intel and others FAILED to provide with a wireless HDMI solution.
For gaming, a wireless back-stream provides the inputs received by the viewing device. This is also how Nvidia's 'project SHIELD' works. There is an irony in that AMD/ATI has currently refused to enable the video encode function in the drivers used for its current 7000 series GPU parts.
> nobody wants to watch videos of you playing games, especially not your family or coworkers who are not 60-hour-a-week gamers, so please stop sending us Youtube links
Total Nonsense. I completed one of the maps on Payday The Heist last year on the hardest difficulty solo stealth just to prove that it could be done and have a few thousand views. Clearly a few people are interested.
Sometimes walkthroughs can be informative. i.e. "Cult of the Vault" symbols for Borderlands 2, Portal 1 & 2 challenges, etc.
I've completed Mirror's Edge but I could understand if someone just wanted to watch a play through of "Mirrors Edge" as it would certainly be a hell of a lot less aggravating then trying to get all the perfect timing to pull off moves.
Just because _you_ don't find game solution to be all that interesting does not imply no one else does.
Get off your high horse already.
I don't really want to watch someone else playing games either... yet I do watch other people working, eating and even having sex. Hell, the watching other people have sex industry is gigantic. And the BBC has a watching other people eat show every 30 minutes (and to humorless moderators, that is a joke, not a statement to be taken as literal claim to the BBC programming, that would be every 15 minutes).
And even the NFL comment is wrong... people pay to watch people remove toilets from buildings in Dirty Jobs. Watch mental retards fail to find gold in the ground but find it in broadcasting deals in stead. Hell Big Brother was nothing more then people sitting in their living room watching other people sitting in theirs. And it was a massive hit.
Lets analyse OC choppers. They aren't doing anything fancy or hightech. By watching it, you are not finding out how other people live their lives. It are just a bunch of overly fat rich white guys who suck at planning (did they EVER just start building a bike on time so it was finished in plenty of time) building gay bikes. How many seasons did it run?
Compared to that, watching someone else game... well it could hardly be anymore boring could it? And really the entire sports industry has proven for decades that people are willing to pay top dollar to watch someone else be marginally better at something that doesn't matter. Why cares who put a little ball the most times in the net? Most of the planet it seems.
I agree, it is time for Humanity 2.0 lets call this run a proof of concept and get god/evolution to do a radical redesign and come up with something less couch potato who doesn't fold at the knees at the sign of a crown, oscar or MVP award.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Yeeeeees... and while a lot of people love watching the Superbowl, it's kinda tedious to watch some little league games.
I hope you see the SLIGHT difference between watching a professional do what he is really good at, and watching some self absorbed geek pretend to be someone special.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
So it's already multiplayer when one guy plays a game and others watch?
In that case it's not that new. Even PacMan was multiplayer by that definition. Granted, mostly because we were waiting for that idiot to finally spend his last quarter so we can get a turn, but...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
There is no difference. Both are still playing a game. Neither are necessary for the world to continue, they are both merely forms of entertainment.
And "self absorbed geek"? Really? You think those "professionals" are real humble, stand-up kind of guys?
Well, judging from a lot of youtube videos, it highly depends on the title of your video to judge whether you have a few thousand viewers or a few thousand people going "oh fsck". :)
But seriously. In general, yes, there are certain (few) videos of games that can garner some views. Videos that show you how to reach a certain point, how to beat a certain boss or obstacle, how to unlock some secret and of course videos for the purpose of reviewing and judging a title before buying it.
But let's be honest here, the goal is in all of those cases not to watch someone play a game. The goal is to get something from it: Information. How to get something in a game, what hidden secrets are there or simply whether it's good enough to spend my hard earned greens on it. Nobody really wants to watch you play it. They want to get something from you. They care for those 10 seconds or 10 minutes that show them what they want to know.
But do you really think someone would want to watch someone play a game for a few hours, a game which most likely (as most games these days do) consists of repeating the same kind of fight or pace down the same road over and over again? I HARDLY think so.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
People watch GOLF.
Watching video games is way more exciting.
People PAY to watch Golf.....
Or people are laments like me... I don't have 80 hours of play time to pull off what ends up being a 60 minute play thru.
Watching play thrus is the only way I ever see the end of $50 games anymore.
I don't get it, how do you turn Zelda twilight princess into a multiplayer game?
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#\ @ ? Colonize Mars
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The difference is whether or not watching them do whatever they do is interesting. And, bluntly, unless you're a parent of one of the little leaguers out there, watching a bunch of kids try to kick or catch a ball without stumbling over their own feet is not. It's not entertainment. It's torture.
And the same applies to watching 99% of the people out there play a computer game. It simply is not interesting. The people who are interesting to watch, be it computer or football players, know how to make it interesting. Because, by itself, it is not. The rules are known and you pretty much know what can happen next. The interesting part is the execution, and also the entertainment value.
Yes, "good" players are mostly entertainers. That's the key feature what they are good at: They know how to make watching them entertaining.
Why it is entertaining depends on how they do it. It can be entertaining to watch someone do something you couldn't do and the enjoyment comes out of seeing how someone pulled something off that you didn't manage to do. I get this out of some YouTube videos of guys playing guitar in ways I couldn't even dream of. I can play guitar, but I don't even exist next to some of those guys. Likewise, watching videos of people who are only as good as me isn't entertaining to me.
Or people can make it entertaining despite not being exceptional at what they do itself because they can add something insightful, something informative or something funny. A game review by someone who is an accomplished storyteller sure beats one by someone who is a crack at playing games but can't come up with some witty remarks.
Entertainment is the key word here, it has to entertain those watching. How it does that is of course up to the spectator. And while I'm sure most parents are entertained to see their offspring chase after some ball, most who have no special interest in any of the rugrats out on the field wouldn't be too entertained. Because the objective entertainment value of it is rather limited.
And the same applies to watching Joe Average play some kind of computer game. It's nothing special.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
multiplayer - a mode of play involving more than one player at one time in a computer or video game
Someone needs to learn English.
The Official Site of 1337 Pwnage
I have zero interested in watching any kind of sports and so do many others. I do, however, like watching some gamers because I am a gamer.
Different people, different opinions. Stop trying to belittle others' means of enjoyment. One isn't more important or better than another.
Here I was, belaboring under the mistaken notion that the fun part of gaming was gaming. Thanks for clearing that up for me. Most sports are out of reach due to the athletic requirements, but anyone can play a computer game. I suppose this is just more evidence of the trend of not wanting to do anything but be a passive observer. Oh well, let's make money off it, capitalism makes it all better!
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
...is considered multiplayer can watching porn then be considered group sex?
People watch curling (if I spelled that right) which is basically floor sweeping on ice. What can happen. Someone falls and hurts their bottom a bit. Yet, it is a sport that people watch. Darts? Rakes in millions of viewers. Although it suffered a setback after that Alas Smith and Jones sketch (or was it not the nine o'clock news).
Right now Nascar is in the news. Which is to racing what an empty room is to a maze. Turn left because if you turn right, you get a crash. Well MAYBE people watch for the crashes but really the people in the stands saw less of it, one video shows a guy totally unaware of a tire hurling towards him, he payed the ticket price for that?
I am NOT saying I can see the appeal it is just that I figure that if people can watch paint dry, then watching grass grow might also appeal to similar people.
Part of the appeal might be watching someone else do something better then you, or different then you. In Holland soccer is claimed to have 16 million national coaches (implying that the majority who don't give a hoot about soccer still want to be coach of something they don't care about). I can see people watching another gamer just to shout abuse at the tv screen "how could you not have seen that sniper" "they pay him for that?". There is money in this, the tabloids basically sell people they 5 minutes of righteous indignation about todays headline during their breakfast.
Remember that if you wrote down the concept of Columbo a "who-dunnit in which you know who-dunnit" before Columbo existed, people would have, and did say "this is never going to work". But it did.
There are pro-gamers and they are making a living out of showing how they play. It might make you no longer want to live on this planet but that is the reality.
Now will it be big? Who knows, a lot of people make their living catering to very small markets, let it be. There are things you are not meant to understand. Printerest for instance. In the days that Twitter is allowed to exists, the concept that someone might watch someone else watching paint dry has to be readily accepted because that is exactly what millions are doing right now.
The BBC has/had at the weekend in the morning a cooking show. Not 1 half hour show. Not 2 half hour shows back to back. Not two 1 hour special back to back. An entire morning of cooking... IN ENGLAND the country with the worst food in the world bar the USA. I would WELCOME watching someone playing pacman...
For that matter, in the Arcade days, isn't that what we all did? Watch the kid who could do it really well hoping that by standing behind him we would be as cool and attract the girls (flaw in this reasoning was that there never were any girls)?
You are basically a guy who is still arguing that reality TV is never going to take off. A noble thought but I can't help thinking of windmills and charging them for some reason. Pro gaming is here, it is sad but it is here to stay. Hopefully at the same dizzying heights as professional curling.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Having been fan of a not internet connected PS3, I'm going to skip the PS4 and just buy myself a nice linux gaming rig.
I hope this catches on because Youtube will get stuffed with these useless video's. I wonder if google really has unlimited storage
I bet you a 1000 bucks, I couldn't even PAY you enough to watch me play. Hell, you'd ask me for your time back. That's pretty much what I am saying.
Watching someone who can make it ENTERTAINING for the audience is fun. Watching some random idiot play the same game is torture. And the problem I foresee is that 99% of the people out there make it torture enough that most will stop sifting through the crap before even finding that one guy who is interesting to watch.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Lol, Hey Everybody! Watch me play " Evony" for hours on end!
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
But what if we want to share the accomplishments of Farmville with our friends and family in realtime?
This could rival the wheel or fire as useful to mankind.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Everybodyseemsto be coolwith what theydo. If even Sony worries about wether streaming is easy enough to achieve or not that'ssomething to consider.Sony of allpeople.
...and then there is also ofcourse Sega who started slapping around people over footage of an age old Dreamcast game.
Silly, silly Sega.
20 minutes into the future
Wow, i've rarely seen something this stupid.
CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
Silly, silly Sega.
That sounds like some kind of vengeance. "We couldn't make this popular, so we'll make certain you won't either."
Star Craft 2 Cheese, there is an entire show dedicated to the worst players. Good announcers though.
Memory is deceptive because it is colored by today's events. - Albert Einstein
There are lots of lets plays but of good PC games and not shitty consoles. This is all nothing new. A lot of people don't have the time or skill or desire to play a game themselves, so they watch a well put together, cut, and edited lets play. Usually those have great commentary. Usually their done by people in the 25+ age range. Usually these people have a really specialized skill set, software, computers, equipment. And they usually put serious effort as in 16-18hr work days into producing as much of a quality show as they can.
This infuriates me that the PS4 folks think they can re-write history around this new trend in content production. I hope they succeed but not by claiming they did it first. So all this marketing hype is bullshit.
Something more sinister was going on. They used DMCA takedowns so that game wouldn't be found.
They have a sequel in the works and would rather have people find that.
The result of course is a full blown boycott of Youtubers with two or more strikes on their account. And when your livelyhood depends on it, well...
Riddle me this, Batman: What game publisher will not get any free coverage whatsoever?
Silly, silly Sega.
20 minutes into the future
Heads up gamers, nobody wants to watch videos of you playing games, especially not your family or coworkers who are not 60-hour-a-week gamers, so please stop sending us Youtube links, okay? I'm never going to play in the NFL and you are never going to make a living playing games in your mom's basement, deal with it.
And what makes you think anyone wants to listen to you being a dick about (the many) people who happen to enjoy something you don't?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
well to be fair, in america, MLS is probably cared about at the same level or less than gaming. If you went with NFL or MLB, the numbers would be a little more to the point he was making. Hell Major League Rugby players still play for free, some of them.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Do you feel the same way about sports? Or do you not think that sports are "intended to be played"? I know people who do in fact feel that way about being spectators for every competitive activity: That they should do something better with their lives. But the argument you used doesn't single out video games.
Unfortunately, this is correct. I hate and despise the fact that my own kids, 15 and 13 at this point, would far prefer to watch somebody's youtube 'lets play' video of a game rather than play through themselves. My 15 year old also tends to play games with a strat guide or gamefaqs walkthrough, following the steps religiously. To which I say, 'what's the goddamn point?'
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
To be fair, todays games are much more linear and story driven than they were ages ago. You can even get stuck in a FPS and not for want of health packs! And that genere has ever been the least cerebral of all.
then there is the decline of the common game manual. The type of manual that contained formulas and figures behind the pixels. Nowadays you have to rely on others to do the theory crafting or invest quite a lot of time yourself.
In the olden days when we got stuck we did grind our teeth and tried everything. Now you have a Steam library full of other things jumping up and down, shouting for your attention.
He who hath solved Day of the Tentacle without a walkthrough may throw the first stone. Those were the reasons why we bought gaming mags in the first place. One of the finest adventure games ever(The Last Express) was IMPOSSIBLE to finish without a walkthrough. If you didn't show up at the right place at the right time the game was unfinishable. Which you would realise a couple of hours after the fact. Hell, I wouldn't even have finished Ultima 6 without a hint or two from a walkthrough.
20 minutes into the future
It's a Millennial Generation (Gen-Y) thing. Here are some aspects of this generation.
Self-absorbed - Check
Narcissist - Check
Trophy Kid - Check
Precious snowflake - Check
Caring less of government affairs compared to prior generations - Check
Or in other words. The exact 100% polar opposite of Nationalistic attitude.
Don't worry. The Chinese will kick all of you western asses into shape. If your man about it that is. *chuckle* *weep*. Ahh...we are so fucked...
Life is not for the lazy.
Again, I don't question the information value of channels for reviews and the entertainment value of watching good players easily beat a tricky part in a game. I just question that more than a tiny, insignificant fraction of people are worth being watched playing.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Yes, no doubt about that. But ponder for a moment how these are seven people playing games who get subs and views. Compare that now to the thousands and thousands of people actually playing those games, and the hundreds who make videos of it.
My point is that yes, there are a VERY FEW people who can actually play and present a game in a way that is entertaining to watch. Like there are VERY FEW people who can play sports in a way that makes it interesting for people to watch them.
Take skiing. I mean, it's right now again some kind of championship going on with millions of people sitting in front of their TV watching some guys and girls speed down some hills on their skis. Now compare that to the average home video of Auntie Erna showing you how little Timmy hobbles down some hill on his skis and tell me that you could pay anyone watching those championship races enough to sit through it.
That is exactly the difference between EVERYONE and his dog making some kind of video of him playing, and a select few who actually have what it takes to make it interesting for people to watch them play.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
A number of times I've been owned in a game, by the same guy over and over, and thought it'd be really cool to watch them play for a while...
I'm intruiged by this idea, personally.
Before I write the same for the, I think, fifth time: Do you even read comments 'til the end or do you by default end at the first paragraph and reply to that? Just so I know whether I fail to get my point across or whether you don't want to actually hear about it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.