Is there a format of Let's Play videos you'd actually be interested in watching...

What if i actually played the games.
Like let's play actually meant playing the game.

I only really watch the Super Best Friends anymore. 3/4 of them have experience in games testing so it's kind of interesting to see them poking the seams of games. They've played through games that they tested in the past and those were really interesting watches.

So I guess I like playthroughs of games that are glitchy or can be exploited in interesting ways.

longplays.org

this, some text popups as bonus and recap after some number of episodes

Just two little factors that often are missing:
1. Are they actually good at the game/games in general?
2. Do they actually edit it so that there's boring downtime of them just rambling about bullshit?
This has narrowed the amount of LP channels I find tolerable to about 3. And they're way better than any run of the mill garbage you'll find if you just search "[Insert Game Here] let's play"

There was one LP channel I liked where they would drink a shot every time they died/failed. It failed miserably of course and they stopped making videos a year ago. I don't understand why it didn't take off, it actually made me laugh and the players had good chemistry, which is usually never the case with these kinds of things. Their last video didn't even break 50 views.

My key guidelines are that they are entertaining to watch, good at videogames (or at least above average), are more than one person having fun together/with good chemistry and can be cozy to watch while I try to get to sleep. I have been considering recording some obscure and hard to find games with a few friends- camless- but I don't know if we'd ever be motivated enough to do it anyway.

I'd honestly want to give lets playing a try with this format.

Record the whole game before I start (best possible runs of areas and bosses I can get through repeated retries while also clearly showing what I'm doing, scrap the play through if I get what I see as sub par) and trim fat like backtracking by cutting it out.

Commentate in post (give trivia I'd look up before starting, strats I use as I go what was lost in between cuts)
Try and fill between with experiences with the games and possibly even try to contact devs to give comments or even join in to talk about the game.

Then have a second channel where the raw cut up footage can be kept so for people who hate commentary can go there and get what they came for.

No. Lets players are cancerous scum-tier faggots.

Try actually being funny you twat.

I wish there was a way to upload videos with multiple audio tracks: one with just the gameplay and the other for commentary.

Choose your own adventure let's plays
You get an audience and you play it but you only do what the audience tells you do.

The market is completely flooded now, there is no way for a new lets player to find an audience. Same with Twitch. Either social engineer it to get in on the circle jerk where your skill doesn't matter or just don't bother.

The original lets plays, like the Jurrasic Park Tresspasser one, were great.

They would play through a game, talking about the development of it, the marketing and the reception of it, basically give you a massive history lesson on the game and the studio that made it. They'd also show you hidden secrets, explain parts of the game and how they came to be, point out bugs and glitches, etc.

The original lets plays were like an academic look at every aspect of a game. Rather than some shrill teenager badly playing through it while mugging for the camera and plugging his patreon.

You have to add value to the game. If you just play it without commentary or anything the viewer might as well just play the game themselves. Then again lots of people look up games they can't play, so that could work.
As for adding your own spin to things don't just throw subtitles in there. The viewer wants to see the game, and if they have to look at the subtitles as well as the game, they're being distracted from it. This goes extra for games that don't use voice acting.
To get a feel for LPing play some vidya alone and talk about it as you play. Don't record yourself, just play the game and point out interesting things about it. When you feel that your commentary is good enough to fill a LP is when you start actually doing it.

...

I really liked those llama TTD videos because they showed the whole game in detail and giving a good understanding of the game mechanics while being comfortable to watch

well played playthroughs for arcade games like the ReplayBurners channel are nice to find the oddball game to try out

"HIII YOUTUBE", "HOLY SHIT IM SO DRUNK" etc. belongs in the oven

You're a retard, a Let's Play is not a TV show. Stop treating it like it is one.
There are two acceptable formats of Let's Plays:

1: A director's/developer's playthrough, where they talk about aspects of the game that you couldn't possibly figure out on your own, and discuss the development of the game from a behind-the-scenes perspective. Embed related (I really wish they had finished this series. It kind of ends in the middle).
2: A "Let's Play" that isn't framed as a Let's Play, but rather an informative review or history discussion, providing information about the game that you couldn't easily find on your own, or providing an interesting, valuable, or otherwise entertaining perspective. Kinaman's Dendy Chronicals is one of these (and a damn good watch regardless): youtube.com/watch?v=kne6AKyYUuM&list=PLCE3FEDC39DEF28E3

In both cases, the entertainment stems from learning information you couldn't easily learn otherwise. If the LP is something you could just fucking do yourself, it's pathetic to watch it.

Same. They seem to be pretty professional in their unprofessionality if that makes any sense.
That put in effort for some let's plays that deserve it, and others they just bullshit their way through because their audience finds that fun to watch.
Their telltale minecraft episode 1 video was great for that reason.

Despite that, I also agree with you too. I don't like the idea of people getting their experience of a game from watching instead of playing it.

I used to watch a guy that played Godhand pretty well, but instead of speaking, he would throw some texts during the video. Nothing funny, but it was related to the game mechanics or some fun fact about it.

Bad idea. When I tried this, I got drunk and stopped watching the video to sing on a karaoke because I got bored.

Something like Chuggaconroy, where you are informative about the game, and you at least kind of know what you're doing. Keep down the volume and the need to shout and scream at every little thing that modern lets players do nowadays to appease brain dead 8 year olds. You don't have to be funny or crack a joke every fucking minute, but a quip here or there to lighten the mood helps.

The only one I really watch is Marbozir. He can be pretty cringy, but when it comes to strategy games he knows his shit and explains everything very well. Now if one could only get him to do a Dorf Fortress series…

As long as the footage is edited to trim the fat and the personality is talkative enough to keep things going, without being a cock-sucking maniac.

I actually really like watching CarlSagan42 play Mario Maker. The videos are long, but it's all edited to remove pauses or repetitive deaths, and he reacts well to different things in the game, and explains mechanics. He seems like someone who would be a huge fag IRL, but it just hasn't been a problem in his youtube videos.

Saint is based as fuck. Kind of autistic but plays really obscure games.

My african-born companion.

I only require a few things, but it's pretty hard to find a player that has all of them.

1) Is actually good at the game they're playing, but not OP. They make mistakes sometimes, but not to a point where you're screaming "You idiot!" every five minutes. If they've played through the game a few times, it's probably going to be good; if they're mainlining a fucking strategy guide, it's probably going to be terrible. It takes an EXTREMELY interesting person to be able to do a blind LP properly.

2) Enjoys playing the game, and as it was meant to be played; no min-maxing, savescumming, exploiting all the glitches, obsession with making everything perfect — that's boring. Just plays and has fun and fucks around a bit.

3) Puts on the camera and plays the fucking game; doesn't "act" all the time. Not having a facecam is good for this. Also related is not chopping up the footage or adding fancy effects or titles or annotations or whatever nonsense.

4) Doesn't play games as a "job", resulting in uploading 20 videos per week, meaning you have to spend hours every day to keep up.

Really, this is just based upon how I used to watch my older cousins play NES games when I was a really little kid. It's how I'd want someone to watch me play.

This is really the only kind of thing that could grab my attention. Most Let's Players just push themselves as a "personality." But I watch videos of video games because the video games are interesting and I want to see them. If a person can make a video series about a genuinely interesting way to play the game, be it a kind of challenge run or a silly gimmick, I'll look at it.

But it's always just "HEY WHAT'S UP GUYS IT'S YA BOY CAMWHOREBOYTOY2425 AND WE'RE BACK WITH ANOTHER EPISODE OF MAINSTREAMSHITGAME 2016"

Give me something that I couldn't see just by going to an annoying friend's house and watching them.

I miss text LPs. I also miss LPs made by people who are actually good at video games.

And I miss LPs like this where I could actually learn shit.

And if there's one thing I hate most in an LP, it's a player who needs to read all the text. And voice-act it in the most cringeworthy manner. It's like pounding nails into my head.

Somehow, Swedes (sands PDP) tend to be the least obnoxious LPers. I don't understand how. Marbozir, Joel, Robbaz, they all SHOULD be shit but somehow they don't piss me off as badly as other Youtube cancers do.

No. Casual play is boring to me. Even if it is informative. I'd rather watch a speed/challenge runs. I don't get the let's play thing. Some of those are like 40+ episodes for longer games. Who the fuck watches this shit? If it isn't something far above my skill level I'd rather just play the game myself.

Played by the developers with commentary about developement.
R&C-games and Bayonetta did this for example.

Every other form of Let's plays is fucking trash, seriously..

would you consider uploading any?

I used to love watching various Mario Maker streamers. I was eventually put off by most of them because they either constantly came out with obnoxious memes or were trying really hard to appear sarcastic all the time (which was equally obnoxious). It also made me realise just how bad a lot of people are at Mario games and general videogame mechanics.

This. Show us what you got

just letting you know that SelfishDream also does some pretty similar videos to what Saintttimmy does, but if he was from Eastern Europe instead of Greenland

If Chip Cheezum wasn't such an unrepetant SJW I'd love his style

Personally I like personalities a little more than the gameplay, so I like Northernlion and raocow, but that's just me, I understand some people wanting pure gameplay (In some cases to find out more about the game) or less commentary overall.

But to me Lets plays have always been about improving the game experience with either knowledge or persona.

Pic related is the nly reason I watch some LPs though

Their Watch Dogs LP was some surprisingly good shit though

Mostly because for once his personal viewpoints never intruded on that, which was nice.

Mind, he's not shit. He's pretty decent for the points I listed. But I know that there are times where that shit pushes in.

Theres only one form of acceptable lets plays.
The one where you dont record anything and play the game.

MAGA

How about SOMEONE WHO CLEARLY FUCKING PLAYS VIDEOGAMES

Pretty much every LP is shit tier quality.

Let's Plays in general are garbage. I only ever watch someone else play a game when I don't own it myself and would like to see how it looks in action before trying it myself, and when the footage is from a game that is unreleased or in a alpha/beta phase. Watching other people play video games? Get this normalfag shit out of here.
How would this make the game itself more interesting? None of it would, it would perhaps make you more of a spectacle to watch. Sounds like attention whoring more than being legitimately interesting. You don't need to be over the top and flashy to get people's attention.
No, what would this accomplish? The translators who translated the game don't give a shit about your appreciation; they did it to spread the game to other people who couldn't otherwise have access to it.
Everything you've mentioned is a fucking gimmick thus far. Plenty of people already do this, and I can promise you that it does nothing to make the game more enjoyable to watch.
Neither of these things have anything to do with the game you're playing, and neither of these things are new developments, either. Plenty of people do this shit already.

You want to know the problem with let's plays? The let's player goes out of his way to stand out because he knows that his skills or knowledge of the game being showcased aren't exceptional in any way, and he wants to give you any reason to watch him over the legions of other faggots out there. Let's plays are more about some dipshit's personality than they are about the game in question. They're for children and tumblr tier fags who want to feel some "connection" with someone without actually leaving their basements in order to do so.

Think about any other media on the planet that garners attention. What would you rather watch; a beginner guitarist stumble through poorly constructed chord progressions while trying to keep your attention by making shitty jokes, or an actual live performance by someone who knows what they fuck they're doing?

I like super great friend.

nothing makes me more angry then trying to find a walkthrough of a certain part of a game and only having all these different let's plays part 26 of 250 with a someone droning on in the background with shit i don't give a fuck about coming up.

Stopped watching that guy when I tried to sit through his W101 videos and they groaned whenever Pink did anything.

Got a link to a notable example of them doign that?

He did the greatest Deadly Premonition LP on the Internet, I can say that much about him.

I didn't like Pink either, but I just thought she had a bad personality. Yet I felt put-off because they obviously hated her for being female in a non-feminism-approved way.

...

I like having them playing sometimes when I'm trying to sleep, but I know what you mean. The worst is when it's silent for a little while and then they catch you off guard with "HEY GUYS…".

If you
Don't have a face cam
Don't monetize
Don't ask for people to like your videos
Don't ask for people to subscribe to you
and Don't Tag Bomb
You're fine.

Jerma985's Sorcery playthrough is the one let's play I still watch.

What's a tag bomb?

thats a toughie, if theyre playing a good game id want to play it instead of watching. if theyre playing a bad game im just not interested either way.

if i had to guess its when you put as much modernly relevant bullshit in the video description to try to snag as many people as possible who arent necessarily even looking for a video like yours.
keyword whoring might be a more familiar phrase in that case?

I'm in a different category. There's several different types of let's plays I'll watch.

If it's a rare game or one I don't have but want to see, then I want no commentary, and I basically want a perfect playthrough. This is basically what splitplaythru does, and I'm glad I'm subscribed to them because they've started uploading tons of videos of lewd Vita games I otherwise would have never heard of.

Then there's if I just want to see what the game plays like and get an impression of it. I used to love GiantBomb for this, but I got permanently banned from the site for posting negative comment on Brad's perfect score review of DmC, suggesting he was either an idiot or getting paid. It annoyed me I was banned, but I didn't cut off the site completely until they spoke out against GamerGate.

Then there's the rare instance where the person playing is just really funny or has a great personality. Cr1tikal is the best example of this.

The final -which is more rare these days- are the format where it's two buds talking -sometimes about the game- while playing through it. I look at these as like podcasts with video, and often have them open while doing other things.

What about "play along" LPs, or LPs that attempt to provide useful and interesting information because the LPer actually knows his shit?

Longplays with commentary. Informative commentary about the game, not random 9gag jokes.
Longplays were always the monocled, non-retarded brother of speedruns.

Also

What does Holla Forums think about Annotated Longplays?

youtube.com/watch?v=vfj-ELB51Qc&list=PLw_uIGYEItCrYjPQdHy5796hGRjV_JaUZ

How about

One other thing to add to it.

One where the guy playing shuts the fuck up so I can watch the fucking game

Not gonna lie I only clicked because thumbnail was penis.

Not necessary. A good LP does not necessitate a good game.

But, yes, a good LPers will be familiar with the game, even better if he is a master at it, knows a lot of trivia about the lore and/or development and injects said facts at relevant points during the LP.

Big nonos are facecams, forced "humor", overacting and excessive memeing, shitty editing or lack thereof, blind LPs, a general inability to play games, recoding your inability to follow directions and not editing out your idiocy, and so forth.

I already figured out that you couldn't get past the second line, how about if you try again?

should've paid shills to come to cuckchan and reddit.

There is only one and only streamer I watch because he has the best repartee of YouTube, knows a lot of old shitty references and sometimes asks for Vocaroos where people exclusively explain how they fucked people from their own family. For me Let's plays aren't about the games, it's about the comments made on it while playing.

Learn to greentext then. It's not used to write a blogpost.