Let’s (Watch Someone Else) Play!- Understanding Its Huge Appeal

Look at YouTube’s largest channel in terms of number of subscriber. Eliminating VEVO channels, and YouTube’s own curation channels, #1 is PewDiePie, the famous/infamous Youtuber whose videos are mostly about him playing games, with his reactions recorded. Love it or loathe it, he is indeed the king of YouTube with over 40 million subscribers. But if you look down the list, most of the channels are gaming related.

YouTube recently launched YouTube Gaming, a mobile app/site dedicated to games and livestreams of games, to compete with Twitch, the de-facto leader in livestreams service for games- so successful Amazon bought them for almost a billion dollars. This implies both YouTube and Twitch are doubling down efforts on attracting gamers, which now represents a lot of their use base.

All of this huge boom of numbers spawned from the culture of watching videos of others playing games, otherwise known as Let’s Plays.

Extending A Game’s Life- Do DLCs and Free Updates Work?

How long would a lifespan of a game last?

In the early days of gaming, games are difficult by design due to their arcade heritage- where its business model is to ensure people keep coming back and put in more coins to progress, or the game designers have become terribly good with their own creation which made them to up the difficulty. Its rare for somebody to beat the game, a true test of skill.

Or maybe it was cheat codes.

Anyway, as time progresses, a shift of game design happened as games are designed for more players being able to see all the content offer. Nowadays, most games are beatable by the average gamer, some for a good 20-30 hours, some even in just one sitting.

The question of today is how do games present themselves to be valuable longer than just a playthrough? What if developers can provide more content than just what is in the disk?

On that point, let’s discuss about extending a game’s life.

The Dilemma of Big-Name Franchises

Today’s world of gaming is a different landscape than its early days. Most of the biggest games coming in are form renowned, established franchises. Doing something completely different with a different name (or as the industry likes to call it ” new IPs” (intellectual properties) is a risky endeavor.

One example close to heart is the upcoming release of the self-titled Need For Speed (NFS 2015), I’ve seen many mixed reactions about one common ground: Is it Need For Speed? Does it deserve the name? It’s a question I ask myself too.

Need For Speed is not the only franchise in question. Tons of long-running franchise have seem to appear lately, some returning with a totally, radical change, while some stick close to what is supposed to be. This leaves fans of franchises being fans for different reasons, with different expectations. Thus, a predicament appears when a new game comes up as not all fans are happy about it.

Great Indie Couch Multiplayer Games (Almost) Anyone Can Enjoy

Remember the time when having a video game console was a rarity, and kids flock to their friend’s home who have one for a round of multiplayer action? Or just watch a their friend play through a fantastic singleplayer game? Well, those trends may have died down in replacement of online multiplayer and the abundance of YouTube videos and Twitch streams.

But, for some people who may have non-gamer friends around who still abide to these old traditions, or just want to have a good time together with friends when get all your gamer pals together, your console of choice, or PC, may have some use to it.

Get some spare controllers and try out these list of games. These by all means a comprehensive list, but enough to get you exploring for more couch multiplayer games.