Twitch.tv streams games — and memories
BY PAIGE TAKEYA
Normally, I’d tell you that watching someone else play a video game is, as a general rule, stupid. Why would I need to watch someone else play a game when I could just … play the game?
Video games aren’t like films or TV shows, after all – in between the story cutscenes, there’s a lot of loading, wandering and monotony that tend to bore spectators. Back in the day, I used to love the “.hack” games, but my sister hated me playing them, as me flipping in and out of menus every four seconds was not exactly scintillating entertainment.
But in this modern age, we have Twitch and YouTube, and watching other people play games has never been cooler.
The appeal is difficult to pin down. Speed or difficulty runs are appealing in the challenge they promise. What does it look like to finish “Super Mario Bros.” in less than five minutes? (Kind of nerve-wracking, actually.) Some gamers become celebrities in their own right, chattering away while they play. But still, why watch when you can do?
But then, while I was “researching” this column, I spent a good 15 minutes on Twitch, entranced by tripleWRECK’s “Destiny” stream. He was just playing the same map over and over, banging off headshots like nothing, occasionally answering questions to chats from viewers. Nothing about it should have been appealing, and yet it was. And there were over 3,000 other people watching, too (at 1 a.m.).
And that’s when it really hit me. There’s a sense of community, of solidarity at play here. Amid the profanity and juvenile insults, here are thousands of people who are unified by a mutual love for gaming. It calls to mind those long-off days before online gaming was as prominent, when going to a friend’s house to watch them play something was just about the best way to spend a Saturday. Those were good days. Maybe game streaming is our way of recapturing that magic.
