Let's Play!

I already wrote a blog describing what Let's Plays are, but in case you didn't read it, or refuse to click the hyperlink, here's another brief explanation.

Person with too much time on their hands (hereon known as LPer) decides on a game they want to LP (Let's Play, the type of video). They use some fancy twenty-first century trick of technology to record their computer/TV screen and audio as they play through (generally) ten minute segments of the game they've decided to LP (Ten minutes because that used to be Youtube's video time limit. Now, some LPers make 15-minute videos, and some base their video lengths on other factors, such as available save points). As they play, they record their own voice through a microphone, making a commentary of the gameplay action, occasionally explaining bits that may be confusing, giving deeper detail on the game that might not be noticed during actual gameplay, and most often being humorous and fun to listen to.

I decided to start watching LPs after Youtube recommended to be a LoZ: Wind Waker LP video by Chuggaaconroy. I was intrigued with that video (About halfway through his LP series), and decided to start from the beginning and watch it the entire series. Keeping in mind the fact that I had played this game twice - and beat it once - I realized that my liking for this video series must give the LP video genre some merit, and the idea stuck me - if I'm having this much fun watching other people on Youtube play video games I've already beaten, how much fun will it be to watch them play games I've never played? Essentially, I could watch other people play all those 'must-play' video games, and be just as up to speed as the people who played them for themselves - without having to buy the game, or the console, or taking the time to figure out the confusing in-game puzzles, too!

Thus, I became addicted to Let's Plays. I watched some more by Chuggaconroy before picking out some games I wanted to watch and searching for Let's Play-ers to play them for me. In this manner, I found NintendoCapriSun, another popular Let's Play-er, and HCBailly, probably my favorite LPer at the moment. I've seen videos by others, and I now have the names of some more popular LPers to look for, but these three are the only ones I'm subscribed to at the moment.

My whole reason for writing this blog, however, is to point out something I noted earlier. These three LPers, each noted for being quite popular among the community, don't often use curse words. It's not uncommon to go several videos with them without hearing one of the 'lesser' curse words (not to put profanity in a heiarchy system, but there are some words the MPAA will not allow as often in PG-13 movies), and a number of entire LP series have gone without the more disgusting words.

I can't say as much for other popular Youtube LPers (and I'm talking here strictly about good Let's Plays. There are some pretty terrible ones on the interwebs; I wont even give you a link, since you could probably find some easily enough on your own anyways). I haven't branched out enough, especially since part of me still feels a bit pathetic about watching other people play video games all day. But after watching some weirdo from the "Something Awful" forums play through the first Legend of Zelda game, cursing at least every other sentence and being pretty much annoying the whole time, I've been a bit more picky with who I devote my time to (It was only after that when I discovered NintendoCapriSun, who had already done the original Legend of Zelda).

But the LPers that I follow don't curse very much, and when I'm looking around for a new game series, and I notice that the more curse words an LPer uses in the video, the lower their subscriber count is and the less views their videos have. Isn't this revealing?

Even if cursing is something that a lot of gamers do all the time, they apparently still prefer others to refrain. Either that, or the people who waste their time watching other people play video games on Youtube (I.E. me) are the kind of people who don't curse like addicts.

I still find this revealing. How many Youtube celebrities curse like gangsters in their videos? I wouldn't even know - I'm not exactly a member of the Yotube subculture. But I find it interesting that you don't have to look very hard to find clean, tasteful entertainment.