Wow streamers

Community General Discussion
21

Have you ever given to a busker or street performer (even if you haven’t people do). When people donate they are paying the streamer for their entertainment. Yes there are some who want more than that ‘para-social relationships’ have been discussed a lot recently and are inherently not healthy. But like gambling, drinking etc. just because some people cannot consume healthy it should not be banned for everyone else.

Streaming is entertainment, like other forms of entertainment it takes many shapes and directions, if you like watch (you don’t need to pay) if you feel the entertainer worthy of remuneration then subscribe or donate (but you don’t have to)

22

I don’t watch streams, but I sometimes check them on youtube.
It’s a nice source of info, jokes and other stuff.

Though the streamer community itself can be quite… odd.
I can’t imagine giving my money to see someone else play a game, I’d rather spend that on my own games - but to each their own.

24

For me:

  • I watch it on my second monitor while also doing stuff on my side.
  • I watch multiple game, not only WoW depending on my mood.
  • Some people are really fun/entertaining and I really enjoy watching their way of playing/interacting with chat
  • It allows me to see games I am not interested enough to play myself but I still want to discover it. (for example, games like Heavy Rain)
  • It allows me to see games at a level I’ll never be able to play, simply because I am an average player at best, and I know some stuff will ask too much out of myself to get any enjoyement out of it, it’d turn into stress instead. (Like for WoW : High level arena, Mythic raiding). So I can be starry eyed and happy to see a content I cannot do myself.
  • Discovering new stuffs, like how I discovered hearthstone battlegrounds thanks to streaming and I really like playing it now.
  • Background noises and occasional peeking on my second screen to see what’s poppin’.
  • Sometimes twitch chat cracks me up.

Hope it can help.

1 Like
25

I dont need to be the friend of a waiter in a restaurant to tip them if they do a good job. I am sure some people donate for attention, but at the end of the day they provide entertainment and if I like it enough I give a small donation, its no different than a street musician.

2 Likes
26

Asmongolds comic mastermind brings joy to my boring life. His stream is the perfect combination of everything.

  • Dumb jokes
  • Serious stuff
  • community events
  • MCool

And alot more reasons to watch the stream.

Most of the time I have his stream on my second monitor while I’m playing. It doesn’t have to be a choice between playing the game yourself or watching a stream like many in this topic seel to think.

In addition money isn’t the only reason why he is streaming.

27

I started watching wow streamers originally back in Cata and MoP to learn from them, most streamers then were high rated PvPers and you could pick up a lot of thing they did, how their UI was set up, calls they made etc and you learned and got better.

Nowadays i think its more about connecting with a likeminded community, streamers are a great way to interact with people who enjoy the same game as you do for people who are socially shy.

I know i’m way too reclusive to jump in discord with someone or join a guild, so for me watching WoW streamers is a way to connect with people who like the same game i do.

28

Just don’t show him your character name, he won’t like that.

29

Never got the appeal of watching other people play when you can play yourself either. I watched some alpha stuff being streamed though.

30

I don’t watch any streamers. I’m personally of the opinion I’d rather play myself than watch someone else play. It just doesn’t appeal to me to watch some review on youtube or a streamer playing live.

However some like to see high skilled players in action and others like the personalities of the streamers and find them entertaining.

I view it like watching sports on TV. Some like that kind of thing and others, like me, avoid it like the plague.

31

A lot of people have felt a big burnout or little to no enjoyment in playing the game, especially in BFA.

Looking back, streaming wasn’t as popular before the launch of BFA as was throughout. And BFA saw very low numbers throughout the entire expansion.

Players were left frustrated and looked for others on youtube and twitch that might share their opinions, because BFA was never really good… and it never became good. (in my opinion anyway)

They were able to find content creators who not only shared their criticism of the game, but made content that wasn’t about the daily chores.

  • Lore dives
  • Previous expansion history
  • Lore behind characters
  • Top 10’s
    and so on…

Then certain streamers started to grow massively because of this, and those streamers would invite the community to play with them on the premise
“Hey, the game may not be fun if you do it alone, but play with me, and we’re going to have a ton of fun”

Bold statements… but it worked. A lot of streamers created a following, where they would interact not only with their guilds, but all of their fans.

Then they started doing events:

  • Transmog competitions
  • Gambling
  • Races

And people loved it. They would rather be in the chatroom of their proffered streamer, then grind Islands, Warfronts, WQ or whatever the game actually offered.

One streamer in particular, made it very funny to open the weekly chest. The most dreaded and disappointing experience in BFA for them majority. Yet that was turned into a ritual of RP and prayers to RNGesus and the viewers trying to reveal if the loot was good or bad without said streamer looking.

For me, that was the first time I ever had a smile on my face in the contexts of that weekly lootbox.

Then Classic launched. This was big… and still is. Double the subscription numbers and is still rocking strong. This was a goldmine for streamers, returning players who had grown up and no longer had the time to go through the adventure, could simply tune in to streamers during lunchbreaks or tiresome evenings and relive some of the nostalgia.

And today? It’s become like a ritual for a lot of players to tune in to content creators once a day.

  • What’s the new lore stuff
  • How’s the SL alpha going
  • What are the goods and bads of SL alpha
  • Longboi watch
  • Crazy speculation about 10.0
  • And what shennanigans is Malder up to.

Content creators provide and include you, the viewer, in news, ideas and entertainment that you cannot find in the game by yourself.

I would even say that they elevate the experience of the actual game. I cannot imagine playing WoW at this point without the insights and entertainment provided by content creators, they breathe fresh air into a product that really needs it.

Personally though, I am very curious if all these content creators would have been anywhere near as successful, had BFA been a massive success topping WotLK subscription numbers without the assistance of Classic.

A lot of them became popular by being negative towards WoW, rightfully so, but still. Does make you wonder, huh… that Blizzards most controversial streamer… was only able to become so popular… because of Blizzard.

32

personal experience from a lot of the streamers that i watch is that they are playing that game at a very high level and therefore they have a good opinion on something, at least how strong something could be within certain contexts,

take kalamazi for example, he is a warlock player that has been raiding high level content for a long time, these are people that get the chance to play the alpha beta earlier and give you a door way into the content if you dont get the chance to play yourself, and you can watch what they are doing and see the class changes in action and formulate your own opinions on that based on what you see or at least untill you can play it yourself,

as someone who isnt really into the whole idea of theorycrafting it can also be a good place to find out what is currently being considered to be the strongest and weakest things within a given class or spec, if i wasnt watching some streamers i might not have found out about the changes with destro talents, after we gained a lot of haste through expedient it opened up the opportunity to play with some other talents, i found out about that watching a streamer and asking some questions

33

Tipping is so bizarre, eating on restaurants here in Sweden is allready crazy expensive, and people want tip? I guess that’s mainly an American thing that was never established here, maybe in other European countries it is though.

Sure it’s entertainment, and I have watched a select few streams in the past, like Method during WF races, but I would never in a million years pay anything for it. If it was paywalled I would simply not watch it. To me money has higher value then that and there need to be a tangible return on investment for me to even consider it. And killing a few minutes here and there doesn’t really cut it.

Maybe I would shover streamers with money if was crazy rich and bored just cause it could be fun, but I’d wager that most people who subscribe to twitch channels or donate aren’t, and would be way better off spending that money on themselves or saving it. I just see it as being irresponsible with your own finances. Buying chocolate milk makes more sense then donating to streamers, lol.

34

You’d be surprised that a lot of people that can’t afford gaming tend to watch streamers, and they get just as much satisfaction watching someone play.

35

That is really surreal. But I know those people exist, some hardcore sports fan literally live and die by their teams. I know of people who have called in sick the day after their team lost some game that they felt was important. Like seriously, get your priorities straight people.

Maybe some peoples lives are so bankrupt though that they have to live through somebody else paying videogames to get any semblance of meaning in their existence.

36

Its to watch players at the highest calibre that there is but I personally dont watch any streamers for any game as Id rather just play myself.

37

Er… no. People that watch streamers play single player games get to see the story unfold without spending a cent on the game that’d just collect dust after playing.

38

That’s fine. I would even do that if it’s some game I might consider playing. What I mean and should’ve specified are the larger streamers, like Asmongold, Sodapoppin, etc, who people shover with money for literally no justifiable reason.

Sodapoppin and Asmongold are just regular dudes who have their own lives and families and friends, they don’t care about their subscribers or donators, give them 1000’s of dollars, so what? They make 100s of times more then that each year, they don’t care, you’re just another nameless entity feeding their allready massive bank accounts.

That’s what I don’t get. Niche streams though like WF races or Dota 2 tournaments etc I get why people would watch. But pay for it? Never. I’d rather use that money on something I actually need.

39

People of all backgrounds worship something that they’re interested in… be it celebrities of sports or film. In this case, some gamer…

Why they like Asmongold specifically I have no idea, I find the fella obnoxious both in attitude and even looking at.

40

They sure do, but they shouldn’t, that’s all I’m saying. Nobody deserves billions of dollars for chasing a ball, which is ofcourse only a select few, but still.

41

I’ve watched streamers in the past and there are very few that I would watch again. The main reason I’ve really watched them is because I have the Twitch client currently installed for addons and was curious.

Like him or hate him, the top streamer (Asmongold) gets a heavy amount of views by doing stuff with his community (ingame competitions and YouTube video critiques etc) and rarely ignores his viewers. At the same time he gets an overwhelming amount of people messaging him on stream so its impossible for him to reply to everyone. This interaction is what keeps people going back to his streams, even those who dislike him. His personality is an act though and nothing like he would be in the real world, when his stream is offline but he’s on another player’s group in their stream he is a completely different person.

A bunch of top players playing on the official MDI stream were getting less viewers then Asmongold was at the same time, this speaks volumes about how much people really care for the top players and I’d also say this was because of how distanced they are to the rest of the player base. Add to this that on their own streams they rarely acknowledge the people watching them other than to say the ever so disingenuous “Thanks for the sub/donation” etc. Some of these top players in the past have used their streams to beg for subs or even stated they wouldn’t be playing the game if it wasn’t for the income that they’re making from it, people still threw money at them.