In July/August 2011, Nintendo of Europe became what may be the first company to use the Let's Play phenomenon as a way of actually promoting their games. Sturgeon's Law is in effect, and many Let's Plays on forums won't last long if they're not gripping. On the other hand, some LPs embrace cheats and hacks as their gimmick to mix things up.Ĭomputers love to attempt suicide by any means possible partway through (a phenomenon often known as the "Let's Play Curse"), and video hosts that are not YouTube tend to delete all game footage or die entirely shortly after becoming a reasonably popular host for Let's Plays. For the most part, cheating is discouraged, though doing boring parts (like grinding for levels in RPGs) "off-camera" is encouraged. Often they also have some degree of fan input the viewers may submit their own side material, vote on a certain course of action to take, or offer suggestions.Įmulation and heavy use of save-states is often involved (though making use of the latter incredibly obvious is commonly discouraged), as most of the consoles and games able to be currently emulated don't have a save or password feature. Depending on the quality and style of the game, the LP may be in-character Fan Fic of sorts, an informative walkthrough, or closer to a MST, the latter especially common if there's multiple commentators involved. Some players may already know all there is to know about the game and attempt to show off everything about it others are going in completely blind and have no idea what to expect (horror games are most often LPed in this manner, as the candidness of the player's reaction may be more engaging to the audience than the game itself) some record commentary while playing, others record it after the footage is recorded and still more may deliberately invoke both with co-commentators - the player showing off all that they can while being accompanied by a friend who has never seen the game before. Some of those videos have voice commentary, and some use subtitles. Some use screenshots and captions, whilst others use videos, or a mix of both. The tone and style will vary greatly with the nature of the game and those playing them. Performance Anxiety for those who commentate over the game as they play leads to a large number of mistakes, often of the hilarious variety because of the stupidity of the mistakes - an effect compounded by the inherent distraction of trying to play and keep up a witty banter at the same time (imagine texting while driving with Everything Trying to Kill You). Mistakes and multiple deaths are often left intact, for the sake of humor. Let's Play is a relatively recent revival of an old concept, which became mainstream ( for a certain value of mainstream) due to the Something Awful forums, and has since branched out to independent players on YouTube as well as other forums.Įssentially, it's a screenshot or video Walkthrough with entertaining commentary the goal generally isn't to Speed Run through it, but to show off how the player plays the game normally. Slowbeef, explaining what a Let's Play is.
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