Do you like watching other people play games?

[Miss G.]

Outside of Let's Plays, I'll watch if someone skilled like my cousin or my brother is playing something I'm not good at but want to get to the next section in a game, if I own it. Its been like that since I was 3 and needed someone to play my Super Mario World so I could watch the pretty pictures.

 

[WhyWasThat]

I remember Heavy Rain being really enjoyable to watch while a friend played it.

It was like watching an utterly daft film.

 

[TehCookie]

I love watching my brother or cousin play games, but they're both excellent gamers. I tried watching others and when they're terrible it's painful to watch. There are just too many crappy let's plays for me to sort through to find good ones so I don't even bother, since I like them to be played by an expert who knows the easter eggs and isn't a tryhard comedian.

 

[ShinyCharizard]

Only if I'm watching someone pull off an awesome kill or something similar. If they are just playing the game then no, I'd rather be the one playing.

 

[Mikejames]

I admit to getting a bit of a kick out of seeing how my friends react to the harsher decisions in The Walking Dead. It's cathartic.

That said, I'm not huge on multiplayer, but I've always liked playing shifts with someone who was interested enough in a good single-player game.

 

[RJ 17]

I'd say it depends on what game is being played and who's playing it. It can be almost painful to watch someone who has no idea what they're doing play a game. You try to help them and they say "ok" then jump off the cliff anyways. On the other hand, watching a master at his/her craft can be something amazing.

I had the privilege of going to high school with Nick and Sean Plott. At the time, Nick was one of the Top 3 StarCraft players in North America and one of the top 10 in the world. Sean was pretty damn good too. Watching either of them play a round of StarCraft was absolutely amazing, and I could literally do it all day....in fact, on more than one occasion I did.

 

[OpticalJunction]

No, especially when it's little kids playing.

 

[Weaver]

I generally love watching people play games, unless it's a boring open world game where they're wandering around for 4 hours picking flowers and other extraneous, boring activities.

 

[Bellvedere]

I don't mind watching someone for a bit, but most of the time I'd rather be playing myself. Something with quick levels where you can switch controllers on completion or death is fun or just glancing over briefly to see what they're up to.

My worst experience watching someone was when a couple of non-gamer friends decided to play dead space in my room. I'm very easily scared (had to take breaks in the walking dead) so watching them awkwardly fumble in really tense moments was agony.

 

[King of Wei]

I don't but I have a friend that likes to watch me play story heavy games when he's too bored/tired of co-op. Probably feels more like watching an overly long movie than a videogame.

 

[Hieronymusgoa]

For example, a friend of mine is one of those gamers who thinks themselves fantastic but generally cannot play games all that well. Whenever I watch him play any video game, any problems cannot be his fault. It must the game is buggy, or the controller unresponsive, or the button inputs obtuse. That sort of thing really irritates me as a person, let alone a gamer, especially as he doesn't accept his own fault. Unfortunately, this has sort of jaded me, leaving me all but unable to enjoy watching people play games.

OH GWAD I have a friend who is the same. Argh, it drives me nuts. When we play together it has to be against bots bc otherwise he already is annoyed that other people could judge his playstyle (which is ovbiously not so good).

Still, apart from that, since I get freaked out by scary stuff and am still fascinated by it I tend to watch Let's Plays of scary games and the occasional Dark Souls boss fight back then when I had trouble with every second boss.

 

[Evonisia]

Before I owned my Xbox 360, I mostly watched a friend play games on his Xbox Original/360. It was fun times.

 

[piinyouri]

Oh no no no.
Nooooooooooooooooo no no.
Most certainly not.
Not anymore anyway.

When I was younger I was forced to watch a lot as me and my brother/dad would take turns, or sometimes my dad would be playing, saying he;d quit soon so I could play, and I'd just sit or lay on the floor and watch him until he was done.

Nowadays though, no. I'm that person who's going to be saying things like "Why'd you do that? Don't go there! Use a healthpack!" which I absolutely HATE when that's done to me so I stay away from watching people play now for the good of both of us.