Let's Play
A Let's Play is a video documenting the playthrough of a video game, often including commentary and a camera view of the gamer's face. A Let's Play differs from a video game walkthrough or strategy guide by focusing on an individual's subjective experience with the game, often with humorous, irreverent, or critical commentary from the player, rather than being an objective source of information on how to progress through the game. While Let's Plays and live streaming of game playthroughs are related, Let's Plays tend to be curated experiences that include editing and narration, and can be scripted, while streaming is often an unedited experience performed on the fly.
History
From the onset of computer video entertainment, video game players with access to screenshot capture software, video capture devices, and screen recording software have recorded themselves playing through games, often as part of walkthroughs, longplays, speedruns, or other digital entertainment formats. For example, within the French show Level One on the video game-centric Game One from 1998 to 2002, where host played through the early levels of games with commentary added by himself and sometimes a guest. Another example is the Japanese television program GameCenter CX, launched in 2003, where the host challenged to complete retro games within a single day, and others like Skip Rodgers had provided VHS tapes describing to players how to complete difficult games. One such form these took was the addition of running commentary, typically humorous in nature, along with the screenshots or videos; video-based playthroughs would typically be presented without significant editing to maintain the raw response the players had to the game. The presenter would also often poll readers or viewers with the in-game decisions as to provide an element of interactivity for the audience. Though others had used the same approach at the time, the forums at the website Something Awful are credited with coming up with the term "Let's Play" in 2007 to describe such playthroughs. The exact origins of the term are unclear, but believed to be about a screenshot playthrough of The Oregon Trail via the Something Awful forums sometime in 2005; the playthrough can no longer be found on the site, but has been referenced by other forum threads.The format of Let's Plays is credited to Something Awful forum user Michael Sawyer under his username alias "Slowbeef". Sawyer stated that the format he adopted came from an earlier playthrough by forum user "Vlaphor" for I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream. Sawyer's adaption would become the format that future Something Awful users would subsequently use. Sawyer is also credited for creating the first video playthrough for the game The Immortal which he made alongside his screenshot playthrough. From there, the format was popular with other forum users and many Let's Plays were created; the forum established a process to create these and the development of a large archive of Let's Plays. With the onset of user-created video streaming websites like YouTube and Twitch, more users have been able to prepare and share such videos, making the Let's Play format widely popular, spreading beyond the Something Awful forums.
Contemporary
Let's Play videos are similar to a player completing a game via streaming video for an audience. According to Patrick Lee of The A.V. Club, a good Let's Play video distinguishes itself from straightforward streaming playthroughs when the player has sufficiently familiarized themselves with the game as to be able to offer better commentary and show off more of the game to their audience, is able to provide the audience with personal recollections about the game, or can play through a game they have already completed under self-imposed challenges, such as completing a game without killing any enemies. Through this approach, Lee states, such Let's Play videos serve to help memorialize these games, helping those who may not have access to the titles to appreciate more obscure games.Some of the more popular gamers that create these videos have become Internet celebrities and seen as a type of "professional fan", according to Maker Studios' Dar Nothaft; other gamers tune into these videos to get a different perspective on games rather than professional review sources. Felix Kjellberg, known by his online pseudonym PewDiePie, has monetized his "Let's Play" videos which reach over 40 million subscribers and over 10 billion views, as of 2015. PewDiePie's influence on game sales has been considerable, and games that are featured in Let's Plays on his channel frequently see large boosts in sales, creating what is called "the PewDiePie effect". Some other people or groups include Achievement Hunter, The Yogscast, Smosh Games, Chuggaaconroy, Jacksepticeye, Markiplier, DanTDM, Game Grumps, Stampylonghead, IHasCupquake and Machinima.com.
Such Let's Plays are monetized by ad revenue from the video hosting site. For example, standard Google affiliate programs pay approximately 55% of the price paid by advertisers to the content provider, while Google retains the rest; as such, revenue from Let's Play channel are based on the number of viewers they obtain. Providers can also join various content networks like Maker Studios, which offer promotion and advertising for content providers in exchange for a share of the ad revenue. PewDiePie's monthly revenue from his Let's Plays are estimated to be between $140,000 and $1.4 million, while smaller channels can still earn between $500 and $1000 a month; the Wall Street Journal reported that PewDiePie made over $4 million in 2013, while Forbes ranked him the highest earning YouTube personality in 2015, earning over $12 million a year before taxes. As of 2018, some of these top earners made between a year.
Several of these individual Let's Players, as they are called, have transformed this into a full-time career while learning skills such as communications and video editing that can be used for future jobs. More popular broadcasters often share part of their revenue for charitable efforts, or hold charity drives while they play through games for a live audience. PewDiePie's contribution in this area led to him being listed as one of thirty most influential people on the Internet in a March 2015 list, and as one of the top 100 influential people overall in an April 2016 list, both compiled by Time magazine. Business Insider reported that eleven of the top twenty most-subscribed, independent YouTube publishers as of November 2014 are those that produce Let's Play videos. An October 2017 report from SuperData Researched estimated that between Let's Play videos and live streaming content of game video content, there were more people watching such videos than compared to all subscribers of HBO, Netflix, ESPN, and Hulu combined, with over 517 million YouTube users and 185 million Twitch users.
Let's Play videos have been considered a favorable way to market game titles, in particularly for smaller developers. In one case for Thomas Was Alone, Mike Bithell, its developer, attributed the success of the game to a Let's Play video by game commentator and critic John Bain, also known as TotalBiscuit. Similarly, Davey Wreden, the developer of The Stanley Parable developed a relationship with various Let's Play channels prior to the release to assure they could play and record his game; his team further created specialized demos for two popular channels that jokingly teased the specific players. Wreden believes this helped lead to the over 100,000 sales of the full game within the first three days of release. Some developers have designed their games to be favorable for Let's Play videos. The developers of Octodad: Dadliest Catch aimed to have the game covered by Let's Play videos by "creat a lot of room where there are a lot of different options for a player to create their own comedy and put their own personality into that".
The popularity of Let's Play and similar video commentaries have also led to changes in how some video games have been developed. The Let's Play approach favors games that are quirky and idiosyncratic that draw viewer attention, making some developers aim for these qualities in their games. It also helps for games in early access or beta release cycles as developers from such games can use these videos for feedback to improve their games prior to full release. The Let's Play videos also can bring in more attention to a niche title than traditional gaming press. The developers behind PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds and Hello Neighbor, rather than try to aim for attracting attention from the major Let's Play creators like PewDiePie, instead used an approach of gaining interest from several mid-level creators to help with drawing attention to their games during their early access period, with considerable success. Some games such as Goat Simulator and I am Bread are considered by critics and players to have been purposely made to be the subject of Let's Plays on popular channels as to drive interest in an otherwise-lackluster game, and are usually derided as "YouTube bait".
Survival horror games, such as Five Nights at Freddy's and its sequels, which focus more on immersion than skill, are considered tailor-made to take advantage of Let's Play videos and other live-streaming play, as the games' design is aimed to shock the streaming users, providing humorous reactions such as jump scares that are a source of entertainment for viewers. This also provides a way for people who would not normally play such games for the discomfort of being scared by the game to find enjoyment in watching the reaction someone else has while playing it. The developers of both Amnesia: The Dark Descent and Outlast stated that Let's Plays of their games helps to make them successful considering that in neither case did they have a large promotional budget.
In at least one case, the popularity of a game featured in Let's Plays has led to further sales far after the game's typical shelf-life has expired. In 2014, Electronic Arts opted to print more copies of the 2010 title Skate 3 after its appearance on PewDiePie's and other Let's Play channels have kept sales of the game high, keeping it in the top 40 sales charts for new games in the United Kingdom and with its 2014 sales being 33% higher than its 2013 sales.
Let's Plays can also be seen harming a game's distribution particularly for short, linear, narrative-driven games since viewers can witness the entire game from a Let's Play recording without purchasing it and have no incentive to purchase the title. For the art game That Dragon, Cancer, its developer Ryan Green noted that while there were Let's Plays of the game, several of which commented emotionally on the game's topic, some of these playthroughs had simply played through the game without added commentary, and provided no links to where players could learn more about the title. Green and his team at Numinous Games had used YouTube's ContentID to have some of these videos taken down, a result that brought some complaints and which Green admitted later was not the right approach to address the issue. Green requested that with games such as That Dragon, Cancer, that those creating Let's Play use the playthrough of the game to initiate conversations with their viewers, and that viewers could show their appreciation of the game by tipping the developers in lieu of purchasing the full title.
The phenomenon of Let's Plays was a focal point for the South Park episode "#REHASH". Double Fine Productions and 2 Player Productions have worked together to create a series called "Devs Play", inspired by Let's Plays where game developers play through games and offer their commentary from a developer's perspective, typically alongside one of the developers from the selected game.