But why?
I was at the public library a few days ago and saw this in action. A 12 year old-ish kid and his friend watching minecraft videos on Youtube. I made a joke about how now the kids donât play video games, they watch other people play them.
I just donât get it I guess.
Turns out that Gary Larson wasnât far off the mark.
No mention of the Yogcast? Odd. Theyâre practically the unofficial Minecraft viral marketing team.
Often people arenât watching so much for the game being played as for the person who is playing. Most popular YouTubers are pretty entertaining in their own right and the game is just a medium.
You donât watch a Yogscast video to learn that much about Minecraft or other games, you watch because theyâre funny!
It never ceases to amaze me. My son makes Portal videos, and has an astonishing number of subscribers. Not $80,000 worth, to be sure, but even one is shocking to me.
How is this âIndustryâ? What physical thing is being made?
It may be a service. It may be art. Itâs certainly entertainment.
But it doesnât involve transforming physical matter.
Your electrical service gives you the energy for your lights and computer.
The electrical industry manufactures outlets and wires to carry your electrical service.
I used to play a lot games. These days, I mostly watch since no energies to play them. Ha.
Well, outside of pedant world, Hollywood is known as the âmovie industryâ and Google is known as part of the âtechâ industry. Neither produce nor work with physical goods except indirectly (at least as far as their primary products). Similarly we have a television industry.
Perhaps in pedant world this is infuriating, but for the rest of us mere mortals it is just a way to say âeconomic activity that generates revenueâ.
No jokeâwhen I got hired for my first full-time job out of college one of the questions they asked during the interview was âdo you play video games?â When my mom heard she sent me a clipping of that very comic.
Yeah theyâre funny all right. To a 12 year old! Who do you think is watching these vids? Itâs mostly boys, 10-18, with a sizeable proportion of girls, too, and some older adults. But mostly 12 year old kids.
They are absolutely HOOKED on Minecraft. I know this first-hand. Of all the things kids could be hooked on, Minecraft is a BLESSING. I simultaneously hate to take away their screen time and have to take away some of their screen time, because if I let them, they would watch Minecraft vids ALL DAY EVERY DAMN DAY. They probably play Minecraft about 1/10th as much as they watch these Youtubes. Itâs INSANE!!!
I have watched in amazement as my son and his friends sit around the computer and watch endless Minecraft videos. More than they actually play the game. It used to bug me, but they like it, it is fairly harmless and involves nobody getting hurt, so screw it.
Though my parent brain fries when my kid pesters me to arrange for a friend to come over, I drive and get the kid, then they sit on the couch and watch MC videos on a tablet. (In winter, that dog donât hunt in summer)
I know, tell me about it. Itâs a royal FIGHT to get them to break away and do something creative.
I try to put myself in their shoes. If given half a chance when I was 12, would I sit and watch Gilliganâs Island ALL DAY? No, Iâd get bored. Would I sit and play Mario on original Nintendo ALL DAY? No, Iâd get bored. Would I sit there and pop in VHS tape after tape and watch videos ALL DAY? Nope. Iâd only ever do that if I were sick at home, and even then, Iâd still get bored and want to draw or read or something. I donât know why kids now can just sit there endlessly watching MindCrap. Itâs unfathomable to me!
I would totally do thisâŚif I didnât already spend my time working, commuting, eating, shopping for eating, cleaning up after my kids and pets, organizing all of the s that gets disorganized so that I can find the bloody s the next time I go looking for it, running, biking, climbing, or skiing outside, building stuff in my garage, etc. Um, in other words, pretty much never. Not at all saying itâs pointless. Except for me. Amazing.
Do you watch any sports? Why? Why watch the NFL when you can just go play football yourself.
You seem to have confused industry with manufacturing. Have you never heard of the insurance industry? Or the banking industry, or the entertainment industry?
Whatâs being missed is many of the games are being used to tell stories. Made in Minecraft, The Shadow of Israphel story line by Yogscast was an epic tale that has run for 3 seasons has some 42 titled episodes and several people who regularly played characters in the series. Itâs great!
My 15 year old son has two monitors. He watches Minecraft play videos while playing Team Fortress 2 and Skype chatting with friends.
Stampy is so popular because he has an earnest enthusiasm for everything, coupled with a silly british sense of humour (like the Monty Python silly). Kids enjoy watching his minecraft videos because heâs adding story to a world that has everything but story.
As a parent, I donât mind my kids watching his videos because, well, theyâre funny, and free of bad language that perpetuates many YouTube playthroughs.
Minecraft isnât my thing, but I do enjoy Kerbal Space Program (KSP). Theyâre similar in that theyâre sandbox games that allow you to do whatever the hell you want. The problem I run into is when Iâm faced with an entirely open-ended game, I donât know what to do. Or rather, I donât know what to do first. KSP has the additional issue of being incredibly difficult until you understand orbital mechanics. By watching videos of people who know what the hell theyâre doing, I can pick up inspiration for what I want to do while being entertained by a bald Scottish guy talking about astronauts shitting into plastic bags.
