If you watch a full Let's Play of a video game, are YOU less likely to buy the game?

[Trout]

When I was working overnight security, I watched a lot of the channel "Previously Recorded". It was a good way to kill a few hours in your shift and turned me onto some games I later bought. They played a lot of indie game so they were nice cheap thrill games you pay 5 dollars and get 10 hours or so of enjoyment.

[Merlin]

I only watch lets plays of games I am interested in, but know I won't ever play. For me that would be scary games. I like spooky games but I don't have enough nerve to progress through the game myself, I would just hide in a corner, close my eyes and scream when the monsters get me. So it depends I think. On the other hand I hate watching games I have played or want to play because its boring to me. I guess it has no bearing on my opinion of playing a game.

[Sylentmoogle]

Depends on the game, but I may be more likely to buy the game to play it for myself.

[ekv]

PriestTroit have no idea honestly. By the time I got my pre-order in Australia, endings drama was over the top, soooo... I watched all three endings on YT and decided to not play it. Since there was no way to get a refund when I came to pick it up, I just did a trade-in on the spot. Can't disagree with you, never played the game.

[Astraea]

Yeah I only watch those for games I don't plan on buying or have already beat.

[gbullock32]

Many of the Let's Plays I watch are games I am interested in seeing, but are not games I'd personally enjoy playing myself. Many Tell Tale games for example, I just am not that big into adventure games anymore, but I like to watch them.

I also do watch some on games I am interested in, to tell if they are something I want to buy, but seeing the game played does not make me want it less or more in and of itself.

[isturbo1984]

To be fair, a person not buying their game, this time... because you can just watch some schmuck play it on youtube... is not something that was a big problem 5 years ago. There are games still in development since before then that aren't even out. I'm sure the devs of Kingdom Hearts III never anticipated this.

[isturbo1984]

Exactly. Couldn't have said it better.

[TelperionST]

There are only a handful of story-driven games that I have ever played through more than once. From recent history the only that comes to mind is Dishonored and that was helped along by having some of the best DLC I remember ever seeing. Keeping that game relevant to me far longer than I had expected. Once I'm through a story-driven game I have trouble remaining interested, so even if I start a second playthrough I very rarely finish it.

[Necromancerx69]

I watched multiple play throughs of visual novel games, I still end up buying them to see the story again or I just simply loved it.
One quick example: 'Analogue: A hate story', sure the story ain't that great but I still enjoyed it so I bought it and replay it.

[Necromancerx69]

I watched multiple seasons (yep, that's right, seasons) of let's play Lobotomy Corporation from multiple Youtubers.
I got sooo hooked up with the videos, as soon payday came I bought the game. Now I am still trying to kill White Night (2 op plz nerf).

So no, watching play throughs doesn't make you no longer want to buy a game. Doki Doki was simply not for you.
But Lobotomy Corporation was sure made for me and I LOVE it.

[TelperionST]

Sandbox-game: No, actually the opposite.

Story-driven game: Yes, definitely, which is why I usually stop after just a few episodes into a Let's Play, if I'm at all interested.

[Hyperweasle]

Same and I believe that it what made it so successful. I mean I was going to originally watch Jackspeticeye play it and then I checked the steam page, to see how much it was. I was thinking that if it was really cheap, I might try it out, however to my surprise it was free. At that point it was almost a no brainer.

[Hyperweasle]

When I was a child, I had to turn with my brothers and friends to play games, and each time I saw other child making a mistake, I only wanted to take the control to do it "correctly".

When a game is well made, there are many different ways to play it. Most importantly, there are many sub optimal ways to do it badly. So there is an incentive to do it better. That's what makes a game a good game. That's why chess will never die. It doesn't have a "story".

Bad game design is when the developer thinks of a single way in which the game must be played. At worst, the "game" is just a movie which stops playing if the user doesn't press the play button (press "W" to keep watching what happens or the character dies).
If watching a video of another person playing the "game" spoils it, then it is a bad game, badly designed, and developers deserve to lose sales when potential players watch the game in youtube and don't need to play it.

A game is not a movie. Is not a story. The player makes the story.

I don't necessarily think its a bad game if watching someone else playing it, spoils it. Some games tend to be more linear than others, it just a different genre of game, however devs shouldn't complain they are losing money when they make story based games and watching almost has the same experience or spoils it. They need to realize that it's a consequence to making heavily linear story based games. Doki Doki Literature, I believe handled right, it is a story based game that can be mostly experienced just by watching it, however the game is also free to begin with, so it really didn't affect them at all and now they are making all of their money off of the merchandise. Since people enjoyed the story and characters, they buy the merchandise in a way of supporting the people who worked on it. If the visual novel was not entertaining or a bad game then people would have not bought anything to show their support.

[Hyperweasle]

Yeah I just checked to make sure it still was and nothing changed. https://ddlc.moe/