YouTube “stars”

[Cyberpunk]

I subscribe to a few tech YouTubers. Linus Tech Tips from Canada. Lazy Gamer Reviews is quite funny. Retro Man Cave for old school pc restorations and games. Ashens is a must, and I love his Poundland specials, and food specials. Also Techmoan for old music kits, the 8 Bit Guy, and Nostalgia Nerd.

Finally, I subscribe to Metal Jesus Rocks. He's a heavy metal enthusiast, and also collects retro games and consoles. I don't watch him often as his style and voice can annoy me, but he has a great retro consoles collection, and does some fantastic games.

 

[OCH]

 

Meanwhile, explaining the current drama on YouTube...

[DANGERMAN]

I doubt anyone else will care about this but Rock Paper Shotgun have/are been doing a Divinity: Original Sin 2 let's play. 

 

I mention it because I was always been a decent number of episodes behind but I watched a bunch the other week and caught up with them. It's got to the point where when they missed a week last week I was a bit disappointed. It can be really, really funny, particularly when things go wrong. They've been going over a year so Matthew and Alice have got a good relationship together 

 

 

They also do an occasional feature called Reviews Roulette that they don't do often enough but it's worth checking out 

[OCH]

Here's some cheery viewing...

[Jimboxy]

@Rikzilla's latest video, where he starts painting minis. It's good.

 

[Hendo]

I’ve probably mentioned these videos before, but hey ho.

 

I’m in a hankering once again to play Dark Souls 3 again and maybe another attempt at finishing the first one.

I’ve been watching the Eurogamer videos of them doing various SoulsBorne games.

Aoife is clearly the better player but Johnny does improve.

 

 

 

 

 

[one-armed dwarf]

While on EG their FFVII playthrough is all kinds of wonderful cause it's full of the genuine joy of someone discovering that story for the first time and not putting on fake reactions or anything.

Conversely their Remake playthrough has been pretty boring, I might check out their DSII playthrough. That game actually might be better than 3 imo

[OCH]

Arty Farty time.

One of the YouTubers I came to know of tangentially was Plague of Gripes. He has done some gaming in the past but he is mostly an artist and animator. Which is the hook for me. He typically has some interesting insights on various topics as he draws. This is the current one:

 

 

[DANGERMAN]

I've mentioned it before but I watch the RPS PC Gaming Weekspot. Probably the best part of it is the quiz they do Mystery Steam Reviews, where they pick a theme for some games, then based on Steam reviews they have to guess the other person's game

 

It's good just as a quiz but Matthew is a horrendous loser (he's quite far ahead in terms of the running total of wins) and gets a bit stroppy

 

 

[Maryokutai]

Protonjon is back, after a years long hiatus, with his Superman 64 playthrough.

 

Now I wouldn't consider him a youtube "star" nor am I a fan of Let's Plays usually, but this series is excellent. He really dissects what was and maybe still is considered one of the worst games ever made. Recreates every possible glitch and bug he knows of and talks a bit about the development of the game (at least as far as he was able to gather that info) while giving some interesting trivia and background info about it.

 

Here's the playlist if you're interested (the most recent episode isn't in there yet):

 

 

[OCH]

This isn't just to highlight a YouTuber that I watch quite regularly. But, although specific to Dell, it is this general kind of scenario to has kept me from doing any more than buying a shop ready PC.

[one-armed dwarf]

Goddamn that guy needs to get a clue what an annoying video lol

 

Tell me is the whole thing that it's slow cause it runs on a mechanical drive? Like it's not a super obscure power supply issue or an overheating graphics card or some arcane motherboard problem?

[OCH]

38 minutes ago, one-armed dwarf said:

Tell me is the whole thing that it's slow cause it runs on a mechanical drive?

Something like that. Boxes that he didn't tick, that he should have.

[Maf]

My man Doto being the coolest guy in showbiz 

 

 

[Maf]

What do people think of Max's video about the Twitch Leak? I'm not sure what to think 

 

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1169734386

[one-armed dwarf]

I think he speaks pretty well but it's sort of undermined by the constant pop up notifications of people donating 100s of dollars to him for multi year subscriptions. I cannot watch Max's streams at all cause of that thing

 

I think the gamification of this aspect of Twitch is super manipulative, but it's also the business model. At the same time I think it should be easy enough to have interactions with your audience without the 'achievement unlocked' notification that money has changed hands. I much prefer patreon as a means to supports creators than the weird addictive 'tip jar' that twitch uses to tickle people's dopamine receptors, but I also don't think patreon comes close to rewarding some creators as twitch probably does

 

It makes more sense in the context of smaller streamers, eg woolieversus has strive sessions with people who subscribe to him. That kinda engagement is cool I think, I've thought of bringing my i-no on stream against him but I think ireland to montreal ping would be fucked

[Maf]

I want to believe him but I think he overdoes it when he says like oh I haven't kept track of what I was earning, oh, I had resistance when I tried to get donation stuff off the screen, oh some of what you read isn't true lol.

 

I don't know. It doesn't make me like him less, but some of it comes across a bit disingenuous. 

 

It seems like he is worried that people knowing he's a millionaire will ruin his image or relatability or something so he overplays it a little. 

[one-armed dwarf]

I'll be honest if I was making that money I would also stop caring lmao. Just let it roll in 💵

[Maf]

That’s why I loved Doto’s Tweet of “Top 2500 let’s go!” I think leaning in to it is a better approach 

[HandsomeDead]

I don't think I agree with him with regards to showing your sub-count that it adds competitiveness, or maybe I could see it potentially doing that but I don't think it trumps the transparency that it shows.  They get 50% off subs or more if they're in a position to negotiate but I can't see it going any higher than 65% but I don't know, they're always contractually obliged to not talk about it.

 

If anyone is surprised by all this, fine, and I hope it does push people to financially supporting the smaller streams they follow instead, especially the ones trying to make it as a full time streamer but pulling in 100 viewers or so if you think they're legit.

 

My opinion of Max hasn't changed, I think he is one of the better streamers.  There are some real mouth breathers in the top earners which laughs in the face of any idea that this is a meritocracy.  But again, it's not surprising, it's been the case since forever.