Just in case anyone still was wondering, the power today of streamers in tremendous. Case in point is a recent tweet by Tom Francis (the creator of Gunpoint), where he show a graph of the sales of his recent game Morphblade.

https://twitter.com/Pentadact/status/840381920055775232

As can be seen here, the release was on March 2, but the largest sale spike is between 8 and 9 March - which coincided as YouTube vidoe by NerdCubed (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ux2myQ_Ch0Q), which was quite positive.

Just to iterate - the spike in sales after the video is larger than the launch sale spike.


(By the way, both Gunpoint and Morphblade are very good games, and his next game, Heat signature, looks interesting).

That has been obvious for a while now.
And it also happens with kickstarters.

Unfortunately for indie games, for streamers -specially big ones- it's mostly all about AAA games. Those games bring the most views (yes, amazingly people never get tired of seen the same game played over and over again by different streamers. just to see if they agree with them or something), so indie games get relegated to sheer luck that some of this streamers gives them any though. Although, as usual, connections and being friends with the streamers/youtubers help a lot. And also, the release date. You shouln't release your indie game at the same time as marketing kings and dorito press darlings as the new Zelda or the last sony exclusive. Or you wil be utterly ignored.

It's sometimes downright scary to me how little I understand the current world. The whole thing with streamers is just beyond me, it's like something from an alien planet, a culture so alien to me I can only make a note in the captain's log and hope the next ship has an antropologist team on board strong enough to make something of it because I sure as hell can't :D

I think it makes sense in terms of the decline of gaming magazines and an increased mistrust in 'official' reviews (for various reasons). And as games are subjective, if you find a streamer which have fairly similar tastes in games as you it increases the chances that you will agree on whether a game is good or not.

A streamers play of a game is often much more revealing that a static review.

I'd still rather find a reviewer with similar tastes than a streamer. First of all, I'm old fashioned and I prefer a written review than a video one. I hate that these days everything has to be a video- a review, a walkthrough, etc. But even in videos, I'd rather have a short review video, than jsut watch someone play the game. That's just about the most boring thing imaginable, and even if I decide I'd like to play that game based on the stream... what's the point anymore? I've just seen it! Ijust had the whole fun spoiled for me.

But I don't mean to somehow prove that I'm "right" and streaming is "wrong". I just meant to comment on how odd it feels to see the gaming culture, somethig that I used to consider myself much closer to, become so alien to me now.

I agree with all those points... streamers is also not my cup of tea (the only one I can stomach is NerdCubed, but his reviews tends to be fairly light), but on the other hand I can also see why they are popular.

Personally, I also think the streamers who "only play a game" as quite boring and pointless, and I would much rather actually play the game my self (the 'lets-play' genre)

I think the big deal here is just exposure. People love watching streams, and it's a fairly passive activity compared to actively seeking out reviews of games you've never heard of. So a ridiculous amount of people watch streams, and if some inde game happens to get a chunk of that exposure, it's a huge deal. Especially if the streamer happens to enjoy the game too.

More games are coming out today than ever before and it's soo easy to just absolutely drown in that mass, even with a great game. Lack of exposure should be the biggest concern for indies.

I'd say seeking out watchable streams is a more active, ahem, activity than seeking out reviews of games. Game reviews are everywhere on the interwebs. If I go to (say) rockpapershotgun, there are pages upon pages of reviews of games, though mostly entirely forgettable ones that I might have heard of but forgot. However, in 10 minutes I can find at least 5 games that would be worth looking into if they were DRM-free.

Streaming on the other hand... I love the idea of watching a competent person be awesome at a game, but for that I will need to like the person's performance, too. Games are usually not designed to be watched, and a streamer should be really good to make up for my inability to talk to them.

Which is why I don't bother with either reviews or streams, and buy GOG releases based on the amount of purple in the screenshots.

But people don't really seek them out. They just watch them. And when they do, it doesn't take them long to settle on a few favorites. The numbers speak for themselves. And these numbers are exposure, which is why streams can make such a huge spike in indie sales.

I'm not saying streams are better than reviews if you want an educated, in-depth opinion on some game. I'm just trying to explain the effect and why it happens.

...
I want to watch a stream. Where do I start?

These popular streamers also tend have the same taste in games. So if one of them finds an Indie game they like you'll quickly see it on every other big channel as well. Most smaller channels will then jump on the bandwagon in an attempt to draw attention to themselves. The result is that the vast majority of Twitch streamers will cover the same few games.

The advantage that YouTube has over Twitch is that you can find walkthroughs, or at least a sizeable amount of coverage, of almost every new Indie game that comes out. To me Twitch is only about AAA gaming, multiplayer games, and the few Indie games the popular folk have taken to. It does not have the same variety that YouTube has.

I agree that it comes down to pure luck as to which Indie game becomes popular with the big streamers.
I mean why Darkest Dungeon and not Duskers or Zombasite ? why Undertale and not Avadon 3 or Age of Decadence ? why The Walking Dead and not Shardlight ? and so on. I'm not calling any of these bad games by the way.

Some games work as streaming content and some don't.

Darkest Dungeon has characters which can die in entertaining ways. Duskers has drones, and the visuals and not stream-friendly (tiny text, line graphics, blurry video).
(Haven't played Zombasite.)

Undertale is short, colorful and "quirky", viewers can have fun reacting to the batshit stuff that happens. Avadon and Decadence are long and "serious", and quite a lot of time can pass between audience-worthy events.

Walking Dead is a well-known franchise and it's easy to move the story forward in unexpected and entertaining directions. Shardlight is an indie property with actual puzzles so people can get stuck.

well, consider it from this point of view:
evolution from traditional media's celebs and shows' hosts on TV

But about niche/less mainstream topics and targeting audience accordingly to that

Does it make more sense to you, that way ?

Lol, that made my day, thank you.

Also, good points, I didn't really think along those lines.

It does if we're talking about people having actuall shows on YT, like Spoony Experiment used to be, or like Projared has and guys like that (or whatever would be their equivalent on other subjects). But streaming does not make sense to me in any way shape or form :D

And that's just tip of the iceberg. How about "reaction videos"? Now that is some fresh new kind of lovecraftian-level insanity. Watching other people watch stuff and make faces while watching stuff. What. The. Fuck. What the hell is the point of that? And those seem to be everywhere. Every time I watch a trailer for something YT suggests I watch a dozen of other people watching that very same trailer. When I first realised those even exist I seriously started questioning my sanity, hoping to god it's not real and someone just added some drain cleaner to my soda.