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Polygons spicy take: Watching a video game is basically playing it

I watch boxing all the time.

Muhammad Ali Sport GIF by HBO Docs
 

Arsic

Loves his juicy stink trail scent
To be fair, a VN game or something like Hellblade…. Yeah you don’t need to play it lol.

99% of the rest you do. Without playing it’s not even remotely the same experience.
 

Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
I dont understand that type of mid-set, there is no excitement watching someone else play the game for you.

The only time I ever liked someone else play is Fighting game tournaments in EVO.
 
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Loomy

Thinks Microaggressions are Real
We can hate this because it's Polygon, but the amount of people watching full playthroughs on youtube and twitch shows that this is the most lukewarm of takes.
 
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Duchess

Member
Watching cooking shows is basically eating.
Watching Breaking Bad is basically drug dealing.
Watching the BBC Proms is basically conducting an orchestra.
Watching Formula One is basically driving.
Watching Eastenders is basically being a cockney.
Watching Coronation Street is basically being northern.
Watching porn is basically fucking.

Am I doing it right?
 
Watching a movie is the same as acting in one too. Spectating and participating are two wildly different things. Guys who write this shit are idiots.
 

tygertrip

Member
I know someone who is like this......they'll argue adamantly that because they sat there and watched an entire playthrough on youtube, that it means they've played it. Fuckin whackos...
Imagine watching a playthrough of Pac-Man all the way to the kill screen, and then thinking that is equivalent to memorizing all the patterns and executing them flawlessly! It is amazing the absolute mouth-breathing drooling morons out there!
 

Lions Gate

Member
Source: https://web.archive.org/web/2024071...laying-twitch-youtube-lets-play-no-commentary

4Zuc3tu.jpeg




Sometimes, I find it difficult to distinguish my memories of playing a game from seeing someone else play it.

I made it through only five bosses in Dark Souls with my pigtailed powerlifter protagonist before I decided that the game’s pimple-eyed basilisks were too annoying, and it was time to focus on what was for dinner instead.
But in the years before and after I decided I was quitting Dark Souls, I also watched one boyfriend, one roommate, and several YouTubers play the 40-hour game from start to finish. I had the pleasure of meeting Ceaseless Discharge only once in my abandoned playthrough, but, over my hundreds of hours observing other people’s games, the oozing boss became a familiar flame to me. I got so used to seeing Blighttown’s rickety, rotten wooden pathways that they might as well have formed the driveway leading up to my parents’ house.

So I’d discuss it as if I had played it, because my knowledge of the game matched that of its most dedicated players.
bunch a fucking retards
 

Hypereides

Gold Member
Sure, whatever you say. I also get physically exhausted from watching sports.

Remind me why some people still listen to opinions/reviews on games from outlets like Polygon again. They really are passionate about video games as you can see.

I've been working on a video game for several years now and when I am done developing it, I am supposed to be sending a review code to the press --- that think like that.

The take is not spicy, it's dumb. What is wrong with these people?
A good chunk of them aren't gamers. Some of these people occupy the news platform for the sake of broadcasting their activist messaging. Its gotten more apparent with time.
 
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Lol wut?

I do watch games instead of playing them quite a bit but it’s definitely not the same thing.

Like I got half way through Still Wakes the Deep and it bugged out and I can’t progress so I’m just gonna substitute it by watching Gab Smolders play it.
 

The Silverlord

Neo Member
Imagine watching a playthrough of Pac-Man all the way to the kill screen, and then thinking that is equivalent to memorizing all the patterns and executing them flawlessly! It is amazing the absolute mouth-breathing drooling morons out there!
Yeah, some videos out there are one in a blue moon specials that can take hundreds of hours to get to. Speed runs, WRs, etc. There's all the emotion too. I'm about to start an RE4 Remake S+ Professional run and while there are some great video guides to follow I am going to be crapping it. It's going to need some lucky escapes, rng and clutch reactions to boot . . .
 

Optimus Lime

(L3) + (R3) | Spartan rage activated
Uh, so, when do I get the WWE title from Cody Rhodes - I've watched a LOT of Raw over the past few years. I feel really unseen right now.
 

Nok Su Kow

Member
I agree with this logic and by applying it to my life I can't believe I had the starring role in every MCU movie and demand I be paid as such
 
This is actually an Insult to gaming as a medium...

There's a VERY big difference between watching a FULL playthrough of Persona 4 (for example), superbosses included, every extra content included, and PLAYING Persona 4.

To experience a game, you have to feel everything in your own hands, ears and eyes. The feel of the controls, the intensity of the combat, the choices you make in the dialogue, so on.

And if you can't tell the difference, you shouldn't write for a gaming site to begin with.
 
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realcool

Member
I made it through only five bosses in Dark Souls with my pigtailed powerlifter protagonist before I decided that the game’s pimple-eyed basilisks were too annoying, and it was time to focus on what was for dinner instead.
But in the years before and after I decided I was quitting Dark Souls, I also watched one boyfriend, one roommate, and several YouTubers play the 40-hour game from start to finish. I had the pleasure of meeting Ceaseless Discharge only once in my abandoned playthrough, but, over my hundreds of hours observing other people’s games, the oozing boss became a familiar flame to me. I got so used to seeing Blighttown’s rickety, rotten wooden pathways that they might as well have formed the driveway leading up to my parents’ house.

So I’d discuss it as if I had played it, because my knowledge of the game matched that of its most dedicated players.
She's motivated to misrepresent the distinction between firsthand knowledge and secondhand knowledge because she's insecure about her own behavior. She wants to be recognized for things she doesn't do as if she did them. She wants to be shielded from valid criticism when she talks about video games. She has cognitive dissonance stemming from her self-identity as a "gamer" and the reality of her habits as a watcher. Her resolution to this uncomfortable internal conflict is not to actually change her habits in order to become the gamer she wants to be accepted as; instead, she would rather write an article justifying her lack of actual gaming experience in order to convince people to accept her as if she is "basically" just like one of them.

She's a poser.

LoJOKzc.jpeg
 
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ssringo

Member
Sure, that makes sense. After all I've watched hundreds, if not thousands, of hours of Gordon Ramsay and know many of his recipes by heart. Never mind that I've never bothered cooking anything more complicated than a pot roast; I'm essentially a 5 star Michelin chef through osmosis!
 
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