Watching a video game is essentially playing it
I turn off my phone and prepare for another round Dead in daylight. The final match was a close one — the game requires solo Killers to capture an entire group of four Survivors, and this particular Survivor team wasn’t about to let that happen. Its members took every advantage they could, running in strategic circles around the reddish desert map, their growing confidence quickly starting to outweigh mine. But somehow, we pulled through in the end and won. Or, I mean, the Twitch streamer I was watching pulled through.
Sometimes I have a hard time separating my memories of playing a game from those of watching someone else play it. I’ve probably spent an equal amount of time with both, turning into a taquito under my blanket on the couch, staring at my TV like a cat stares at a laser pointer. Both playing and watching result in an intimate understanding of how a game works, and impart crucial knowledge about its combat system, its story, and its weathered characters. Both can make you wish you could scream through your PC and go to heaven. So I’ve come to think that playing and watching games are, in principle, interchangeable.
There are many games — Dark Souls, Resident Evil 4, League of Legendsand others — whom I speak of with expert conviction, though in reality they seem more like acquaintances. I have lasted in only five bosses Dark Souls with my ponytailed powerlifter protagonist, before deciding that the game’s pimple-eyed basilisks were too annoying and it was time to focus on what the evening had to offer.
But in the years before and after I decided I would quit Dark SoulsI’ve also watched a boyfriend, a roommate, and several YouTubers play through the 40-hour game from start to finish. I only encountered Ceaseless Discharge once during my abandoned playthrough, but over the hundreds of hours I’ve spent watching other people’s games, the leaky boss has become a familiar flame. I’ve grown so accustomed to the rickety, rotten wooden paths of Blighttown that they might as well have been the driveway to my parents’ house. I felt so at ease with Dark Souls that I spend a summer YouTube speedruns to help me fall asleep.
So I would talk about it as if I had played it, because my knowledge of the game was on par with the most dedicated players. I know I’m not the only one who does this. Many of my friends — most of them women — would rather be stuck look at someone else playing games than playing them yourself. There are many reasons why someone might choose to do this. Accessibility options, for example, are slowly expanding but are still lacking. The now-standard $70 price tag of AAA video games places them between luxuries like exfoliating skin care and Marc Jacobs keychains, and not everyone can afford that indulgence. Historically vilified gamers, including women like me, may also find it enjoyable to watch someone else play games, which offers a wide-open gateway into the subject. Or, even more simply, it’s entertaining to watch someone perform a task with skill or conviction that you might not have.
If that wasn’t the case, there wouldn’t be as many opportunities to watch people play. Game-watching is the basis of most game-related video content online, including the “Let’s Play” YouTube genrein which charismatic gamers comment on their gameplay for an enthusiastic audience, and the existence of most Twitch streamers. But popular “no commentary” video walkthroughs also indicate that people enjoy watching games for their stories alone. From the myriad ways gamers encourage each other to watch games instead of playing them, we conclude that watching and playing are essentially synonymous. “Chat, is this real?” wouldn’t echo from ergonomic gaming chairs across the globe if streamers—many of whom excel at their favorite games, like Ninja with Fortnite — didn’t hope their audience would be as captivated by the gameplay as they were.
In that sense, being an audience member for an active hobby like gaming isn’t much different than going to the opera if you can’t sing, or sitting on the sidelines at a Knicks game if you love basketball but would rather not try to improve your hand-eye coordination yourself. And even if channeling Jalen Brunson resulted in you falling into a sweaty puddle, you could still become intimately familiar with the art of basketball by watching it. In fact, as a dedicated fan, you might even be expected to represent your team with posters, deodorant-stained jerseys, or nervously checking the score instead of looking your date in the eye at a wine bar.
But gaming, despite being one of the largest entertainment industries in the world, often treated as an insular community. People who watch video games, by experiencing them in a slightly different way than their peers, are not necessarily equated with “real gamers“the way sports fans or music nerds are identified by their interests. The limitations of “real gaming” make sense in some cases. Like, while I like to tell friends about 2013 survival horror To surviveGiven ‘s gruesome plot, I can’t say exactly what it’s like to sneak through the game with a dead flashlight, as I experienced that myself when I watched a PewDiePie playthrough at the age of 15.
But I don’t think so to play is by definition the most crucial aspect of gaming. I’ve always found it most satisfying to feel like I’ve become an integral part of someone’s story, whether it’s the rise of a protagonist to king or the internal monologue of a person in the multiplayer lobby who’s planning to teabagger me. These moments of tangible connection, whether they move me or drive me crazy, are why I need games. And if I can get that same feeling by watching my friend play Hunting: Showdownso it shall be.