It's a good idea to do something else while you watch people play video games, though. Hey, turns out that commentating and playing is pretty hard! Generally, though, you have to be able to accept that sometimes people don't notice something that you feel is incredibly obvious, or completely miss mechanics that you'd think they would see. Kikoskia's been doing LP's a really long time and he can be pretty entertaining. And I'm not talking about the yell-y, Pewdiepie type, there are some good Let's Players out there. When I want to watch videos related to games and I'm not on Giantbomb, I generally watch Let's Plays. (Giant Bomb or any people affiliated with the sites are NOT part of the ones I’m talking about here. It should be about enjoyment and a good time, not a bunch of drama and hate because you like a certain game. I am not saying that you should stop watching Twitch, all I want to say is that it’s easy to get dragged into all the negativity and video games should be fun. However, when I see the console wars raging again and all the comments on different forums and posts, I see so clearly where they come from and it makes me sad. Obviously, this was my experience and maybe I’m just weak who fell for all the negativity. I don’t want to tell which streamers I followed, but I can assure you that this is about highly respected people and not ones that are truly problematic with a bunch of drama in their streams. Just as with all those other games I missed during this time. I turned it on, went ahead and played Fortnite for the first time in months and had a blast. I went ahead and popped in to one of the streams I enjoyed and there the chat was fighting over how Fortnite players are lame and that everything about them sucks now. I went back to a lot of games I missed, and it wasn’t until these last couple of days when a video of one of those streamers I enjoyed watching popped up when I realized how extremely negative and drama driven almost everything is now. I actually played the games and didn’t just have it on as one part of something else I was doing. It just ignited that flame of fun within me again. I unfollowed all the channels except for two and started playing Jade Empire again. I returned to the different chats and realized how all the drama, all the negativity and all the highly questionable ways these streamers was trying to kick the dirt up to get even more views just made me not enjoy the games. All the fun was in these couple of games I was playing and watching at the same time. I told a friend this past November that it felt like I just didn’t enjoy games anymore. I skipped Spider-Man, God of War and almost every game that wasn’t the ones I played while watching some of my favorite streamers. So, I skipped Assassin’s Creed because someone told someone that it wasn’t that good. I started to play less and less games because you know how it is on Twitch – everything sucks and people who play a different game than the one you are watching are confused.
I still listened to the podcasts but the almost everything else I was skipping. My newfound interest got me away from Giant Bomb. The sheer excitement of watching people discovering new things in competitive games was awesome and I got a lot better at the game. I am not going to lie – it added to the experience. I started following streamers who played the games I enjoyed and at the start really learned a whole lot about the games I played and started to play them a bit more seriously. Two years ago, after a couple of rough months, I started watching Twitch to get the time go by. I am a big fan of sports and racing games and those games are almost made to have something on in the background to enjoy. When the whole Giant Bomb thingy started, I got really into the longer videos and often watched them while playing different games. I have been a paying member of Giant Bomb since the very start and I have been listening to the crew since their early The Hot Spot days. I used to love making them and I am completely honest when I say that the struggle made me question if the time for my enjoyment of video games simply past. For the past two years it has been a struggle to come up with a year-end list of my favorite video games.