We need popular streamers to stream GW2

[Zoid.2568]

I just explained to a member here how it works on twitch and youtube etc. A game will gain it's streams based on what popular streamers, stream. It's very simple. Popular streamers do not choose to stream GW2 and that's why GW2 on twitch for example has so low streams/views. ArenaNet could pay these streamers or give them some kind of deal to increase the streams of GW2. Many of viewers of these popular streamers would start to play the game they are streaming, because that's how it works. They want to play what their favorite streamer is playing. 

Just a thought.

[Killthehealersffs.8940]

A less costly idea (even for GW3) is more "bog-queens" .

The fanarts will reach more people !!!

 

Just look the Honkai Reddit section that has " a deeply appreciation for any female character" (i wonder if people talk at all about pvp or any nstanced section , lol !)

Edited September 9 by Killthehealersffs.8940

[Skub.8240]

Personally, I don't want more twitch streamers spamming their twitch links in map chat.

[Zebulous.2934]

That would only work if Gw2 were fun to watch. 
Fun to play and fun to watch are two very different things, just ask any adult film star.

[DanAlcedo.3281]

Serious question. Why would I watch a huge streamer playing gw2 anyway? Or huge streams in general? 

I'm just viewer number 20000. I don't even have a identity anymore. I'm just part of the hive mind called "chat". 

Thats why I love viewing smaller streams. 

I can talk to the streamer and other viewers. 

People get to know each other. 

Hell, thanks to Noxxis stream, her discord and absolute awesome community , I found my current boyfriend. 

That would never happen in a huge streamer community. In which I'm just some random nobody. Being literally just a number. 

Edited September 9 by DanAlcedo.3281

[Obscura.9768]

gw2 doesn't look good on stream, to many particle effects and all that. you cant even see the bosses in most cases. im playing gw2 since release and i refuse to watch it on twitch because it looks like s...

the only exeption was a few weeks ago for the free emote.

[Atoclone.4810]

Do many folks watch a stream and then go and buy a game or is it as I suspect more existing players watching them? 

Genuine question from an oldie that can't understand spending hours watching some one else play a game

[Zok.4956]

3 hours ago, Zebulous.2934 said:

Fun to play and fun to watch are two very different things, just ask any adult film star.

People in the entertainment industry also enjoy their jobs. Of course not all of them, not everything and not always. Otherwise many would do something completely different.

[Ashen.2907]

What an interesting catch 22. ANet needs popular streamers to stream GW2 but popular streamers would lose their popularity if they streamed GW2.

[DanAlcedo.3281]

16 minutes ago, Atoclone.4810 said:

Do many folks watch a stream and then go and buy a game or is it as I suspect more existing players watching them? 

Genuine question from an oldie that can't understand spending hours watching some one else play a game

Genuine Answer. 

The viewers of the mega huge streamers are often more like a cult. 

Look at streamers like Asmongold. If there "leader" says: "buy this game."

Many will do that. Simply to feel like a part of the cult. 

Thats the entire idea behind paying huge streams to play your game. 

If a huge streamer would play Gw2, probably thousands of brainless cult members would buy the game just to be around their glorious leader. 

Only problem is, the moment the glorious leader drops the game, so does his cult. 

Edited September 9 by DanAlcedo.3281

[QueenKeriti.5176]

Anet has done sponsored streams, and big streamers have streamed gw2. The streamers don't tend to stick with it for long for many reasons.

MMOs require more investment in time than most big streamers are going to want to bother with, let alone the viewership hit they'll take from their viewerbase if they change games. 

[Noidea Incognito.9607]

Popular streamers ey?... Those are a double-edged sword if you will. They potentially draw in new player or the total opposite of that.

They can grind a game into the ground if it allows them to create buzz for their own gains / channels. It wouldnt affect them much... but it would affect the IP.

Besides... Anet already has their own dedicated Team of Streamers called Hardstuck.

[Skub.8240]

51 minutes ago, DanAlcedo.3281 said:

Genuine Answer. 

The viewers of the mega huge streamers are often more like a cult. 

Look at streamers like Asmongold. If there "leader" says: "buy this game."

Many will do that. Simply to feel like a part of the cult. 

Thats the entire idea behind paying huge streams to play your game. 

If a huge streamer would play Gw2, probably thousands of brainless cult members would buy the game just to be around their glorious leader. 

Only problem is, the moment the glorious leader drops the game, so does his cult. 

The bigger problem is the influx of people who like Asmongold, who are just the absolute worst type of Gamer online. I was playing FFXIV when he decided to give it a go, I was on on Cactuar when he said he was planning to join that server. Almost immediately the server was slammed with a massive influx of people who seemed to have nothing better to do than just be obnoxiously bigoted and generally just vile in chat day in and day out. The server was so bogged down they gave people free transfers out of it, which I took.

[Farohna.6247]

No thank you.   Watching someone else play a game is about the most boring thing I can think of besides watching a chess match on TV.   Fun to play, not so much to watch.   

[Freya.9075]

As someone who watch twitch and gaming on YouTube, this would not work the way you want. It’s too confusing if you don’t know what’s going on. If I watch gw2, I watch Mukluk because i enjoy his humorous content. Not because of the game itself since it’s more enjoyable to play then watch. For the longest time, I had a bad impression of gw2 based on what I had seen, but I eventually tried it thanks to a friend who was pushing me to at least try it and give it a chance. And I got hooked and have played it ever since.

Gw2 is a game you need to play to understand what it can offer you.

[zefaistos.2601]

Sponsored streams are artificial content. If streamers are playing other mmos without being sponsored, then you should ask why they prefer other games, instead of paying them to play a game that they are clearly not interested.

Now for the answer, it's quite simple. Most mmo players want to grind and get better gear to progress their characters, and that reflects on stream views. GW2 does not have the general reward structure and progression systems from the mmorpg genre, so while it's a good thing in making the game unique, it also limits the audience of the game.

Multiple relevant streamers already tried gw2 both sponsored or by themselves, and they don't stick with the game. The sentiment among those streamers is that the game looks cool and interesting, but at the same time they don't see a goal or reason to actually put the effort. So again, it's a problem with the progression systems and reward structure.

[AliamRationem.5172]

29 minutes ago, zefaistos.2601 said:

Sponsored streams are artificial content. If streamers are playing other mmos without being sponsored, then you should ask why they prefer other games, instead of paying them to play a game that they are clearly not interested.

Now for the answer, it's quite simple. Most mmo players want to grind and get better gear to progress their characters, and that reflects on stream views. GW2 does not have the general reward structure and progression systems from the mmorpg genre, so while it's a good thing in making the game unique, it also limits the audience of the game.

Multiple relevant streamers already tried gw2 both sponsored or by themselves, and they don't stick with the game. The sentiment among those streamers is that the game looks cool and interesting, but at the same time they don't see a goal or reason to actually put the effort. So again, it's a problem with the progression systems and reward structure.

^This.  Obviously, we're the community of this game, so we're okay with the reward structure.  But as a former WoW player of many years I can tell you transitioning to this game was not easy.  I loved the combat system, classes, the open world content and personal story.  WoW didn't really have anything to match it.  However, it definitely took me awhile to wrap my head around the reward structure. 

The community here is used to advising new players to just "Do whatever you want!", seemingly not understanding that the game offering very little in the way of reward-based progression results in none of the guidance those players expect coming from other MMOs.  In WoW it's always clear what you need to do next.  The vertical progression system limits your options such that you're always doing this content to get the gear you need to do the next content in line.  This creates a natural progression that is largely missing in GW2 both because of the lack of gear progression and the decision to make each expansion a standalone product that doesn't require anything from previous content.  You rarely need to do X before you can do Y in this game, and that leaves a lot of players confused, overwhelmed, and unmotivated.  "What am I supposed to be doing here?"..."Whatever you want!"

Another issue is the lack of organized group content.  Again, we're the community so those of us who have been playing long term have made our peace with this.  But while GW2 has the best open world content in the genre, most players aren't used to that aspect of their MMO taking the main stage.  When you compare to games like FFXIV and WoW, they have vastly more raid/dungeon content and PvP game modes.  This is more the type of content people will tune in to watch a streamer play.  Facerolling open world bosses gets old pretty quick as a spectator sport.

That's not to say that GW2 is a bad game.  Obviously, I like it well enough!  But it might help to explain why big name streamers won't touch this game and in the rare event that they do, they move on pretty quickly.

[Danikat.8537]

4 hours ago, Atoclone.4810 said:

Do many folks watch a stream and then go and buy a game or is it as I suspect more existing players watching them? 

Genuine question from an oldie that can't understand spending hours watching some one else play a game

Oddly enough there's a 3rd group: people who watch streams who have no interest in the game at all.

I've known a few people who use streams as 'background noise' like other people do daytime TV or music, they'll have one running while they're doing boring tasks at work but don't especially care what they're streaming. A few times I asked someone in the office what game they were watching and they didn't even know the name, they just found the streamers voice relaxing.

[Omega.6801]

Or GW2 could take that money and put it into the game's development.

"Popular twitch streamers" are a fickle crowd who will only follow the money. Whoever pays them the most is whatever they play. They're not in it for the games, the gamers, the culture or anything. They don't care about the community no matter how much you spend on them. They're a pest. Much like advertisers are a pest. And before ANet gives them money so that they play the game for a month and falsely praise it as "WOW ZOMG THIS IS THE BEST GAME THERE IS WOW YOU GUYS LETS DO THE DANCE YAY!". I'd rather have them spend the money on something more meaningful.

[Cuks.8241]

Personally I was only interested in watching competitive gaming of the games I've actually played (basically only Starcraft 2). Gw2 has very little competition, I've maybe watched Teapot's covers of MATs a few times and that's it. 

It's also a game that is hard to watch. The effects are very messy and over the top and without actually being very invested in the game it's really hard to follow what's going on. Wow Arena had the same problem and it is much more streamlined and visually clear.

[Pinkeh.4207]

GW2 is pretty boring to watch someone else play. Its a confusing mess of visual clutter and hard to follow unless you have an in depth knowledge of the game.

Edited September 10 by Pinkeh.4207

[Doggie.3184]

Instead of bribing streamers, create a good photomode and emote system and people will advertise for them on Twitter and/or make better meme videos.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

20 hours ago, DanAlcedo.3281 said:

Serious question. Why would I watch a huge streamer playing gw2 anyway? Or huge streams in general? 

I'm just viewer number 20000. I don't even have a identity anymore. I'm just part of the hive mind called "chat". 

Thats why I love viewing smaller streams. 

I can talk to the streamer and other viewers. 

People get to know each other. 

Hell, thanks to Noxxis stream, her discord and absolute awesome community , I found my current boyfriend. 

That would never happen in a huge streamer community. In which I'm just some random nobody. Being literally just a number. 

Funny thing about this question is that you don't need to know the answer.  There's no accounting for taste.  The fact is that large groups of people will gather into the huge streams, and they certainly have reasons for why they do it.  

Though if you want the simple group psychology thing, it works like this:  Popularity makes you popular.  It sounds circular, but that's how it works.  When a bunch of people gather in one place, other people go there just because a bunch of people are gathered in one place.  When I was a kid, me and my siblings had this prank we'd do, where we'd stand in a line and look bored and annoyed at random places in theme parks and museums and stuff.  Know what happened?  Other people would show up and start standing behind us.

[Zera.9435]

No, we do not. Twitch is not any worthwhile metric. Neither is Steam. 'Popular streamers' are 'popular' because they jump around from game to game, riding the bandwagon of the 'newest game'. Games like GW2 require a long investment of time, and that is not something anyone on Twitch has the attention span for. That is why 'popular streamers' (who don't really matter at all) do not stream GW2. They can't afford to sit there and play the same game for extended periods of time. Their so-called audience would get bored watching them playing the same game.

GW2 is meant to be played, not watched. It is not up to us, the players, to sell the game to others. It is the job of the ArenaNet marketing team. Sure, word of mouth helps, but ultimately it's on ArenaNet to draw in new customers. Streamers are not the saviors you think they are.

The point I'm making here is that Twitch does not matter. Streamers do not matter. Steam analytics do not matter because the vast majority of players are not playing via Steam.

[DarcShriek.5829]

The only time I watch twitch is when Anet offers rewards for it.  I think we have enough streamers to handle the load.