Guild Wars 2 needs to build it's twitch presence...but is it too late?

[King Latif.6903]

What's wrong-As we all know in the community guild wars 2 struggles to hold a significant viewership on twitch. This makes the game unappealing to not only the streamers who create the viewership but people like you and me, it makes the game LOOK dead, it makes the game LOOK like its struggling, it makes the game LOOK irrelevant. Blatantly this isn't true-https://gyazo.com/f61b7964a935e44071f0fdd3e1761917 (seems to have stabilized and even gone up since late last year, 7 years into the games lifespan these are not bad figures).

Why?- Very clearly and obviously to bring more players into game and increase the engagement and express the fact that there is a real community who love this game loyally and has done for such a long time, the franchise of Guild Wars. But, however this goes deeper- being a streamer and wanting to make a career out of it (which many try to do) is realistically impossible with Guild Wars 2. Imagine being a twitch streamer from the outside and looking into this interesting game...streaming it and losing a large sum of viewership to gain no where near the same amount of support. Not only would it be discouraging but detrimental to your lively hood and career. EVEN IF you enjoyed the game you wouldn't be able to stream consistently (granted this is a certain proportion and not 100% of streamers). A key example off this right now would be "immortal" on twitch who just recently came back to the game after 7 years(he himself doesn't even know the reason he left), watching his stream further pushed me to make this post. He spoke about how he was given great support when he played Albion and specifically spoke about how he wished to play this great game and give it a chance but he had endorsements and sponsorship which he has to hold up to, to keep growing as a streamer-https://clips.twitch.tv/ScrumptiousEnthusiasticShingleWoofer. What made this more sad for me personally was the fact he yearned the create a community in a game and not to just leech. At the end of the day i'm trying to highlight how this is a cycle. "The multiplier effect"-more viewers means more streamers which in turn means more people find streamers they enjoy and push guild wars 2 higher on twitch and ,therefore, increase its engagement from the gaming community and in turn benefiting arena net and the franchise.

How?- When it comes to the how its quite complicated as there are many ways to artificially and momentarily increase the viewership but to maintain the twitch engagement is a lot harder, regardless- here are my suggestions. Teapot being a big streamer of guild wars 2 pulls a respectable amount of views when the new raids launch, also running tournaments which gain huge traction and tend to be the times where the game hits its highest views on twitch. Of course i'm hinting at anet hosting and supporting these tournaments with gems and even posting a little message on their website or twitter etc. Yes, not massive but think about the infinitesimal effort needed to just show appreciation, it increases interest in the raids and what I would class as some of guild wars 2's best pve content. Host the mAT's... PLEASEEE!!!!!!! These automated tournaments can actually be hype and spike viewership. People are already interested and this is true as jawgeous, sindrener and teapot (as examples) all participate in these and their viewership increases by a significant amount. It isn't a lot in the big picture but if anet hosts or trys to cast these AT's along with jaw it again peaks interest into a game mode that is in fact one of guild wars 2's best features (in my opinion). PvP relies on a population to survive and thrive, in some sense its "the more the merrier". However, events are great but do not guarantee sustained viewership. Some thing that always spoken about are drops, drops are great and a plethora of other games use them in order to increase the viewership. Notably- elder scrolls online has used this and has seen a positive impact along with their new expansion "Elsweyr". This has two sides just as every other argument and some thing i want to highlight would be the type of engagement drops promote and encourage-afking and leaving as soon as your rewarded.

When?- Now, by this point if your still reading you'll probably be thinking well... its too late and anet don't care about this sort of stuff. I disagree. I'm sure most of you know about rainbow six siege, it gained it main stream popularity 2 years after it launched and of course its a completely different genre and scenario but it shows the ability to revive games. But, this needs to happen as soon as possible and as much as possible, especially with the new raid coming up there are going to be many people who will stream and anet could even help do giveaways of gems etc.

Overall- With twitch's growth(https://gyazo.com/6746b50f7ebb07fbab7e46ed610291b9) and gamers seeming to make their decision to try games out based on their "popularity" anet should think about grasping this great marketing tool and trying to push their competitive aspects of their game which are arguably pretty good.

TLDR: Anet should basically help out streamers and focus on twitch as its quite prominent to the engagement off the game.

My personal thoughts- To be honest this is on the community as much as it is on arena net and their questionable decisions and marketing ideas and marketing direction. It also lies on whether anet has another game under the covers and how long they want to go with guild wars 2... if it even matters or this whole post being completely futile and ridiculous . Some thing that would WITHOUT FAIL increase engagement over the board for this game would be a "re launch" and anet overhauling some of the detrimental problems that have plagued this game since it launched back in 2012. (I pretty much expect this to be forgotten and even tried before but I hope that some people even take the time to read it as ive been thinking its pointless but still bothered to do it).

[phs.6089]

What is there to twitch? How one goes from place to place to click on an item?

[Randulf.7614]

I'm not sure the game is well suited to twitch tv with it's intense visual noise problem nor am I convinced the game is struggling to attract people without a presence there.

It tried pushing it during its esports phase years ago. I'm not sure it really worked

[finkle.9513]

I know from a few that I have followed that ANET does next to nothing to help, its extremely hard to get a official partnership... Anet offers very little incentive or anything really... Anet clearly have no regard to making GW2 look professional or appealing for new players via Twitch exposure. Anet burnt a lot of bridges with Twitch and creators with a failed competitive PVP structure...

[AlexxxDelta.1806]

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/78663/content-creators#latest

[King Latif.6903]

@finkle.9513 said:I know from a few that I have followed that ANET does next to nothing to help, its extremely hard to get a official partnership... Anet offers very little incentive or anything really... Anet clearly have no regard to making GW2 look professional or appealing for new players via Twitch exposure. Anet burnt a lot of bridges with Twitch and creators with a failed competitive PVP structure...

indeed :C

[Aeolus.3615]

Gw2 is so easy to play and so scrub friendly that every one would sleep in gw2 streams....

Gw2 streams are not worth... the game design and balance do not fit in favor of streaming content.

[King Latif.6903]

@Randulf.7614 said:I'm not sure the game is well suited to twitch tv with it's intense visual noise problem nor am I convinced the game is struggling to attract people without a presence there.

It tried pushing it during its esports phase years ago. I'm not sure it really worked

I think it is definitely streamable and no no, i mean that it helps the game to grow. Suppose so but the game is very different to what it was back then.

[Aeolus.3615]

@King Latif.6903 said:

@Randulf.7614 said:I'm not sure the game is well suited to twitch tv with it's intense visual noise problem nor am I convinced the game is struggling to attract people without a presence there.

It tried pushing it during its esports phase years ago. I'm not sure it really worked

I think it is definitely streamable and no no, i mean that it helps the game to grow. Suppose so but the game is very different to what it was back

I’m wondering what makes u feel game is streamable.U can stream anything, tho that does not meant game has content that worth’s streaming that will lure players, gw2 is known even to be a bad pvp game... well for some reason they failed ESL as much commenters were good, really good, a lot of comments were about how fast health was down, it’s way to fast paced and very poor in mechanics, and pve is dull to be streamed since everything is based on rotations than actually know what is happening.Wvw would just be streaming ktrains and pvd..

Imo not worth to be whatched on stream twichtch or whatsoever.

[Ragnarox.9601]

my twitch account was hacked, was secured with really complicated password, deleted it and never came back.

[kasoki.5180]

The game is borderline unwatchable unless you are already proficient in the game. Its not just the visual noise but the overall ebb and flow of the combat. Not to mention such details like boons and condis or class-specific mechanics that can drastically change the outcome of the combat but can very often be missed by spectator unless they know what they are looking at.

Simply put, if you are new or potential player, watching GW2 endgame is like watching explosion of colours with no context.

[Cyndercat.7615]

@King Latif.6903 said:

@Randulf.7614 said:I'm not sure the game is well suited to twitch tv with it's intense visual noise problem nor am I convinced the game is struggling to attract people without a presence there.

It tried pushing it during its esports phase years ago. I'm not sure it really worked

I think it is definitely streamable and no no, i mean that it helps the game to grow. Suppose so but the game is very different to what it was back then.

I disagree. Gw2 is 7 years old so growing isnt a main priority. Retaining current players is much more important. Large content drops are much better at this than any streaming platform and thats where gw2's focus is. You rarely seen 7 yr old games on twitch unless they are purely competitve or have a speedrunning community. I dont think any other older games suffer for this either.

Gw2 has massive visual overload and very few compettive aspects which makes it a pretty horrible game to stream. If anything the game has gotten worse with regards to streaming than what it was when they tried to push it. yes it has leaderboards now but power creep has become a massive problem that hasnt been addressed and people arent going to be interested in watching a non balanced game.

[Eddbopkins.2630]

This game is so visually cluttered that new people watching a stream have no way to pick out who is casting what and how that perticular spell/move impacts the fight.For people who play the game its all readable, but why watch the game your playing? Why not just play it.

If i could remove all mesmer effect, including clone/phantasams i would and any purple visuals it creates, as well as all necro scourge circle spam, and firebrand tome visuals need to go.These are the biggest culprits to me.

[Klipso.8653]

Yes, it's too late. The only kind of community you can rebuild in a 6 year old game are those who played before. The games reputation of year content drought after HoT and unfilled advertised content (gen 2 legendaries took 4 years )harms new prospects

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

As we all know in the community guild wars 2 twitch struggles to hold a significant viewership on twitch with GW2Fixed that.

This is not a problem for GW2 as much as it's a problem for people who like Twitch and GW2, expecting Twitch to accommodate a game like GW2.

[finkle.9513]

How many comments "its boring" "its not watchable" Its no different to loads of other game, and numbers show that what you say is not true, ESO is in my opinion is boring, loads of generic questing games are boring, yet ESO has 18k Twitch and GW2 has 818.... what you are offering are excuses, we need to have a intelligent conversation about this!

[Obtena.7952]

So in a game that is primarily appealing to the casual player with limited time to play ... it's a problem there isn't enough GW2 content on twitch? Why? Do you think the casual gamer is watching these games instead of playing them with their limited playtime?

Does GW2/Anet need to care about this? How does it impact their business?

[Westenev.5289]

Next time you run a PvP match, try to spectate vocally on what's going on around you (what people are doing, what they are thinking, what they might do next). Try to point out key plays as they happen, and point out some obvious mistakes.

I don't think gw2 is unwatchable, it's just unexplainable. Fighting is often decided by reactions, ping and cheese builds rather than any tactic or reasoning.

[Emberheart.8426]

I am truly tired of all this negativity. There is no reason for Anet not to try to grow the twitch scene. Remember when Lazy Peon gave attention to this game? It was a pretty big deal and you had a decent amount of new players. Even something as small as black lion key giveaways could help grow the scene. It takes no effort to have giveaways like that, so not doing them is a serious waste.

[Trise.2865]

@"finkle.9513" said:How many comments "its boring" "its not watchable" Its no different to loads of other game, and numbers show that what you say is not true, ESO is in my opinion is boring, loads of generic questing games are boring, yet ESO has 18k Twitch and GW2 has 818.... what you are offering are excuses, we need to have a intelligent conversation about this!

GW2 has 2 million players and ESO has 32,000. People are more curious about games they can't or will never play than games they're already playing.

[Yamazuki.6073]

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

As we all know in the community

guild wars 2

twitch struggles to hold a significant viewership

on twitch

with GW2Fixed that.

This is not a problem for GW2 as much as it's a problem for people who like Twitch and GW2, expecting Twitch to accommodate a game like GW2.

It makes no sense to say Twitch needs to accommodate a game like GW2, when there's MMORPGs that do better than GW2 does in terms of views and number of streamers. Most excuses listed in this thread applies to other games that also do better. The only games that don't suffer from issues GW2 does are the competitive pvp games designed to actually be spectated. This statement also suggests it is Twitch's fault (or those who use the service) for GW2's low viewership, even though it isn't.

ArenaNet only tried to gain views in the sense they tried pushing E-sports for GW2, E-Sports on a game that was in no way, shape, or form, designed to even be a competitive pvp game.

It's not as if you need to be part of a Twitch community to even acknowledge how ArenaNet made the mistakes themselves, I don't watch any Streamers (nor care to), it's just a matter of being willing to look beyond your own personal interests.

[Substance E.4852]

It was always too late.

This game is more often than not, a blob of skill visuals diarrhea that's unpleasant to look at even for people who know what's going on.

@"finkle.9513" said:How many comments "its boring" "its not watchable" Its no different to loads of other game, and numbers show that what you say is not true, ESO is in my opinion is boring, loads of generic questing games are boring, yet ESO has 18k Twitch and GW2 has 818.... what you are offering are excuses, we need to have a intelligent conversation about this!

Probably because ESO is a gorgeous game with easy to follow combat and depth to it's pve experience that makes for good viewing.

It also had brand recognition. Everyone knows what Skyrim is.

You mention Guild Wars to people and you'll get a mix of "I don't know what that is" and "is that game still going?".

[finkle.9513]

Is it so hard to go on twitch and look a what "terrible to watch games" terrible games in general have way more viewers then GW2. Just go Twitch > Browse, Two steps, If you truly cant be bothered yet insist on commenting here are some:Heathstone - Watching a card game !!!!!! 21k viewersPath of exile - old like gw2, and repetitive beyond belief - 12.4k viewsTibia - 986 views - online game, yet has more views - bad game!Last night Diablo 3 had more viewers lol... and the peoples arguments here are screen mess with skills, and boring old content !!!

[Rukario.1695]

One main reason the game isn't streamed is due to horrible optimization. Trying to stream along with that, significant FPS drops, and lag without any excuse... There are many reasons not to stream Fashion Wars 2.

I'm also just not a fan of Twitch. If I wanted to watch a game, I would watch prerecordings on YouTube where I can skip ahead.

Not to mention I seriously find Twitch to lack any reason for me to even look at the homepage itself. I haven't been there in years, for anything.

What I'm saying is, Twitch doesn't control anything. Even if a game is popular on Twitch doesn't mean the game is any more or less active in reality.

Maybe people watch because they can't afford the games or subscription models, or maybe they don't have the internet connection to play online.. In either case, these are very niche and I believe that's why Twitch streams rarely get the same viewership you would see on other platforms.

Guild Wars has always been successful without mediocre streaming exposure.

[Dawdler.8521]

GW2 is more fun to actually play than it is to watch.

It's quite unfortunate.