FF14 Twitch numbers suck for a reason

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Originally Posted by kpxmanifesto

Possibly. My perception was the exact opposite. When EW first came out I noticed that FFXIV viewer counts on twitch were still quite low, and some people hypothesized that it was because no one wanted to see spoilers. But I also noticed when DSR was released, FFXIV viewer counts were pretty high, like in the top two rows of games when sorted by high to low viewer count.

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I don't watch FFXIV content creators at all, but I know I've heard of massive viewer drop off when a lot of these streamers get through the MSQ. I think a lot of players like to see people's reactions. Of course world first races for something like an Ultimate are also some of the most popular, I think they are also the same in WoW. During EW launch, if that's how it was, I'd say it's because the people watching FF content are players themselves, and they were going through the story, so, yeah, they wanted to avoid spoilers, but they were also playing the game.

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Originally Posted by SturmChurro

I don't watch FFXIV content creators at all, but I know I've heard of massive viewer drop off when a lot of these streamers get through the MSQ. I think a lot of players like to see people's reactions.

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Yeah for sure. When Asmongold first started playing FFXIV last year he had like 230,000 viewers on his first day, and FFXIV skyrocketed to the top 3 viewed games on twitch. So many people were on his server to see him play that he couldn't even zone into Limsa. Asmon himself said that FFXIV MSQ is pretty much react content, and when he returns to the game we just might see that spike in popularity for FFXIV again.

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Originally Posted by kpxmanifesto

Yeah for sure. When Asmongold first started playing FFXIV last year he had like 230,000 viewers on his first day, and FFXIV skyrocketed to the top 3 viewed games on twitch. So many people were on his server to see him play that he couldn't even zone into Limsa. Asmon himself said that FFXIV MSQ is pretty much react content, and when he returns to the game we just might see that spike in popularity for FFXIV again.

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I don't know if the spike in popularity will be as large, I kind of doubt it, at the time FF was kind of a new game for a lot of these players, and a lot of FF players were excited to see FF being played by large creators. Of course, many here didn't want anything to do with them, Asmongold specifically.. (I'm sure they still watched :p).

While the game is largely uninteresting to watch, a lot of it really is due to the regular FF content creators just not being interesting at all. It's largely why I don't watch any FF content. It typically comes off as awkward, or just boring.

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Originally Posted by SturmChurro

While the game is largely uninteresting to watch, a lot of it really is due to the regular FF content creators just not being interesting at all. It's largely why I don't watch any FF content. It typically comes off as awkward, or just boring.

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That's very much true. The content is only as entertaining as its creator, IMO. I watch Asmon even when he plays games that I don't play, like wow and Lost Ark, and it's still entertaining because he's a good streamer.

I don't watch other people I don't know play video games, so my knowledge of all this is limited, but I think it's possible that exposure of a certain kind can also be a form of negative advertising.

There's the obvious thing that occurs with people streaming novel-like games with no gameplay, where people experiencing it once don't find a need to go and buy it themselves to play. But also the first thing that comes to my mind is how much the mainstream gamer makes fun of MMOs for their atrocious GUIs that focus on performance instead of aesthetics - this is so much worse with serious players who cover their screens in buttons to the point they can barely see the action, and I could see the way the game comes off to an outsider completely turning them off from trying it for themselves. Also, if a streamer were to complain about someone else's performance due to seeing parsing information, I think that could also turn someone off of trying the game for themselves, like "why would I want to play a game where everyone is going to be angry with me until I'm an expert?"

Again, I have little authority on understanding the balance between the two, but I don't think it's as simple as "more people streaming = more sales."