Gaming Commentary: What Makes It Enjoyable?

To start off, I don't really want to hear of how much you hate pewdiepie. For those of you who enjoy gaming commentary, I'd like to know who you watch and why you watch them. What makes them different/better than others?

For those of you who hate gaming commentary, what would make you want to watch it? If you've stumbled across a terrible commentator, what makes him terrible in your eyes?

I ask this because I've been wanting to try my hand at it after I get good enough hardware. It seems fun, but I see some people that have just as many subscribers as they have videos and feel that after a certain point, they have to realize something isn't working.

Thanks!

The only gameplay commentator I watch these days is xcalizorz. He's a genuinely good player (makes the footage interesting to watch) no matter the platform and his live commentaries are hilarious once you get to know all the inside jokes. The more "deeper" commentaries are also interesting to listen to because he knows what he's talking about.

He's just simply good at what he does. As for what makes him different from others; he uploads a **** ton of material and he's the best "professional" Youtuber in terms of gaming that I've seen.

TotalBiscuit, he likes the kind of games I do so when he says the game is worth my time it makes easy to pick up games. Also his first impresions and news are helpful. When I played some of the games he did talk about what problems they had, I found exactly same problems he did warn about so I tend to believe in his comentary.

I wonder what his first videos were like. I also wonder how often he does live commentary. I suspect not very much unless he's at a convention.

I used to love Star from TF2. IIRC, he said in one of his videos he thought he became successful simply because he produced a lot of content. Personally, I think his success is due to that and that his videos are very consistent in quality and he has a real, interesting personality, rather than a lot of gimmicks. Also like poiu said, knowing your sh*t and being a good player also helps.

I like him. He's not my favorite, but definitely see the appeal. I might even be subscribed. I don't tend to watch a lot at once. I just check in once and a while with various channels.

The whole thing just fascinates me. How some people can just minimize what they do, saying they just scream into the mic and make funny faces and that's it, when even with the people that do that, it's so much more.

I think this is the very first video

it was on the bottom so I just guess it is. I haven't been watching his content since the start, I actually subscribed like 4 months ago after watching a few videos and realising this isn't another pretending to be commentary where someone tries to make a few terrible jokes for 10 minuts.

This is the oldest video on that channel.

He's so much more reserved.

Its just fun watching people play a game well that you don't own or don't know how to play / aren't good at.

You can learn from watching it while being entertained by someone.

Or if they aren't good at the game, you can laugh at them everytime they fail, and be happy when / if they do something right

Watching people fail doesn't always work, even at that people must be good to entertain otherwise it gets frustrating. Take tobuscus for example, he can easily get stuck in a room with obvious objective, personally I watch his gameplay just to hear him talk.

Having a good voice or a British accent helps. Also invest in a decent microphone. Be prepared to put in a lot of time and effort into maintaining your channel, promoting videos and making content.

I watch Markiplier, and when he gets a certain amount of "stuck" he just cuts it out and returns when he's got it.

Ah yes, one of those people who think it is necessary to scream in your face for half of the video to express their terror. It seems so retarded that it actually works to get more subscribers...

I think the hyperactive fake screaming thing works because the 13-14 year old demographic on youtube is really large.

I get that it's easy to say that screaming into a mic is all he/other related people do to get subscribers, but a lot more goes into it than just slapping up a face cam and making weird faces and sounds.

The way I see it, people don't watch commentaries to see how not scared or how unaffected people are. In fact, I hate those type of people. It's like that friend everyone has that you go to the movies with that likes to explain the unrealisticness of every scene or how stupid everything is. I've seen my fair share of youtubers that take themselves too seriously.

So it really shouldn't be surprising what works.

Personally, something I would call commentary is someone who explains their experience in game in which that person has put reasonable amount of time. It isn't about not showing feelings, it is about unnecessarily over exaggerating which stupidly enough seems to be appealing for a lot of people.

I kinda think you're comparing Totalbiscuit to Markiplier/pewdiepie/etc which, to me, is like comparing 60 Minutes to The Big Bang Theory (while unnecessarily insulting them every time, I might add).

I am talking about what I find actual commentary and what makes it watchable.

Just a lil FTFY