YouTube: Ruining Surprises For Everyone

YouTube is rife with videos that ruin surprises for everyone, whether it's an unboxing-video, or a Let's Play. I understand why they're so popular. People, especially children, cannot buy everything they want, so they try to experience it vicariously through watching videos. This may placate the masses, but is it good for them?

Gaming is an interactive medium, but with the explosive popularity of Let's Plays and eSports, it has also developed spectator-friendly quality. This might be good for broadening the appeal and reach of videogames, but it is not necessarily increasing sales or increasing the value of actually playing games.

The most fun one can have with a videogame is achieved by actually playing it oneself. A lot of people are skipping that part and just watching someone else play. He or she is going to be less-inclined to purchase that game after he or she is done watching the entire Let's Play. How does this help game-companies?

I'm sure that there are some sales that occur after someone watches a Let's Play, but how many are lost? The greatest thing about videogames is experiencing it for yourself. In the case of an RPG, if you watch an entire Let's Play of it before you play it yourself, you're going to be spoiled on the story, which is arguably the most important part in the genre. Even if you purchase the game later on and play it for yourself, when you encounter that plot-twist, you are not gonna be surprised.

Of course, viewer-responsibility comes into play; you must control your own viewing-habits. In the case of children, however, one cannot reasonably expect them to control their viewing-habits in their own self-interests. They will be attracted to a click-bait title, or be so invested in a Let's Play that he or she will watch it to completion, unknowingly sabotaging any future experience they could have had playing the game by themselves.

Saying that the responsibility is all on the viewer is very naive, lazy, and irresponsible. Instead of solely serving our own self-interests by attempting to increase a video's view-count, we should instead think of the videogame-industry as a whole, and the children that may be affected by ruining surprises.