Fortress: Ameritrash Vow #1

Yeah, I don't get the unboxing thing. I mean, spend your free time however you want, yo. If it's entertaining to watch other people take something out of a box, I guess it is. Whatever floats your boat.

But watching other people that are really talented play videogames like Heroes of the Storm or other MOBAs or FPSs, etc. is called entertainment for a reason. Isn't that like watching other people that are really talented play basketball/football/soccer? I watch Cloud9 play Heroes in the world championships for the same reason I watch Liverpool in the EPL. I can't play that well and I find it entertaining to watch other people who are play against other really talented people who are. How is it wrongfun to see two teams competing? Unless you're one of the idiots who thinks esports can't be real sports because anyone can do it?

The day you can put 40,000 fans in a stadium to see your championships, I think you've passed the point of "anyone can do it" or comparing it to some jackoff doing their unboxing of the new version of T&E on BGG. The comparison is a bit misplaced.

I dunno, the Teens React series is pretty funny. Playing PunchOut! For the first time, or Super Mario Bros, or drinking Moonshine. I find that stuff funny but I hate all other react vids. I think it's cuz some of the teens are insanely cute.

:..i'm seeing a theme here on what floats my boat

haha I'm only joshing with you Barnesy, I totally agree with you. I actually have no idea how unboxing videos in particular not only got going but became so popular that theres a whole cottage industry of it. Its cringeworthy

(I'm generally pretty shit at videogames, but I quite enjoyed sitting and watching my brother get through all the tough single player games in the old days before the internet, you know, the 80s and shit, there was no world wide online multiplayer then)

I will partially cede the point about watching competitive video games- like fighting games, MOBAs etc. because I understand the drama, the competition, the skill level on display, the prize stakes and so forth. I get that. I still laugh when I hear people call esports players "athletes" (come the fuck on), but I think that is all very different than watching some guy in a headset chattering away while he builds something in Minecraft or plays through an entire game. It's the whole "Let's Play" phenomenon that's the issue.

I'm totally with you on the language stuff. Competitive gamers aren't "athletes", per se. There is a certain level of mental fortitude involved, but I don't think pro chess or poker players are "athletes", either. As for watching some dude play Minecraft, I get that that's not something that entertains you. But I've watched Trump play Hearthstone quite a bit, not just because he's better at the game than I am and I really enjoyed the game (I'm kind of off it, at the moment) but also because he, personally, is fairly entertaining. I usually flip on one of his videos while I'm cooking dinner or eating it.

I thought watching Twitch streams was dumb until I tried it. Now I watch hafu play Hearthstone all the time (she's the consistently best arena player around) and kronovi and others do shit in Rocket League I will never be able to do.

Also I'd much rather my daughter watch (appropriate) funny people on Youtube play Minecraft (and get into Minecraft as a result!) then watch TV. Not even close.

IMO the jillions of kids' unboxing videoson Youtube are much more worthy of a rant. Basically giant long ads. I only let my kid watch ones where they play with the item and even then I wasn't real comfortable with it. Sure enough she got interested in Shopkins, the worst "toys" ever made. On the plus side lots of good learning came out of it when she bought Shopkins with her own money and discovered how lame they were.

I could MAYBE deal with onboxing videos if they were pretty short. I mean, by the time I decide to buy a game, I pretty much know whats in the box. When I actually get the thing and tear off the shrink wrap, unless it some huge ass wargame with 2000 counters and 6 maps, I can go through the contents in like 2-3 minutes. So when some fucktard is making an unboxing video that is 15 minutes long, hell no. I don't give a flying fucking whether the shrink wrap is thicker or thinner than the last game, or whether they used 24 weight cardboard or 36 weight cardboard on the box. What takes so long for these idiots on the videos, besides being in love with themselves, is beyond me.

iguanaDitty wrote: I thought watching Twitch streams was dumb until I tried it. Now I watch hafu play Hearthstone all the time (she's the consistently best arena player around) and kronovi and others do shit in Rocket League I will never be able to do.

I recommend ratsmah too, if onyl because he and Hafu play so differently. She is a very value-oriented player, and makes value-oriented decks. ratsmah is far more aggressive and will make picks that can be jarring. I've seen him take the 5/2 Charge guy over Boulderfist Ogre and he played Ice Rager yesterday to great effect. He's been in tryhard mode recently once someone started posting his win rates around the whole 100-in-10 thing. He did a lot of Chat-picks Arenas and things like that, but once folks compared his win rates to others he got pissed and rattled off 92-in-10.

Outside of Twitch, I don't watch a ton of videos in general. I watch some movie trailers. I watch videos of dudes getting barbershop treatment to relax sometimes. I watch essentially zero boardgame-related videos. I did watch one about how to pack EARTH REBORN back into its box though, that's important viewing. A "boxing" video, as it were. But I don't get to pick what other folks find fun or entertaining. I know I am on the outside of the vast majority of mass entertainment, and it seems really weird for me to "yuck someone else's yum" in that regard.

I would watch interested in watching Barnes' reaction to unboxing videos.

Some people's "yum" tastes like peanut butter and chocolate. Some people's "yum" tastes like pickled shit. I'm not about to pretend like pickled shit doesn't taste like pickled shit just to be politically correct or "nice".

Nazis- "hey man, don't yuck their yum!"
Serial killers- "hey man, don't yuck their yum!"
Juggalos- "hey man, don't yuck their yum!"

Peanut butter tastes like shit. That you feed that swill to your kids is outrageous.

Also congratulations on Godwining a thread about which exact total wastes of times are approved by niche nerd community #88.

Space Ghost wrote: Sin Zero is actually Making a Video Review

Sin -1 is watching it.

Some video reviews are worth watching, to get a sense of a game before buying it, where seeing it visually described is sometimes a better measure than just reading about it. I disagree with Barnes about SU&SD, because there is a certain kind of confidence they have in their videos and how they explain and describe things that is of a professional caliber. It's not just some guy in front of a game wall gabbing about his nitpicks, but a real thoughtful and pointed approach to the game and the experience.

I confess to being guilty of Sin Zero, having made a few review/how-to-play videos of co-op games back in 2009 or so. But I quickly realized a few things, namely that I sucked at it, and gave no real personality or voice to them; I spent an inordinate amount of time on them when I should have been doing other things; and there wasn't a well-defined purpose to making them other than being another way of doing something obsessive and "I'm supporting the hobby" about it.

I do think "how to play" videos can be valuable, as if you were sitting at a table with someone teaching you the game, but in that case, let it be just that, and specifically focused on accomplishing that. What we get are people who show you about 2/3 of how to play (often laboriously so), and then blab about their thoughts on the game.

Not all reaction videos are bad:

Ancient_of_MuMu wrote: Not all reaction videos are bad:

That's not a true reaction video, as I do not LIKE reaction videos and I like that one. .

If there were no unboxing videos, how could any of us be sure, I mean really sure, that the rulebook included was not just a bit colour, but FULL COLOUR. So I think these videos are actually a vitally important service in avoiding distress in potential game buying sommeliers.

Also, I concur about peanut butter. It is shit. I can believe you feed it to your kids, they eat any old shit, but that grown ups not only eat it but make sandwiches out of it by adding fucking jam (which for some bizarro arse reason you renamed to jelly, WHY I mean why, was this some kind of extra poke in the eye statement of independence against the Great and Glorious British Empire) is a level higher outrageous, even higher than the fact that over there adult humans drink fucking fizzy pop, by choice, with enthusiasm to accompany multiple meals almost every day. No, wait a minute, thats not right. The soda thing is way worse, and fucking weird.