Playing vs. Watching: Where Nuance Goes to Die

on this week's episode of absolutely stupid mindnumbing twitter discourse that pisssed emmy off today: can you truly call yourself a fan of a video game without playing it yourself?

it's always quite fun when discussions like this pop up on social media, especially twitter. when you're working with a character limit, or are generally trying to condense your points as much as possible to make it palettable, it can be very easy for anything even slightly close to resembling nuance to slip through the cracks, as sweeping generalizations and reactionary takes remove any and all chances of people having a productive conversation online.

as video games are one of my longest running special interests, i get a lot of content related to the games i like on my feed, as well as the general culture surrounding video games as a medium. as such, my entire twitter feed for the past day or two has been about the absolutely riveting topic of watching people play video games. more specifically, the meaning of watching people play video games as an experience. and even more specifically, whether or not people who watch other people play video games can call themselves 'real fans.'

whatever that means.

as with most stupid internet arguments, this discourse can be split into two primary factions. the first consists of those who believe playing a game for yourself is integral to understanding a game, and by not playing a game you cannot call yourself a fan of it, or, in extreme cases, a fan of video games in general. the second faction is composed of people who believe that there are a multitude of reasons a person might not play a video game, and not playing a game does not inherently lock you out of reaching supposed 'fan' status. obviously, there are many different opinions and explanations among people within these different camps, but these are the general sentiments i've seen over and over on my timeline.

in regards to this discourse, i hold the same general sentiment i have towards a lot of online discourse, primarily the kind that circulates on twitter: i think it depends. perhaps i'm the fool trying to discuss nuance in twitter's discourse of the week, but as a certified (or maybe uncertified, if we're going off of the twitter rules for media fandomhood) video game enjoyer, this is a subject i feel very passionate about. it's one i can't bring myself to take one firm "watching gameplay = good" or "watching gameplay = bad" stance on, because when it comes to an art medium as diverse as the world of video games, it really, truly does depend!

a couple months ago, as part of a critical game studies class i'm taking, i read a chapter from john dewey's "art as experience". while predating the first video games by roughly anywhere from 10 to 40 years, dewey's defintion of the experience and how it pertains to art is particularly applicable to discussions around video games as a medium of art. to have an experience (as opposed to simply experiencing something), it must have qualities that impact you in a positive or negative manner. it must be something you can reflect on the ways in which it affected you, or, for the more analytical types, how you perceive it as a contribution to a greater whole. this reflection does not neccessarily have to occur after the experience as ceased; it can be cocurrent with the experience as it is, well, experienced. most relevant to the topic of video games, however, is the notion that an experience generally involves some element of interactivity. video games are a form of interactive media, after all!

It is not possible to divide in a vital experience the practical, emotional, and intellectual from one another and to set the properties of one over against the characteristics of the others. The emotional phase binds parts together into a single whole; “intellectual” simply names the fact that the experience has meaning; “practical” indicates that the organism is interacting with events and objects which surround it. The most elaborate philosophic or scientifie inquiry and the most ambitious industrial or political enterprise has, when its different ingredients constitute an integral experience, esthetic quality. For then its varied parts are linked to one another, and do not merely succeed one another. And the parts through their experienced linkage move toward a consummation and close, not merely to cessation in time. This consummation, moreover, does not wait in consciousness for the whole undertaking to be finished. It is anticipated throughout and is recurrently savored with special intensity.
— Dewey, 1934, p. 55

this excerpt is interesting to me as dewey describes having an experience with art as 'consumption,' a word people will absolutely lose their minds over if you dare use it in any media-related context these days. this is not the reason i chose to include it nor is it directly relevant to the conversation at hand, i just thought i would highlight it.

so, if interaction is the cornerstone of video games, that means watching a let's play isn't a real way to experience a video game! …right?

well, no. at least, i don't think so. again, i truly believe that it depends! i highlight my reading of dewey here not to center my thesis around it, but to establish a definition for an experience as it pertains to video games as an art medium.

obviously, the concept of video games as interactive media centers around the connection between the player and the game, how inputs on a controller change what's happening on screen. i'm not going to pretend that this is not the core of what makes video games a unique art form, nor neglect how integral it is to practicality of video games as an experience.

there are many games, entire genres, even, that you cannot truly experience, just by watching someone else play. fighting games and platformers, for example, hinge on the idea that you are playing. you aren't really able to experience these games if you aren't playing them for yourself. there's no point if you're just watching someone play, right?

…right?

imagine this, if you will. you're a teenager in the early 90s, and your mom just dropped you off at the local arcade. you're walking through the building, your path illuminated only by neon lights and glowing screens. it smells like pizza and sweat and wood, and there's tons of kids your age and younger scattered throughout the complex. the quarters you scavanged from around the house jingle in your pocket as you look at all the different cabinets. of course, most of the good games have long lines. near the back, where you can faintly catch the whiff of cigarette stink, a large crowd has gathered around one of the cabinets. you push your way to the front to see a kid around your age in front of the mortal kombat cabinet. when he hits a good combo, the crowd cheers. when he gets hit by his opponent, they all boo. in time, you find yourself cheering and booing along with them. the sights and sounds of the game fill your senses, and you feel a sense of community with not only the boy playing, but the rest of the kids in the crowd as well. when your mom picks you up later that evening, all you can think about is how exhilarating it all was, even if you didn't play the game yourself.

though you did not play mortal kombat, you interacted with it in a manner that holds meaning to you. you had an experience.

but that's not a real experience, you may think. you can't possibly call yourself a fan of mortal kombat just by watching someone else play it. and to that, well, you could be right, or you could be wrong. it's probably a bit nonsencial to consider yourself a fan of a game after a singular experience watching someone play it. but what if you, that same random teenager from the 90s, went back to that arcade? went back to the mortal kombat cabinent in the back that smells like cigarettes, went back to watch that same boy, or maybe a different kid, play the game with a crowd around him. maybe you went back again. and again. maybe you began to learn about the different characters, the plot, the minigames, the strategies. maybe the local arcade gets a cabinet of the second game, and you watch kids play that one as well. would you still not be able to call yourself a fan?

maybe, or maybe not. after all, 'being a fan' is a constructed, very subjective concept. from an enjoyment of a particular piece of media or franchise perspective, you would probably qualify. but from an engagement with video games as a hobby perspective, you probably wouldn't. it all depends on how you look at it, really.

i think people, particularly those who fall into the "watching gameplay = bad" camp, really fixate on what level of engagement qualifies someone as a fan or enjoyer or whatever term they want to use. in doing so, however, they neglect the many reasons someone may not want to, or even be able to, play a video game. especially on that able to front. i've seen plenty of people dismiss the explanations provided by disabled people, particularly those with limited dexterity, as to why they are unable to play video games and opt to watch playthroughs instead (people dismissing disabled people on the internet, fork found in kitchen).

additionally, some people just don't have the financial resources to buy all of the games they want, not to mention the required hardware. which, yes, emulation and piracy exist, but most people would rather shame and brush off others than provide them with the resources to utilize emulation. not to mention, emulation and piracy can only get you so far. "but being a hobbyist means investing time and money in the hobby!" you may also cry, but like… what is the benefit to having an expensive, inaccessible hobby other than elitism? genuine question.

beyond personal circumstances, there are some situations where entire games cannot be experienced by a general audience. one common case is that of the 'game with no localization outside of a specific region with one or few offical language options.'

let me provide another anecdote for this one. this time, a personal one! in the olden days (2018~2019), before the great ace attorney had an official english release, the only real ways to experience the game's story was through a fandubbed let's play, a let's play with subs (there were definitely other ones out at the time, but this is the main one i remember), or a fan translation that you could only play with a modded 3ds (before the console was fully dead/3ds modding was less popular/3ds emulation wasn't as developed) or buying/tracking down the .apk of the android version. as such, english readers who were interested in the great ace attorney had to either use machine translation software to read the text, figure out a way to play the fan translation, or watch a let's play.

i was absolutely head over heels for this game back in the day. i still am, actually. i bought the switch release of chronicles shortly after it came out and recently picked it up on steam as well. now that i have a modded 3ds, i've also… accquired. the original 3ds releases and patched them in order to play the fan translation that got me into the games. you could make a point that, since i've played the games now, this anecdote is irrevelant, but in 2019? i, and many others, fell in love with this game we could not play via watching someone else play. as a decently active member of the ace attorney fandom pre-covid, i can say a solid 99% of the community had never actually played the game, but through let's plays, we were able to experience and develop a connection with it. sure, i might not have been able to truly experience the game until it was offically localized in 2021, but that did not stop me from being a fan.

truly, at the end of the day, none of this really matters. unless someone is making claims about a game's gameplay without playing it themselves, or are attempting to write a review, i don't think there's a point in shaming someone for choosing to watch someone else play a game, because that can be an experience in of itself. everyone engages with/consumes/experiences/whatever media differently, and sometimes people will experience video games in a way you might not like. and maybe it's pointless for me to say this when the internet's word of the week has been larp for the past like, five weeks in a row, but i don't think there's a point in dictating who can and can't be a fan of something. perhaps it would be more productive for us to focus on what makes the experience of watching someone play a video game different from playing it yourself, and exchange perspectives on our experiences with each. but maybe i'm just a bit too idealistic for the wild west of the modern internet.