Kinds of games YouTubers and Streamers play [For indie game developers]

Whether we developers like it or not, YouTubers and Streamers are increasingly influential in driving sales and discoverability. Here is a list of game traits we’ve seen YouTubers and Streamers play. To be picked up by these influencers its important that your game is fun, but also fun to watch. YouTubers and streamers add a layer of entertainment via their personality; we can design our games to enable these personalities to flourish.

Design for an experience, get authentic responses!

YouTube personalities want games that they can use in conjunction with their personality to achieve their goal of providing entertainment. There are many types of experiences you can shoot for to get a reaction. YouTubers and streamers often have a certain demographic that their games are appropriate for. A well-designed game is effective at getting an emotional response. These responses include; fear, anger, excitement, humor, frustration, etc.

Fear

5 Nights at Freddys was a huge success. I think the biggest reason is the amount of Youtube and streaming content that has been made for the game. The game is great at getting a reaction out of the YouTube personalities. If your game is violent or shocking, it can be effective at getting an authentic reaction.

Frustration

Games that are ridiculously hard like flappy bird and geometry dash are good at making YouTubers frustrated. A game that is beaten without much resistance doesn’t give the streamer much opportunity to be fun and entertaining. Its entertaining to watch streamers suffer at a game.

Competition

To join the ranks of streamers and YouTubers in the competitive realm… Your game needs to first be a game they would want to play competitively. Unless your game is the next Counterstrike, Hearthstone or LoL, do not expect the competitive Twitch players to play your game.

Social

Games that provide a means for streamers to interact with their community makes the stream itself much more engaging. Fans love to be involved in the twitch streams and have a voice. Some games allow some delay time where the streamer can ask fans for suggestions. Hearthstone has seen a lot of action on youtube and streams, the personas can talk you through their thought process as they are playing. On Twitch there is opportunity for fans to interact and provide suggestions of what moves the streamer should do next. I personally feel like there is a ton of potential for interactive games that are meant to be played live on twitch.

Provocative or Critical

Some games have a serious or provocative themes that appeal to some bigger game critics on YouTube like TotalBiscuit.

Humor

Fans enjoy watching streamers because they add value with their personality, even if they aren’t particularly skilled. If you want your games to be covered by a humorous YouTube personality — create a game that enables this persona to flourish. YouTube stars like Markiplier, PewDiePie, and Jacksepticeye have a history of playing very silly and ridiculous games.

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I hope this post has helped, let me know if I forgot anything major and I’ll add it to this post. Let us know on Twitter!