For the viewer: Playing take a lot of energy, watching is more passive. Especially like horror games that raise your blood pressure / heartrate. Also, not everyone can afford games, some are console only, and even PC games have hardware requirements that people don’t have, because people either have a potato computer, or just have smartphone only. Also, games are hard, watching a streamer dying is kinda funny.
For the streamer: Socialization (even tho its kinda one-sided, they can still read comments / live chat), and most importantly, money.
I mean I couldn’t handle horror games even if I was just watching! The hardware stuff is valid though. I used to watch videos of this family play APB wayyy long ago since it was on PC only I think (or paid). Watching others play in a livestream just feels like blue balling yourself though.
For the viewer: Playing take a lot of energy, watching is more passive. Especially like horror games that raise your blood pressure / heartrate. Also, not everyone can afford games, some are console only, and even PC games have hardware requirements that people don’t have, because people either have a potato computer, or just have smartphone only. Also, games are hard, watching a streamer dying is kinda funny.
For the streamer: Socialization (even tho its kinda one-sided, they can still read comments / live chat), and most importantly, money.
I mean I couldn’t handle horror games even if I was just watching! The hardware stuff is valid though. I used to watch videos of this family play APB wayyy long ago since it was on PC only I think (or paid). Watching others play in a livestream just feels like blue balling yourself though.