Saarland University Fachrichtung 4.3 – English, American and Anglophone Studies Summer Semester 2014 Master Thesis Examiners: Prof. Norrick & Prof. Diemer
Interactional Practices in Let’s Play Videos 01.08.2014 Daniel Recktenwald
[email protected]
Table of Contents 1. Introduction
01
2. Origin and Development of Let’s Plays
03
3. Let’s plays and YouTube – Community meets distribution
08
3.1 From Puppy to Juggernaut
09
3.2 About the You in YouTube
10
3.3 YouTube’s layout and features
13
4. The Play in Let’s Plays
23
4.1 play, games and the magic circle
23
4.2 video games
25
4.2.1 Skyrim and the Computer
26
4.2.2 Skyrim as a High Fantasy Role Tale
29
4.2.3 Skyrim the Role Playing Game
35
4.2.4 Skyrim’s Game Design
37
4.3 Summary – Skyrim the video game
39
5. The Us in Let’s Plays
39
6. A Frame Analysis of Let’s Play Videos
43
6.1 Data and Transcription
44
6.2 Let’s Player to Audience Interaction
46
6.3 Meta Commentary by the Let’s Player
63
6.4 Interactions with Non-Player Characters
71
7. All frames considered References
81
1. Introduction Let’s plays are a new and very popular internet phenomenon forming part YouTube’s and gamer culture. In these Let’s Play videos, the so-called Let’s Players engage with their audience and the game. In doing so, they interact in different participation frameworks. The following paper sets out to identify and describe the properties of those frames.
Let’s Play videos are recordings of video games with live commentary, uploaded on YouTube for other viewers to watch for their enjoyment. This very basic definition does not encompass all of the features or different types of Let’s Plays. However, it is broad enough to cover almost all videos that are considered Let’s Plays and it provides an overview of its most important components.
Metaphorically Let’s Plays are similar to onions; both consist of several interrelated
complex layers.
Fig. 1: The Let’s Play Onion and its different layers
Individual sections of this paper will explore and elaborate on the different layers. This is done for feasibility but also analytical purposes. A reductionist approach dissects the phenomenon
into manageable parts. This common academic practice allows for a fine grained description and analysis of the individual parts and how they relate to each other.
In their present form Let’s Plays are video recordings with live commentary but the format looked somewhat different in the past. Therefore, section 2 of the paper will be dedicated to the history and growth of Let’s Play videos. This growth in popularity is intimately linked with YouTube and its success. Section 3 will highlight the most important YouTube features from the aspects of content distribution and user interaction. The development of Let’s Plays and YouTube is essential but Let’s Plays are more than just videos. They are defined not just by their video character, but also the elements of play and the game itself. A deeper understanding of Let’s Plays requires knowledge of the games themselves. Section 4 will describe the issue and introduce concepts required for the analysis. The dissection of Let’s Plays from all these perspectives provides support for the analyses. In section 5 the paper will discuss Goffman’s participation framework and how it relates to the analytical tools used in the case study. The main body of the paper is section 6. In this section, the analysis will apply all these insights to carefully transcribed examples of Let’s Play videos. The analysis will peel the onion and propose a three-legged pattern of interaction between Let’s Player, game and YouTube audience. Section 7 summarizes the findings and highlights the main differences between the three frames. The section also discusses some remaining issues, points of criticism and potential future projects.
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