What is a Let's Play?

*Originally published on 11/18/09


There's a phenomenon that has been spreading around the Internet. Youtube has given people the means to get all sorts of exposure and gamers are taking advantage by creating something called a "Let's Play." I myself only discovered these fairly recently, but they have been around for a couple of years now.

A Let's Play is basically a gamer recording himself playing the game and providing his or her own commentary on it.

It's similar to a walk-through, but where that is instructional in nature by telling you where to go and how to get to secret areas and what have you, a Let's Play puts its focus on humor. The commentary is usually joking and heckling the game. While jokes are the backbone, a Let's Player may also throw in some hints about what is required to accomplish a certain task. Usually it's done to highlight how difficult or shockingly easy the task is.

A lot of the games are from the older classic consoles. While you could do a Let's Play on something current like a game off of the PS3 or Xbox 360, many tend to stick with either PC games or games from older consoles like the original Playstation or Genesis.

They tend to vary radically in quality. Many are good for a laugh, while others are uncomfortable and slow. If you're a big gamer and are looking for a little extra cash, you can actually make money depending on where you upload the video. I doubt it would be enough to support yourself, but as side income, it couldn't hurt.

Finding the good and the bad let's plays is a rather difficult endeavor as there are tons of them out there nowadays. Tvtropes has a whole page listing some of the better ones, and even that is quite lengthy so you can imagine how many bad ones are out there.

Emulators and save states are often used. If the game is frustrating, the player will often incorporate repeated deaths for laugh value. Still, editing is involved as a lot of raw footage is required to create an effective Let's Play.
If you are looking for new ways to procrastinate, you might want to look into finding some good Let's Plays. If you're looking for a new source of humor, I would also recommend checking them out.

These are especially appealing to gamers as they can relate to a lot of the jokes and style of humor that is used. However, being a heavy gamer is not required to enjoy the videos. I'm a casual gamer at best and I still enjoy watching them from time to time. They do tend to be rather lengthy, but they can still be quite entertaining.