Why does GW not have a big streaming community?

[Arton Leirra.9760]

Specifically, Twitch.

 

Personally I enjoy watching twitch streamers. It's a great way to chill (for me at least) pick up tips and have a chat with people surrounding a common interest. I was surprised when looking at how inactive the streaming community is when it comes to GW2.

 

At the time of writing this, current active viewers-

 

WoW; 20,776

OSRS; 8,328

GW2; 481

 

Just wondering if anyone has any thoughts to why this is? Is it the obvious one that there's not a 'big streamer' who plays GW2?

 

Community seems strong both in game and on forums so I wonder why it's not transferring into streaming? Any Ideas?

 

Also I'm new in game and to forums so apologies if I've missed something glaringly obvious.

 

[AgentMoore.9453]

It's more fun to play the game yourself in most cases.

[AlexxxDelta.1806]

Because it doesn't work well for streaming. Unlike more traditional mmorpgs GW2 is very fast paced and the overabundance of flashy skills and effects makes it really hard for an outside viewer to understand what is happening on screen. Sometimes it's hard even for us, players, to understand what is happening on screen, many big boss battles look like seizure-inducing light blobs. Imagine watching that from the outside.

 

I have to say though, I'm surprised by the WoW and Runescape numbers you posted, I'd expect them to be higher than GW2 but not by that much. I guess you can explain WoW numbers just from being WoW, always the outlier that doesn't work for comparisons. But the Runescape numbers look surprisingly high.

[Jethro.9376]

Sometimes GW2 reaches more than 1k viewers. (Mostly on resets and weekends in general)

[mortrialus.3062]

There's definitely something to be said about GW2's playerbase's general lack of drive to make content about the game. It seems like a much, much smaller proportion of the community are eager to make content, be it fan art, fan fiction, youtube videos, streaming, and less interested in consuming outside material about the game.

[Amaranthe.3578]

> @"mortrialus.3062" said:

> There's definitely something to be said about GW2's playerbase's general lack of drive to make content about the game. It seems like a much, much smaller proportion of the community are eager to make content, be it fan art, fan fiction, youtube videos, streaming, and less interested in consuming outside material about the game.

 

Its not surprising at all. The game is designed, almost exclusively, for people who plat very casually. These people dont create content :)

[Zenith.7301]

Because the content cadence is abysmal for challenging instanced content with little replayability as GW2 doesn't have anything like WoW's M+ records, and GW2's visual clutter and complete lack of mod support for UI customization and combat cooldown/information tracking makes spectating and distinguishing what's going on pretty bad.

 

GW2 also has horrendous and gimmicky PvE class balance and PvP is not that much better, so people get really bored with a really stale combat system in which all you do is trivially fart out boons and skip boss mechanics with power creeped DPS spec bumrushes.

 

Most bosses are killed in less than 5 minutes, some might go up to 7 minutes. FFXIV savage mode fights can go as long as 20+ minutes and WoW mythic encounters also go past the 10+ minute mark.

 

The other games also have clear role demarcations so people can watch how healers triage or how tanks manage cooldowns and aggro with the offtank while picking up adds. Positioning is also key in other games whereas in GW2 you just stack with maybe a healer and a tank being away from the stack to handle a mechanic.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

too many effects, too little players.

[Leablo.2651]

Well yes, it's about a lack of big streamers. But that in turn is at least partly because Anet has never made any real effort to court them. They also have not done anything with Twitch itself, either through Twitch Prime promotions or the Twitch Drops system that games like Warframe have used extensively, often breaking the 10k viewer mark during an active campaign. Another feature that regularly bumps viewer interest are tournaments, which Anet stopped supporting a while ago, though it could be argued that PvP in this game is too boring to draw viewers anyway, but I think that goes back to the issue of channel quality - more people would watch if their favorite streamers were invited to a pro-am style tournament. As it was, nobody knew who the pros were, so they had no interest in watching the tournaments.

 

Then of course Anet did ban Kr*pp, who was perhaps the one streamer playing GW2 and could have provided the critical mass of viewers for the game.

[BlueJin.4127]

Maybe partly because the game’s not interesting for viewers? I tried to get some of my friends into GW2. They all lost interest when they saw all the stupid flashing effects and visual clutter.

[zealex.9410]

> @"Arton Leirra.9760" said:

> Specifically, Twitch.

>

> Personally I enjoy watching twitch streamers. It's a great way to chill (for me at least) pick up tips and have a chat with people surrounding a common interest. I was surprised when looking at how inactive the streaming community is when it comes to GW2.

>

> At the time of writing this, current active viewers-

>

> WoW; 20,776

> OSRS; 8,328

> GW2; 481

>

> Just wondering if anyone has any thoughts to why this is? Is it the obvious one that there's not a 'big streamer' who plays GW2?

>

> Community seems strong both in game and on forums so I wonder why it's not transferring into streaming? Any Ideas?

>

> Also I'm new in game and to forums so apologies if I've missed something glaringly obvious.

>

 

State of the game i guess.

[Klipso.8653]

I mean the lack of true advertising for years has hurt the game. I mentioned GW2 to a few of my coworkers the other night and they thought I was talking about a phone game. Nobody who hasn't already played has even heard of it.

[Blocki.4931]

The game is boring to watch. You'd only watch for the person(ality) streaming, not the game itself. That being said PvP tournaments or first clear progression on raids generally do really well (up to 3k viewers) comparatively.

 

 

[holodoc.5748]

I am not saying that the game format itself is not responsible for lack of interest in GW2 on Twitch but what people fail to realize about game streaming services is that, unless a channel is about a highly competitive game, what matters most is usually not the game itself but streamer personality and the community surrounding the channel.

 

Throughout first couple of years after GW2 launch Twitch had some excellent GW2 streamers which were able to keep people interested in watching and coming back. In the meantime most of those people left either due to real life obligations or heavy disappointment in the game itself.

 

What's left today is a pretty boring and uninspiring bunch of newcomer streamers which serve the same content over and over again, with no real effort put into it, expecting things to magically change. Furthermore those that have been around for a bit eventually decide to branch out and become "variety streamers" (also known as the best way to kill your streaming "career") and end up losing loyal viewership which is not interested in watching streamers play other games.

 

Is there something that could help GW2 attract more viewership on Twitch today? I don't think so. In a couple of months GW2 will be eight years old. That fact alone is reason enough for a lot of people to find it not worth watching anymore. If they are new they'll probably try the F2P version themselves. If they are veterans they've probably already seen everything there's to see in the game.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

> Personally I enjoy watching twitch streamers. It's a great way to chill (for me at least) pick up tips and have a chat with people surrounding a common interest.

In GW2, it's more fun to join people and pick up tips and chat with them.

[Ayrilana.1396]

If viewer count is important, then you would need to lure one, or many, of the streamers who already have a high follower/subscriber count. There are games that I never knew existed until I saw them higher up on the game list because there was somebody with 6K+ viewers playing it. You don't even need to grab an actual gamer that streams either as you can easily just pull streamers from the IRL section. People wouldn't necessarily be viewing to see the game but it'll at least increase exposure which is something that appears nonexistent from my point of view.

[McPero.3287]

Stop saying we lack content creators. It is obvious it is the size, activity and mentality of games' population and that it is very unorthodox mmo with fast and hard to follow combat.

[Gemnaid.4219]

The game is boring to watch and play. I wouldn’t want to watch someone farm Istan gold farming for hours. They run in circles for a few green drops to salvage.

 

No one wants to watch someone chop trees.

 

Too many particles in boss fights. I’d rather watch an edc stage.

 

The story is boring. Overall, the game is below average.

 

 

[Trise.2865]

Because the streamers who were popular at launch, who would have enjoyed this game, were already addicted to WoW.

Because forums are utter garbage and chased away at least five major channels, including TotalBiscuit.

Because Guild Wars 2 is not as "competitive" (sports drama) as some people wish it was, and creating actual content is too difficult for them.

Because people keep crying "why isn't there a presence?" instead of creating a presence.

Because Twitch streamers are invariably trend-chasers and are compelled to play only new releases to create and generate their audiences.

[Westenev.5289]

If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say that the game is simply too hard to comment on, and that key plays can often be lost in visual clutter. While the game is fun to experience, I imagine it wouldn't be a fun experience to watch.

[Vancho.8750]

Because GW 2 lacks exposure and with it lacks people who actually try to be entertaining. Most of the regular streamers are pvpers, all the skills in the world, but they lack the oomph, you know the "It" factor. The only streamer that i think that might have IT is TheMightyTeapot, and for what is worth he would most probably would be way more popular if he started streaming other games.

Another option i can see for Anet is to grab some streamers from other games that are not so satisfied with their current game (wink,wink,nudge aham WoW). Also WoW numbers were not that big but i think they took some ques from their other games like Overwatch and made Raids and dungeons competitive, which are the bread and butter of Warcraft since their pvp is horrible, the modes are great but the pvp gameplay is trash.

[SkyShroud.2865]

few years ago, there were a lot more streamers and viewers

however, as everybody should know, anet start diverting resources from gw2, development speed slowed and with this rate of development, don't expect streamers to hang around waiting for it when there are plenty of games out there

[Tiviana.2650]

> @"Arton Leirra.9760" said:

> Specifically, Twitch.

>

> Personally I enjoy watching twitch streamers. It's a great way to chill (for me at least) pick up tips and have a chat with people surrounding a common interest. I was surprised when looking at how inactive the streaming community is when it comes to GW2.

>

> At the time of writing this, current active viewers-

>

> WoW; 20,776

> OSRS; 8,328

> GW2; 481

>

> Just wondering if anyone has any thoughts to why this is? Is it the obvious one that there's not a 'big streamer' who plays GW2?

>

> Community seems strong both in game and on forums so I wonder why it's not transferring into streaming? Any Ideas?

>

> Also I'm new in game and to forums so apologies if I've missed something glaringly obvious.

>

 

I mean you answered your own question, wow has millions more players so they will have many more streams. And from what i read about the new content patch a few days ago its really good, so more will come back that left early on. GW2 just dont have those kinds of numbers to support that kind of streaming, remember wow has tournaments, and a huge following of pvp and raid content.

 

 

> @"Vancho.8750" said:

> Because GW 2 lacks exposure and with it lacks people who actually try to be entertaining. Most of the regular streamers are pvpers, all the skills in the world, but they lack the oomph, you know the "It" factor. The only streamer that i think that might have IT is TheMightyTeapot, and for what is worth he would most probably would be way more popular if he started streaming other games.

> Another option i can see for Anet is to grab some streamers from other games that are not so satisfied with their current game (wink,wink,nudge aham WoW). Also WoW numbers were not that big but i think they took some ques from their other games like Overwatch and made Raids and dungeons competitive, which are the bread and butter of Warcraft since their pvp is horrible, the modes are great but the pvp gameplay is trash.

 

I mean wow has always been millions of players, even at its lowest. I like GW2 for what it is, but its not in the same hemisphere as wow, it dont attract the competitive mmo pvp and raid set. And honestly the reason is wow is more competitive, they really add a lot of advancing type of content. I get GW2 is considered casual, but in some ways its grindy also. And it dont have the progression that wow does, now people that play gw2 and like it like that are fine with the game as is. But the type of player that likes to see his character grow and get powerful and take on powerful enemies, and get more powerful likes games like wow. It never stands still its always evolving and moving ahead, and thats how many players like it. I played wow over a decade and it never left me without something to do, and even when it was at its worst, you could count on new content coming and everything fresh again.

 

I have 5 120s sitting on wow now, i called them and told them to lock my account till i come back, i will be back. GW2 has a pretty game and interesting classes and spells, but it lacks replay factor to me, and some of the things like no trinity, or raid and dungeon interest is fine for this game, but something i miss a lot. GW2 is fine for what it is a casual game to play whenever you feel like it, but its not really something i can see playing for years on end. But definitely something ill play a lot of when i play.

[Warkind.6745]

Can 100% agree with the overly flashy effects. If you're not **very** familiar with what you're looking at, GW2 is pretty unpalatable. I remember my roommate walking by and seeing me fight a tower lord with some other people. He laughed because my screen was filled with guardian lights and all sorts of clutter, then asked how I could play this game.

[Burnfall.9573]

> @"Zenith.7301" said:

> Because the content cadence is abysmal for challenging instanced content with little replayability as GW2 doesn't have anything like WoW's M+ records, and GW2's visual clutter and complete lack of mod support for UI customization and combat cooldown/information tracking makes spectating and distinguishing what's going on pretty bad.

>

> GW2 also has horrendous and gimmicky PvE class balance and PvP is not that much better, so people get really bored with a really stale combat system in which all you do is trivially fart out boons and skip boss mechanics with power creeped DPS spec bumrushes.

>

> Most bosses are killed in less than 5 minutes, some might go up to 7 minutes. FFXIV savage mode fights can go as long as 20+ minutes and WoW mythic encounters also go past the 10+ minute mark.

>

> The other games also have clear role demarcations so people can watch how healers triage or how tanks manage cooldowns and aggro with the offtank while picking up adds. Positioning is also key in other games whereas in GW2 you just stack with maybe a healer and a tank being away from the stack to handle a mechanic.

 

+1

 

Very well said!!