Why does GW not have a big streaming community?

[ParanoidKami.2867]

This game is aimed at people who want a mmo to play but don't have a lot of time. Those kind of people don't bother looking at livestreams, videos or going to the forums.

[Shiyo.3578]

> @"Zenith.7301" said:

> 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.

 

7-20 minute bosses is not a good thing. FF14 ultimate mode bosses are torture, not fun.

 

[bbop.9706]

theres no accounting for taste.

[Haishao.6851]

We can only speculate because it's most likely an amount of different reasons instead of just one.

Maybe the player base of GW2 are a bit older and don't consider that streaming is interesting. People seem to prefer posting videos on youtube.

There's also no much reason to watch stream when jumping into the game and doing the stuff yourself is so quick and simple. Other games sometime requires a lot of preparation before going through some content and people might not want to go through it so they prefer watching others streaming it.

[Zenith.7301]

> @"Shiyo.3578" said:

> > @"Zenith.7301" said:

> > 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.

>

> 7-20 minute bosses is not a good thing. FF14 ultimate mode bosses are torture, not fun.

>

 

They are fun to me. It's a real challenge that shows consistency in performing encounter mechanics and not merely an ability to trivialize mechanics by cramming DPS.

[Chilli.2976]

ArenaNet could do more to incentivize people to watch/stream, get more people partner not just a few.

[Daishi.6027]

To much visual noise really, PvP suffers the most from this even worse when you get a game of 5 people. You could maybe get good viewership if we were balanced for 1v1s and/or had at least an unranked queue for 2v2s, but A-net has yet to support smaller games in a way that's beyond ATs.

 

Open world content isn't exactly exciting to watch.

 

WvW Might be if you are a good commander, or if you are a trolly havoc with enough charisma to draw people. But the former is hit or miss for a lot of the installed base, and the latter still comes with large gaps of waiting for the next engagement.

 

Biased on this one, but I don't think fractals are that interesting to watch. It's short, and kind of just like any other instance run in a MMO. With how they are designed I feel this makes the visual noise more boring to watch.

 

Raids can be interesting and fun to watch, but only with higher level competent players, and that's only if you are into raid culture; and if you are - you are likely trying to just do better yourself.

[Astralporing.1957]

> @"Chilli.2976" said:

> ArenaNet could do more to incentivize people to watch/stream, get more people partner not just a few.

Wouldn't matter that much.

It's not about streaming not being incentivized by Anet. It's about streaming mostly being about the content most GW2 players are not interested in. Hardcore content - both pve and pvp - is extremely niche here. Thus, low number of potential viewers. And of course, low numbers of viewers disincentivize the already low pool of potential streamers.

On the other hand, YT content creators (more casual in both delivery method and content used) seem to be doing far better. Average GW2 player would rather see another WP vid about a lore tangent or a new LS, than some PVPer's or raider's stream. They are also more likely to search for a vid with a content they wanted, to watch it at their own pace than pay attention to someone's stream (where most of what is being streamed wiuld probably be of no interest to them).

 

[Aeolus.3615]

Doing streams of the new diablo on how a streamer is pro swiping those mobs off the screen and doing a stream on gw2 content would be the same thing.. useless... the game is a shell w/o a soul.

 

**Gw2 is just a game to play history and do some few pvp matches for the daylies and then u can go back to your main game.**

 

 

 

 

[Chahls.1738]

As a content creator for GW2 I can assure you that we do exist, but many people do not care for the livestreams or outside learning. The game doesn't require you to have much **player skill** for 95% of the content. Livestreams can be considered elitist in some cases, where people try to encourage player growth and improvement (telegraphing in PvP, rotations, strategy). It's the same for most MMO games - WoW is pretty boring to watch, but it's typically educational. FFXIV is pretty boring to watch, but typically educational.

 

GW2 isn't necessarily different at all to either of these games, but the difference **is** that the community knows very little about where we are (as content creators) and what we do - Or, are just too damn casual to look for resources outside of the game itself.

 

It's quite unfortunate but that's the way it is and how it has been for years.

[KryTiKaL.3125]

> @"holodoc.5748" said:

> 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.

 

This is something I have noticed as well personally. Having earned affiliate on Twitch through streaming GW2, the moment I branched to any other game I had either no viewers are significantly less. It does seem like those who do watch GW2 streams/streamers *only* want to watch that. My channel analytics have told me similar.

 

Which I understand, GW2 is a mostly accessible game and those that play it have stuck around because of that and really anything else they just...don't care about.

 

> @"AlexxxDelta.1806" said:

> 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.

 

 

If GW2 being fast paced and "too flashy" were the reasons why people didn't tune into streams for it then Black Desert Online wouldn't have literally thousands more viewers than GW2 and BDO is much flashier, much more fast paced and on top of that the PvE is *grind* which from what I have gleaned many GW2 players *despise* grind yet there is an MMORPG, Korean MMORPG, that is grindy, has "P2W elements" and has much faster paced combat that gets much more viewership than GW2.

 

Your logic seems...flawed :/

 

[AlexxxDelta.1806]

> @"KryTiKaL.3125" said:

> > @"holodoc.5748" said:

> > 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.

>

> This is something I have noticed as well personally. Having earned affiliate on Twitch through streaming GW2, the moment I branched to any other game I had either no viewers are significantly less. It does seem like those who do watch GW2 streams/streamers *only* want to watch that. My channel analytics have told me similar.

>

> Which I understand, GW2 is a mostly accessible game and those that play it have stuck around because of that and really anything else they just...don't care about.

>

> > @"AlexxxDelta.1806" said:

> > 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.

>

>

> If GW2 being fast paced and "too flashy" were the reasons why people didn't tune into streams for it then Black Desert Online wouldn't have literally thousands more viewers than GW2 and BDO is much flashier, much more fast paced and on top of that the PvE is *grind* which from what I have gleaned many GW2 players *despise* grind yet there is an MMORPG, Korean MMORPG, that is grindy, has "P2W elements" and has much faster paced combat that gets much more viewership than GW2.

>

> Your logic seems...flawed :/

>

 

I've never played BDO for some of the reasons in your post so I can't really answer that. To be honest BDO's popularity in the west was always baffling to me, it's like that one oddball korean grinder than managed to stick.

 

I have seen complaints about GW2's "streamability" many times before. I even remember complaints about the animations popping up in Twitch streams back then when more streamers were trying to "make it work". There might be other factors (very likely) but if that isn't fixed I can't see GW2 ever getting high numbers. In order to enjoy what you are watching, you first need to understand what is happening on screen. Keep in mind that Anet themselves tried to push GW2 e-sports for a time and that failed too. It can't be a coincidence.

[ReaverKane.7598]

Pretty much what everyone said... Too much screen clutter... It's hard for people to follow the action.

Plus sPvP is kinda dead... WvW is the worse clustermess to follow because if 5 people do lots of effects, 500 do much more...

Open world is meh, World bosses will cripple your FPS WITHOUT a screen grab software in the back.

Raids and fractals would probably be the content to follow, especially like speed runs and records, and whatnot, but sadly, given how much hate we see for that kind of content in the forums, that'll explain why...

Basically GW2 became a haven for fashionistas that don't care as much about playing the game but looking good when doing it, and those people don't really waste their time looking at streams.

 

Finally, talking for myself, not only isn't my connection very livestream friendly, but also i get bored watching people play for too long.

[Rym.1469]

People who follow their favourite games on Twitch tend to be the more invested type. PvP streams had the largest consistent following of all in GW2 Twitch section for this reason, back when top players streamed.

 

But when the game, especially in the recent years, turns it's back on players who care about the game and it's systems, it's no wonder Twitch viewership scratches the bottom of the barrel. Sunday players don't visit Twitch, generally speaking.

 

There are content creators for the game, it's just that there's no real demand for content that's not fluff.

[KryTiKaL.3125]

> @"AlexxxDelta.1806" said:

> > @"KryTiKaL.3125" said:

> > > @"holodoc.5748" said:

> > > 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.

> >

> > This is something I have noticed as well personally. Having earned affiliate on Twitch through streaming GW2, the moment I branched to any other game I had either no viewers are significantly less. It does seem like those who do watch GW2 streams/streamers *only* want to watch that. My channel analytics have told me similar.

> >

> > Which I understand, GW2 is a mostly accessible game and those that play it have stuck around because of that and really anything else they just...don't care about.

> >

> > > @"AlexxxDelta.1806" said:

> > > 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.

> >

> >

> > If GW2 being fast paced and "too flashy" were the reasons why people didn't tune into streams for it then Black Desert Online wouldn't have literally thousands more viewers than GW2 and BDO is much flashier, much more fast paced and on top of that the PvE is *grind* which from what I have gleaned many GW2 players *despise* grind yet there is an MMORPG, Korean MMORPG, that is grindy, has "P2W elements" and has much faster paced combat that gets much more viewership than GW2.

> >

> > Your logic seems...flawed :/

> >

>

> I've never played BDO for some of the reasons in your post so I can't really answer that. To be honest BDO's popularity in the west was always baffling to me, it's like that one oddball korean grinder than managed to stick.

>

> I have seen complaints about GW2's "streamability" many times before. I even remember complaints about the animations popping up in Twitch streams back then when more streamers were trying to "make it work". There might be other factors (very likely) but if that isn't fixed I can't see GW2 ever getting high numbers. In order to enjoy what you are watching, you first need to understand what is happening on screen. Keep in mind that Anet themselves tried to push GW2 e-sports for a time and that failed too. It can't be a coincidence.

 

BDO fills that niche desire people haven't had for quite a while with western MMORPGs where its rather hardcore and there is an emphasis on open world PvP. Its part of why many big guilds you might have seen at points in early GW2 have clamored for the Korean MMORPGs because they are at least trying to put out MMORPGs that aren't exactly the most casual experiences. GW2 holds your hand quite a bit, which is *fine*, but there are people out there that want a little more importance on earning gear and having their efforts matter more and be emphasized in their presence in the game. In BDO for instance, you *know* the top guilds. They have the best geared members, the best PvPers and they own territories that are fought over on a specific day on a weekly basis.

 

You don't really get that on GW2. There is some of it in WvW but at the end of the day "winning" in WvW doesn't actually mean anything, and the fights are so prolonged that you really only see guilds during specific times and sometimes, even if they flip keeps and garrisons during that time period, those objectives just get flipped back either during off peak hours or just once that guild group peaces out for the night.

 

Even in sPvP ranked is duo que at most, no way to run premade in Ranked or name a team in it. ATs with mATs are infrequent, they are on a schedule and such but its a drawn out schedule not an every day thing with the exception of the daily tournaments *however* even those are only at specific times during a day and not *all* day. Another issue is that the mATs and such aren't "advertised" or streamed despite seeming like they are some special only monthly occurrence. As for the whole e-sports thing...yeah that failed and I think thats largely due to, *honestly*, Conquest being doo. It just feels like a forced game mode for the sake of e-sports and I don't think it works in the game, especially not now, *but* thats just my opinion. I'm sure the "top 250" players will disagree -_-

 

Really I think a lot of it has to do with GW2 having a community that isn't exactly interested, or at least a community that doesn't have *enough* people that are interested. I have legitimately seen a lot of the same people that I've seen in one PvP streamers chat in another streamers chat. Anet has gone through the paces of having the showcases or hosting those who are partnered with them but it hasn't done much in terms of growing the numbers across the board.

 

This game is also 7 years old and fundamentally hasn't really changed all that much. Their release schedule is spread rather thin, especially with balance patches, and content releases are, sorry, dry with how infrequent they are. We typically have to wait about what...? 4 months or more for a new Living World release with basically nothing in between, other than cosmetic and gem store "updates" which I don't see as incentive to keep people interested or coming back especially in the realm of streaming where it changes practically weekly.

 

BDO has maintained itself pretty decently in that area because they remain pretty frequent and consistent with their releases. They practically balance and tweak skills for multiple classes and fix animation or QoL bugs basically every week. GW2 gets that every 3 to 4 months, *maybe*.

 

I will say that they have shown a bit more enthusiasm in pushing things out recently, which I think can be attributed to them being able to refocus on GW2 since other projects have been abandoned and they have others brought back onto the team from those projects.

 

TLDR it feels like its a combination of things that have resulted in there being less interest in watching GW2 streamers.

[Tiviana.2650]

> @"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.

 

I think that nailed it. Its a massive clutterfest on the screen, no one could tell what was going on. Compare to other games that stream you can tell whats happening, and there is a lot of mechanics that shows off boss fights well. And you can clearly see that there are roles being performed. In pvp its more structured in other games so you can see whos doing what and not just a big zerg. Wow made it a point to change animations and spell visuals, and boss fights are clear so that even people that dont play can get an idea of whats going on in the stream. But thats not what GW2 is about or even wants to be about, and i can respect that. It is what it is.

[XenesisII.1540]

If you check the wow streamers you'll see that it's mostly arena/battlegrounds, M+ dungeons, raids, or personality streamers, gw2 isn't able to compete in all the comparable sections, pretty much everything is a competition in wow (competitive games rule twitch) while gw2 is largely casual and none competitive. Can't imagine the raids are on par with wow, spvp and wvw have been wasted, fractals on par with m+ difficulty maybe? The combat is too flashy and spammy to even see what's going on, I mean all you can see in a fight is flashes of light and numbers popping out from characters, even simple ui mods like having deadly boss mods for wow can help viewers understand what's going on.

 

So to carry a game where the viewer can't fully understand what's going on screen, you also need a strong personality to help carry a stream, and most of those play the popular games like wow instead. Take for instance Asmongold from wow (one of their biggest streamers who gets a lot of love and hate), he basically makes his own content out of wow, he does a lot of mount hunting, collecting gear, pug raids, and competitions which are extremely popular like transmog(fashion), mount offs, and dps competitions, don't think anyone does anything like that for gw2. Then there's other people making videos about him and his content on youtube, that's even more player driven advertising for both him and wow going on there.

 

Doesn't help either that it seems like gw2 has had a bad impression on a lot of the twitch viewers for whatever reasons, I've seen on multiple streams whenever gw2 is mentioned as a suggestion to play, it's usually laughed off.

 

[Aeolus.3615]

@XenesisII.1540 its the skill classes design.

 

Gw2 actually is a game that is very laughed off, more like a joke meme of wanabe pvp due how aoe spam based the game is, that gets ugly when u have lots of players spamming, balance is another thing that gw2 is know to be awfull.

This is not only noteceable on streams but when u find people that played gw2 and stoped trusting Anet quality on other games as well, some IRL friends of mine where we played since gw1 and we were on top 20-100 ranking gvg scen, they tend to laugh as well about how bad this game can be and the dev's refuse to do a decent iteration process on the class/skill concept, what makes this kind of attitude is always ends arround the aoe abuse and spambility and poor trade offs class offer when they excell at several points.

 

Tdlr: its like an adult playign a todlers game as if its something serious, people that pass by laugh at him.

[mindcircus.1506]

> @"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.

>

 

It's funny to see threads pop up like this from time to time. I do enjoy how all the armchair analysts explain away the situation by attaching their own personal pet peeves about the game and claim that the streaming would be much more popular if only the developers did something they wanted. This thread is in fact full of such drivel already.

The reality is that for a MMO it's age, GW2 does "ok" on twitch. Most other MMOs do much worse overall.

If you take WoW out of the equation as the outlier it is and look just at MMOs, GW2's average position is about where it should be. FF14 does better because it's newer. BDO is also several years newer.

 

What it doesn't have is a single "standard bearer" for the game. There isn't that one streamer who pulls in 500+on a regular basis. Wooden Potatoes used to no problem, but he said that Streaming really wasnt worth the time he put into it and stopped. If WP were streaming a few times a week, those twitch numbers for GW2 would be much stronger.

Just as half of Fortnite's numbers often come from Ninja.

 

But if you look at some of the more "hardcore streamers" who have tried making a go of it with Gw2 as their main game you have people like DJTechLive or DocGotGame. Both these guys made a push earlier this year to elevate their numbers with GW2 and both failed.

Both moved to ff14 last month and neither have seen more than 50 more average viewers from it.

In fact DJTechlive is actually doing worse some nights than when he was streaming GW2.

Peachy and BogOtter have taken what they needed from GW2 and moved on.

That leaves us Teapot, who, despite his immense knowledge and passion for the game has finally allowed his toxic community to drag him down with it and his numbers show it.

 

People can sit here in this thread and tell you it's the visual spam, the neglect of PvP/WvW....they are just trying to push their agenda to the front of the conversation.

Reality is the game is about where it should be and routinely gets more viewers than the bulk of other games in it's genre.

[ProtoGunner.4953]

I think it's simply not that popular and 2nd it's played by an older and more casual demographic. I never would say it is too flashy or too fast and people don't know what's going on. Be cause MOBAs are very popular in streams and when I watch them I have no idea what's going on. It's far too fast and the constant clicking around on the map is totally tiresome and confusing.

[zealex.9410]

> @"mindcircus.1506" said:

> Reality is the game is about where it should be and routinely gets more viewers than the bulk of other games in it's genre.

 

Talk about agenda lul

[Ok I Did It.2854]

I guess it depends on who is streaming also, later in the evening ( EU ) when some of them get on, depending on what they are doing the numbers go up, Anet has a big part in this too, for the most part they dont support or push streams, or do it all wrong, there is one streamer that only shows up to "promote" GW2 when a launch patch is coming, other than that i very rarely see them streaming, but Anet will push that streamers stream all over their social media, yet other streamers who are on daily, dont even get a look in.

 

If a developer doesn't care about streaming why should people care about watching people streaming, also Anet killing off PvP a couple of years ago didnt help matters either.

 

This might change in the coming months with what seems to be Anets renewed focus on marketing, but time will tell.

[mindcircus.1506]

> @"Ok I Did It.2854" said:

> Ithere is one streamer that only shows up to "promote" GW2 when a launch patch is coming, other than that i very rarely see them streaming, but Anet will push that streamers stream all over their social media, yet other streamers who are on daily, dont even get a look in.

 

This I agree is a problem from Anet's end. Watching Anet promote the streams of people like Bogotter or Peachy, who really havent contributed in any meaningful way in quite some time just makes them look bad and out of touch.

While I get that they cant really put up links to Teapot I just always thought there had to be *someone* better.

[Aarod Cutshot.6419]

Haven't played in a few months came back was going to play some istan then i logged off. Im guessing cause they keep nerfing everything to the point that its not even worth it anymore. I unistalled it I come to the forums here and there thats about it. Alot of better things to stream. Other then the nerfs

[MithranArkanere.8957]

> @"AgentMoore.9453" said:

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

 

And easier. Not everyone can afford a monthly fee, but everyone can join GW2, if they have a machine that can run it.