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A video game walkthrough is a guide aimed towards improving a player's skill within a particular video game and often designed to assist players in completing either an entire video game or specific elements. Walkthroughs may alternatively be set up as a playthrough, where players record themselves playing through a game and upload or live-stream it to the internet. Walkthroughs may be considered guides on helping to enhance the experience of players, to assist towards unlocking game achievements or simply as a means to socialise with like-minded individuals as a distraction from everyday life.
Walkthroughs originated as text-based descriptive instructions in magazines for playing through a video game. With the growth in popularity of computers and the internet, video game walkthroughs expanded to digital and video formats, with the typical average age of watchers being 23 years old and predominantly male, according to a study undertaken in Finland during 2015. Some individuals and companies have been known to earn lucrative income through the process of recording and offering guides publicly.
With the growth in popularity of video gaming in the early 1980s, a new genre of video game guide book emerged that anticipated walkthroughs. Written by and for gamers, books such as The Winners' Book of Video Games (1982) [1] and How To Beat the Video Games (1982) [2] focused on revealing underlying gameplay patterns and translating that knowledge into mastering games. [3] The term walk-through was used to describe step-by-step video game solutions as early as 1984 in the game guide compilation Conquering Adventure Games; [4] this usage of the term was established by 1988 [5] [6] and popularized with the publication of Quest for Clues, [7] a collection of guides for adventure games and role-playing video games that referred to its solutions as "walkthroughs". [3]
Video game walkthroughs were originally included in video game magazines or on text-bulletin boards, [8] [9] and compiled in guide book anthologies. [10] In the late 1980s [11] through to the mid 2000s, [12] video game walkthroughs were also available through telephone 'hot-lines' in the United States. [13] In the 1980s, walkthrough anthology books were popular and lucrative alternatives to single-game hint books published by game developers, such as Infocom's InvisiClues series. [5] Despite the rise in popularity of internet-based guides, [14] text-based walkthroughs are still present today in both print and digital formats. [15] Examples of print publications include strategy guides published by Prima Games, whereas text-based digital guides are hosted on gaming websites such as IGN, [16] GamesRadar, [17] and GameFAQs, [18] often in the form of wikis. [19] Until its closure by parent company Future plc, Computer and Video Games (CVG) also created and hosted digital guides on their now defunct website. [20]
Player created digital walkthroughs are typically designed to assist other players in accomplishing certain feats within video games [21] [lower-alpha 1] and are similar to text-based or telephony-based walkthroughs, except they can also be solely for entertainment purposes. [22] [23] These digital walkthroughs are typically uploaded to video sharing websites such as YouTube or live-streamed playthroughs to media streaming sites such as Twitch. Let's Play videos are a special type of walkthrough generally more focused on entertaining rather than informing the viewer through humorous commentary given by the video's host as they complete the game. [24]
Given there is no standardized format for the creation of text-based walkthroughs, guides exist that contain extensive examples and step-by-step instructions on how to write text-based walkthrough content. [8] [9] [25] Prima Games and Computer and Video Games have produced walkthroughs. Prima Games produces official, dedicated text-based video game walkthroughs and strategy guides for a variety of video games in both print and digital formats. [26] Computer and Video Games (CVG) published both text and video-based walkthroughs of video games on their website and official YouTube channel until their closure by Future in February 2015 in asset consolidation between various Future brands. [27] [28] [29] [20] IGN also creates and publishes video game walkthroughs in both text and video formats. [16]
When it comes to video walkthroughs of games, gameplay may be recorded in multiple ways, [21] such as through the use of screencast software, built-in recording features in some emulators or via a video capture device [lower-alpha 2] connected to a console or another computer. Some video games also include built-in recording features, such as Grand Theft Auto V (2013), [30] [31] which included in-game recording and editing features in its PlayStation 4 and Xbox One re-releases, allowing players to record and edit gameplay to share with others. [30] [32] Video content is typically shared over the internet via streaming, using video sharing and media streaming websites such as YouTube and Twitch, where the content has a potential audience consisting of millions of people. [33] [34]
In a study on the different motivations of walkthrough viewers conducted by Max Sjöblom and Juho Hamari from the University of Tampere in 2016, numerous viewer motivations were discussed. From the findings, the five most significant motivations were found to be improving player experience, confidence, knowledge about a particular game, socializing and creating an 'escape' or distraction from their everyday life. [35] [36] Walkthroughs may also guide players throughout an entire game or only certain sections [37] and may be guides [23] [38] on finding rare collectables or unlocking achievements. [39]
According to Barbara Ortutay of the Associated Press, players "not only see the live and recorded video sessions as a way to sharpen their abilities, but also as a way to interact with star players in chatrooms or simply be entertained." [40] According to Business Insider and The Verge, viewers of this genre of video content and live streams use them not only for their entertainment value, [41] but also to assist with a variety of things ranging from purchasing decisions to "get[ting] better at playing games." [42] [43] [33] [40] GameRadar+ has called the watching of video game playthroughs the "Netflix of video games" [44] and CNN declared the watching of video games being played by other people via videos and live streams "must-see TV". [23]
Some video game players have been able to make a viable business model out of playing video games as both a guide and for the entertainment of viewers; [45] internet personalities such as TheRadBrad, [46] DanTDM, [47] Chuggaaconroy [48] and Ali-A [49] have been cited as examples of video game players who have been able to make money from creating video game walkthroughs. As a result of the influx of players uploading or streaming their content, multi-channel networks were formed in order to assist content creators in multiple areas, [50] in exchange for a percentage of the advertisement revenue generated. [51]
Graphs are unavailable due to technical issues. There is more info on Phabricator and on MediaWiki.org. |
In February 2015, a study of video game walkthrough viewers was conducted by the University of Tampere in Finland and recruited respondents through self-selection (over 93% reported to have a Twitch account). From 1091 validated responses, the average age was approximately 23 years old, of which 92.3% were male. The majority of respondents earned less than ten thousand dollars a year with a secondary level of education. The majority of viewers have a secondary level of education (52.19%), with all other education levels tending to watch less. [35] [lower-alpha 3]
Strategy guides are instruction books that contain hints or complete solutions to specific video games. The line between strategy guides and video game walkthroughs is somewhat blurred, with the former often containing or being written around the latter. Strategy guides are often published in print, both in book form and also as articles within video game magazines. In cases of exceptionally popular game titles, guides may be sold through more mainstream publication channels, such as bookstores or even newsstands. Some publishers also sell E-Book versions on their websites.
Computer and Video Games was a UK-based video game magazine, published in its original form between 1981 and 2004. Its offshoot website was launched in 1999 and closed in February 2015. CVG was the longest-running video game media brand in the world. Several CVG writers led the creation of Video Games Chronicle in 2019.
GameFAQs is a video gaming website that hosts guides and other resources, as well as an active message board forum. It was created in November 1995 by Jeff Veasey and has been owned by Fandom, Inc. since October 2022. Allen "SBAllen" Tyner was lead Admin for twenty years until stepping down on October 18, 2023. The site is currently run by Community Manager "DToast" and Contributor Lead "ZoopSoul".
Livestreaming, live-streaming, or live streaming is the streaming of video or audio in real time or near real time. While often referred to simply as streaming, the real time nature of livestreaming differentiates it from other forms of streamed media, such as video-on-demand, vlogs, and YouTube videos.
Twitch is an American video live-streaming service that focuses on video game live streaming, including broadcasts of esports competitions, in addition to offering music broadcasts, creative content, and "in real life" streams. Twitch is operated by Twitch Interactive, a subsidiary of Amazon. It was introduced in June 2011 as a spin-off of the general-interest streaming platform Justin.tv. Content on the site can be viewed either live or via video on demand. The games shown on Twitch's current homepage are listed according to audience preference and include genres such as real-time strategy games (RTS), fighting games, racing games, and first-person shooters.
A Let's Play (LP) is a video documenting the playthrough of a video game, often including commentary and/or a camera view of the gamer's face. A Let's Play differs from a video game walkthrough or strategy guide by focusing on an individual's subjective experience with the game, often with humorous, irreverent, or critical commentary from the player, rather than being an objective source of information on how to progress through the game. While Let's Plays and live streaming of game playthroughs are related, Let's Plays tend to be curated experiences that include editing and narration, and can be scripted, while streaming is often an unedited experience performed on the fly.
Yogscast Limited, also known as The Yogscast, is a British entertainment company based in Bristol that primarily produces video gaming-related videos on YouTube and Twitch, and also operates the Yogscast multi-channel network for affiliated content creators. Initially a group of online content creators, the Yogscast began activity in 2008 and formally incorporated as a company in 2011.
Twitch Plays Pokémon (TPP) is a social experiment and channel on the video game live streaming website Twitch, consisting of a crowdsourced attempt to play Game Freak's and Nintendo's Pokémon video games by parsing commands sent by users through the channel's chat room. It holds the Guinness World Record for having "the most participants on a single-player online videogame" with 1,165,140 participants.
Jeffrey Shih, also known by his username Trump or TrumpSC, is a Taiwanese American professional video game player who streams Hearthstone, Age of Empires 4, and previously Starcraft II.
Octavian Morosan better known by his online username Kripparrian, is a Romanian-Canadian Twitch streamer, YouTuber and video game personality. He is known for his achievements on Diablo III, World of Warcraft, and Hearthstone, as well as winning the "Favorite Hearthstone Stream" and Most "Engaged" Viewers categories, and coming second in the "Highest Stream View Average" category at the Blizzard Stream Awards in 2014. In June 2017 he achieved over one million followers on Twitch and as of July 2021, he has over 1.4 million followers.
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Emiliano Rodolfo Rosales-Birou, also known as Emile Rosales and better known by his online alias Chuggaaconroy or Chugga for short, is an American YouTuber, Internet personality and Let's Player. Starting his online career in 2008, Rosales-Birou is most notable for his comprehensive walkthrough videos on various video games released on Nintendo platforms, including titles from the Mother, Super Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Pikmin,Pokémon, and Xenoblade Chronicles series.
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