Streams & Let's Plays KILLING Singleplayer Games?

I can't blame anyone for saying that YouTube may be affecting sales of sinlge player games, but it's a double edged sword. I myself over the years have become less interested in playing some games in lieu of watching LetsPlays but I fully recognize that watching a LetsPlay of a game is a completely different experience than going through it yourself. If you're watching someone play Uncharted, you'll get the story of it, but you might not get the same sense of wonder of 'discovering' the world of the game as you would if you had played it yourself.

Which comes to my second point: if viewers liked a LP of a game, they might be more inclined to buy it, and if the gameplay is transformative enough, they'll still enjoy it, even though they arleady know the plot. If it's just a 'walk around and watch the plot happen around you' type of game... was it really a game to begin with? If it was, why didn't it provide at least a little bit of a different esperience on multiple playthroughs?

The 'games are not increasing in price, but cost so much more to develop!' argument is old and is a way of turning your attention away from a simple fact: sure, games cost more, but the market is also so, so, SO MUCH BIGGER. If you can't find enough people among literally 100s of millions of gamers across multiple platforms who would want to pay for your product enough to cover dev costs... guess what, maybe it wasn't a good investment of your time and money to make it since noone wanted it. Dev costs are higher than ever before, but so is revenue gained from selling successful titles.

I can understand that mentality. It makes sense for some people.

Speaking from personal experience though, I've never watched a playthrough of a game I hadn't played before that I ever had any intention of buying to begin with. So no harm done on my end. On the flip side, seeing gameplay of a game that I never had any intention of buying for myself has actually encouraged me to buy a couple games that I otherwise wouldn't. So for gamers like me, being able to watch gameplay and playthroughs has been positive for the industry.

I always check out a game lets play before I buy, unless it's a long running franchise I've played before like Mario or Zelda.

Most games I watch Let's plays for are titles which can't be purchased anymore to support the developers, and if they are still available, I buy ones I'm either interested in playing, or, such in the case of Alien: Isolation, I buy them to support the developer even though I know I can't actually play them (stress related, can't even watch the Let's Plays without taking small breaks away to destress)

I think let's plays promote the game more than take away sales for the story. most games would go unnoticed and undersold if it wasn't for the free advertisement creators provide.

I watch a lot of lets plays, and play a lot of singleplayer games. Like, an unholy amount. The former doesn't negatively impact the latter; I have specifically bought several games I've seen the AH crew play. What does, however, cause me to go "Fuck no" is all the loot boxes, micro-DLCs, broken components, and other user-unfriendly practices. I used to be the sort who would buy on Day 1, but after receiving too many games that were both broken and had critical content locked behind DLC for full price, I simply started waiting for Steam half-off sales in six months or so, and every time I have broken that code, I've regretted it. (Looking at you, CMS 2018; a decent game now, a hot mess at launch.)

As far as single player goes, I only watch lets plays of games i either have no intention of buying but am interested in seeing someone else play (so no money lost there) or have already bought and played (so no money lost there either). If i think i might like to play the game myself i simply wont watch it so as to not spoil the game for myself.

It's mostly that the game devs that are complaining have made either a game noone wanted to play anyway (Youtubers just play it because it's new content) or it's an awful clone of a more popular game.