What's the hardest part about making Let's Plays?

People find different aspects of Let's Playing difficult, whether it be commentary, editing, or game choice. What is the most challenging aspect of Let's Playing to you? Is there anything you think you can do to improve it?

On the flip side, what's the funnest part of doing Let's Plays?

For me I always wonder if what I'm going to say is actually interesting or not, and then I don't want to be silent for too long and just thinking too much in general has been my hardest thing whenever I've streamed.

Wilhelm said:

For me I always wonder if what I'm going to say is actually interesting or not, and then I don't want to be silent for too long and just thinking too much in general has been my hardest thing whenever I've streamed.

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I haven't done much video content yet, still trying to fix my quality issues, but I felt like speaking was the hard part too. I often lost my train of thought and couldn't remember what I wanted to say or do. I think it comes with experience though, haha.

I don't do voiced LP's, probably never will cause my voice is kinda lame ;P

But the hardest thing to me is finding the motivation to do them. I have a busy life, and not just competitive gaming takes that up. LP's kinda are the last thing I think of atm and that causes my content to be late and often incomplete :(

The motivation to continue, especially if none of your 1000 subscribers leave a comment or a like. >.>

My biggest problem is the commentary. I hate listening to my own voice, so I automatically feel as if the commentary is crap. The editing and recording is pretty easy for me, though. The kind of LP's I'm doing dong really work for silence, because I do Pokémon challenges and such, not competitive battling. :(

Klippy said:

People find different aspects of Let's Playing difficult, whether it be commentary, editing, or game choice. What is the most challenging aspect of Let's Playing to you? Is there anything you think you can do to improve it?

On the flip side, what's the funnest part of doing Let's Plays?

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I think that a distinction needs to be made between creating LPs and creating them well. Also, I think you really have to separate Video Let's Plays (VLPs) from other forms of Let's Plays.

For me personally, I would say that the commentary in VLPs is the hardest part, and the bit that I am still working on. Sure, I can talk and ramble for 15-30 minutes no problem, but that doesn't mean that the 15-30 minutes of me confidently rambling will be worth listening to. It can be a challenge to find a happy balance between humor, information, and opinion, and I don't really think I'm there just yet.

I also struggle with quality consistency. While I personally think my videos are very high quality, I struggle with keeping the quality completely consistent across all the videos I make. Sometimes the audio will be a little louder in one then the next. Sometimes one video will be a little darker than the one before it. Sometimes I watch the rendered video and cringe because I really need to get a pop filter. Sometimes it makes no difference that I don't have a pop filter. Sometimes I can get $50 sound out of a $5 microphone. Sometimes I manage to get $5 sound out of my $50 microphone. As I said... I struggle with consistency.

Alfieri said:

The motivation to continue, especially if none of your 1000 subscribers leave a comment or a like. >.>

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Did you do sub for sub or take a long break from uploading? Are you engaging with your audience, and asking them questions that they might comment on? Are you including a call-to-action, where you ask them to like/comment/subscribe?

I have the same difficulties as Welsknight.

LPing is a type of improvisational performance. Especially the blind LPs. It's a completely different skillset then writing a script and rehearsing it.

I am constantly rewatching my videos, or just stripping the audio out and sticking them on my ipod and really listening to myself. All those awkward pauses, stutters, stumbles. It's painful to listen to sometimes.

Weirdly I find post-commentary even harder. Somehow it's harder for me to 'get into' what I'm doing. I find myself detached. I may come up with some funny things to say, but I'm not emotionally invested the way I am when I'm actively playing.

So I'd say that getting the commentary right is definitely the hardest part.

I totally agree with sumgai, my first few videos were post commentary and were absolute garbage. As he said im not as invested as if i was playing the game, but even then i feel like im more concentrated on the game, more so then the commentary.

There are some parts that are actually difficult:

• You have to be informed about any details and secret things of the game you're playing in order to show a more or less complete gameplay.
• You have to make sure that the video dimensions are correct, and I mean that you didn't left any part that doesn't belong to the game itself.
• And the most difficult part, sometimes the videos were recorded days, weeks or even months ago, if they're more than 10 minutes long, you would not want to prepare the gameplays (fortunately, in my case, the videos are rare and interesting).

For me, it isn't very difficult to find good material to show, there are a lot of unusual and good games for the old platforms I work with.

PD: The objective of my videos is to show the gameplays near intact, so for me, talking is almost forbidden.

Loony Boo♪ said:

There are some parts that are actually difficult:

• You have to be informed about any details and secret things of the game you're playing in order to show a more or less complete gameplay.
• You have to make sure that the video dimensions are correct, and I mean that you didn't left any part that doesn't belong to the game itself.
• And the most difficult part, sometimes the videos were recorded days, weeks or even months ago, if they're more than 10 minutes long, you would not want to prepare the gameplays (fortunately, in my case, the videos are rare and interesting).

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I'm going to disagree on pretty much all of these, as none of them are very challenging (other than maybe the first one, and that is only necessary if you are trying to do a completionist LP for a game you haven't playing many times). Video dimensions are easy in any decent video editor (16:9 for Youtube, and then use a simple overlay to cover up any black bars from game footage with goofy resolutions (like Pokemon and retro games). And I don't have an issue with Let's Plays with episodes longer than 10 minutes. I usually shoot for 15 minutes, but it is also game-dependent. For example, you can barely get anything done in Pokemon within 15 minutes unless you are cutting out a lot of the gameplay.

Loony Boo♪ said:

PD: The objective of my videos is to show the gameplays near intact, so for me, talking is almost forbidden.

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I wouldn't call your videos Let's Plays, then. They are playthroughs. Let's Plays are a specific category of gaming videos, where the creator plays the game and provides commentary on it. Interaction with the audience is absolutely crucial to a Let's Play.

welsknight said:

I wouldn't call your videos Let's Plays, then. They are playthroughs. Let's Plays are a specific category of gaming videos, where the creator plays the game and provides commentary on it. Interaction with the audience is absolutely crucial to a Let's Play.

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Well, I usually comment about every game I play, but I use text instead of voice (white comments at the bottom part of the screen). That's the reason why I sometimes become lazy with certain videos, almost always I have to watch the whole video in order to choose what can I say about the game, when is the right moment or if I want to make a spontaneous comment (colloquially). Also rendering a long video would take to 30 minutes to a complete hour (it can make the difference between uploading only a long video or two shorter ones), so I think it depends on the circumstances of every person.

Loony Boo♪ said:

Well, I usually comment about every game I play, but I use text instead of voice (white comments at the bottom part of the screen). That's the reason why I sometimes become lazy with certain videos, almost always I have to watch the whole video in order to choose what can I say about the game, when is the right moment or if I want to make a spontaneous comment (colloquially). Also rendering a long video would take to 30 minutes to a complete hour (it can make the difference between uploading only a long video or two shorter ones), so I think it depends on the circumstances of every person.

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If you're using subtitles for "commentary", then I would consider it a Let's Play. As I said, a Let's Play is part gameplay, part commentary (spoken or otherwise). If someone just shows off gameplay footage, but does not offer any sort of commentary, then I would not call it a Let's Play.

Also, I wish my videos only took 30 minutes to an hour to render. I usually spend an hour and half rendering a short video. Thank god I have a rendering computer.

I would have to say that the hardest part of making a let's play is editing the video. Since I use a separate program to record and record my commentary, some times syncing up the audio with the video can be a pain. I also don't really find doing the commentary very hard-well it depends on the game. For ex| If I play sonic 2 then I always have something to commentate over since there's something constantly going on screen. But If I do a rpg playthrough like Pokemon then by part 20 I kind of start to run out of thing to talk about.

ThePocketGamer said:

I would have to say that the hardest part of making a let's play is editing the video. Since I use a separate program to record and record my commentary, some times syncing up the audio with the video can be a pain. I also don't really find doing the commentary very hard-well it depends on the game. For ex| If I play sonic 2 then I always have something to commentate over since there's something constantly going on screen. But If I do a rpg playthrough like Pokemon then by part 20 I kind of start to run out of thing to talk about.

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Syncing up your audio and video is pretty straightforward. Start your audio recording, then switch back over to your game. When you start recording your video, make a short, noticeable audio "signal" (a tongue click, or popping noise works really well.. just something with a very short waveform). Then when you edit your audio, just delete the bit before the audio "signal". You can also do something on-screen at the same time, like clicking a specific button in the menu for example.

Creativity, I would say.

-Different voices for all the characters.
-Differentiation upon your party members.
-Random challenges you set yourself for gym battles.

Excitement :), that should be auto because you'd wanna have fun doing it!

I'd have to say the most annoying part is synchronizing every part of the video before starting. Chances are, the webcam you are using has a slight delay (about 120 ms) delay which needs to be calibrated against. If you have a capture card, 3DS or console, that's likely another set of latency that needs to be calibrated against (anywhere from 400-2000ms). If you are collaborating with someone and have a skype call, that might also have a slight latency that needs to be accounted for. Some programs let you record everything separately and adjust in editing, but for others, you have one shot to line it up right and nail it. I've spent too much time doing audio tests to make sure everything is synced up.

Def coming up with interesting commentary. im so awkward when it comes to my videos idk how people like shofu or haydunn can do lets plays so easily lol

djx1100 said:

Def coming up with interesting commentary. im so awkward when it comes to my videos idk how people like shofu or haydunn can do lets plays so easily lol

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This may sound like the cheesiest answer possible, but it all comes down to knowing yourself and playing to your strengths. Extroverts have an advantage in being outgoing and humorous, but it doesn't mean introverts can't. Overcoming "stage" fright is the one thing you have to do no matter what. Once you are comfortable in front of the mic and/or webcam, the rest is easy.

Just keeping up with uploading daily, finding time to record, edit, and upload everyday can be hard.