the thing that's dumb about the whole "can you be a fan of a video game if you're watching gameplay on youtube rather than playing the game yourself" discourse, is that people keep comparing that to "reading the wikipedia summary", when to me it's more comparable to "listening to an audiobook" because listening to a story being read is a fundamentally different experience from reading the book yourself, But i think it would be strange if people argued that listening to an audiobook means you're not experiencing the story at all. just because it's not the way you're generally suppose to engage with books as medium.
i think this discourse fails to understand that a great many of us as children experienced video games though watching older siblings play a game, or parents. Watching a lets play is like an extention of that activity.
I cannot even begin to express the joy and fun there is, watching your parents or siblings or even friends play a game, while you are the audience, experiencing the game through them. You do not need to have played the game yourself to have loved the story, the visuals, the journey. To have taken joy and thrill in seeing someone else play the game.
No one criticizing sports fans, calling them fake fans simply because they watch the sports, rather than play them. Not every sports fan is going to take up boxing, fencing, poker, skiing, swimming, football. But they will cheer and thrill at watching the game played by others.
Video game fans are much the same. We don't have to play the game to enjoy the experience. Youtube, and Lets Plays and Streamers give us a way to watch someone play the game, and enjoy it the same as watching a sibling or friend. The same as watching a sport.
Any discourse claiming we aren't real fans is simply gatekeeping.
