I feel like that is projection
Same, glad I could use this moment to teach you something.
Now go look at your previous statement and think about it for a while.
Didn’t realize you were so lonely.
/hug
Do you think game design has been influenced by monitoring popular streamers, seeing what got them views, and then implementing more of what got the views?
Kind of like an engagement metric of sorts. It makes me wonder sometimes if this has happened at all.
Or on an even smaller scale, if a stream gets a ton views of about something that is incredibly broken, it seems to get hot fixed the next day.
Example: Rextroy shenanigans. I believe he single handedly got multiple things nerfed by bring attention to it.
most of rextroy’s stuff was from past gear he threw together a few current things here and there and there never was a nerf when the videos up to what he was using you guys crack me up lol. if you really want to get rid of nerfs guess get rid of warcraft logs eh?
Infinite stars was nerfed the same week his vid came out. He hit 2500 by stacking it, popping bubble and tagging someone before his bubble went down.
it had nothing to do with him it was logs bud. there was people already doing it way before he was.
It could be because the streamers have acolytes that spam on the forums to please their streamer gods.
The Hazel acolytes are always causing a ruckus!
You may be right, it was a question I asked. I just find it odd/coincidental.
Basically anything he did that altered rated play was nerfed the same week he put a vid out. Maybe they were aware of the problems but I’m willing to bet his vids expedited the fixes if nothing else.
when streamers from all games have real views not just wow but all you can say they have taken over viewership is quite low in any game for anything with how many people play games.
I think of streamers like instagram influencers. Instagram influencers get free stuff with sponsors, streamers get access to pre-expansion ptrs. Instagram influencers have a bunch of people that agree with their opinion just because they’re the ones who say it, streamers (at least big ones) are similar.
Streamers are good to see high level game play and while they do have insights about the game their opinion shouldn’t be used to convey what casual players want because streamers and casual players are antithetical.
I don’t think people realize just how big this one is. 10-12 years ago it was pretty rare for the “non-typical” demographics (women, old people, etc) to actually play video games on a regular basis. Most normies/normal people shunned video games and viewed the hobby as “childish” or “it’s for little kids” at best.
Video games was still mostly a young man’s thing - so anywhere from teenager males (especially) to low-30s males were the main demographic “fueling” the video game industry.
Fast forward to the present and with the rise of social media and streaming over the years you see these same “non-typical” demographics now playing video games or at least being vaguely aware of video games.
Nowadays when you visit twitch or Youtube and just skim thru some random video game streams (…not even the “top” streamers), you’ll see normies, girls, and even some old people right there playing video games with the rest of us. You even see some actual parents playing video games right there alongside their streaming kids lol 
Times have changed, and streaming has definitely brought video games more into the mainstream/normie consciousness
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My only issue with streamers is when they start hating something and spend their whole time trashing it. I can only handle listening to someone complain for so long, one or two vids okay but once its every vid im out. Reason in our WoW circle their is so much hate is because popular youtubers are disappointed with the state of game but they need to make money so the only videos they can make about wow are ones that trash it. Which turns people off, if its only about never ending hate.
Now i only watch for three reason, 1. opinion positive or negative, 2. for gaming knowledge (how to complete a quest), or just for lore. Rarely do youtubers influence me unless they are introducing me to something new i have never heard of and may want to try.
maybe at a small level, i think the use of psychology is more disruptive. if you make someone’s first experience at playing exceedingly fun, it will hook them. then you can meter out that fun in order to manipulate and control them.
this isn’t just done in gaming either, tiktok uses this same approach, your first video is forced to go viral artificially, that hooks you, and then you keep making videos to try and get that same level virality again.
CoD mobile will set you up against either noobs or bots (i cant tell), and then make it so you are MVP and center of the screen etc. then later on they put you on destined to lose teams against players with all the purchased skins, the goal is to get you to notice that the teams who winning are the ones with paid for items.
if you take wow’s pvp model, you queue up for a BG, who’s winning? the guy in high rated gear, gear you can also obtain if you talk to a booster and pay him gold, gold blizzard would prefer you obtain via purchasing a token.
oh, and RNG loot boxes are straight up gambling.
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As far as WoW is concerned, I don’t think streamers are particularly problematic unless they start making bold declarations about groups of players or playstyles - e.g. “players who don’t spec like X are bad” or “lol this guy isn’t doing Y route what is he even doing”. Those opinions radiate through the community and reinforce views like “obey the meta”.
I don’t watch game streams at all myself, if I watch any stream at all it’s usually of somebody building or creating something.
I dont agree that streamer or internet celebrities ruined wow or gaming.
I think that what steves job said about the degeneration of creators and the investment into other things that ruin most loved products.
WoW streaming peaked in MoP. Those days were so fun. I remember joining Swiftys raids against PreparedWoW the multiboxer. Good times.
I like most people here as it’s a forum to a game, have been into playing games my whole life since about six years old. Yet I’ve never seen the appeal to watch others play games on YouTube twitch etc. so the esports stuff no that bores me to tears.
I will watch say belluar preach or t&e videos to learn about new games or features in patches and stuff like that. But even then I fast forward to parts I care about and rarely watch entire videos.