Comment by exsomet

A slightly different perspective for your consideration:

I watch videos of people playing through games and talking about or alongside it. There are two main reasons, both of which I (obviously) think are valid.

1. I enjoy gaming and use these videos as background noise when I’m doing things for work that don’t have a high cognitive load. If I’m going to have something on TV or streaming, I’d prefer it be associated with one of my interests.

2. For games with some sort of planning or problem solving element, I watch videos of people who are better at them than me so that I can learn different ways to do things. A classic example is Factorio, which has a thousand ways to organize a production line. It’s useful to see different people do this in different ways and optimize for different things, and yes - talk through it while they do. That translates into me being more informed and coming up with better ideas myself, which means more fun playing the game.

It’s very much fine for this to not be for everyone and all, but that doesn’t always make it trash/bilge.