it's a sign of the awesomeness of our times that we create such profound and significant fantasies in real time, and that people who've never played Eve (me) can read about this and be enthralled.
There's also a big trend of Let's Play videos -- people watching other people play video games on YouTube. Don't have time/money/patience/skills to play GTA V? Just watch someone else play it, start to finish.
Even if you have all of those things, sometimes it's just a hell of a lot of fun to watch a good Let's Play. Some of the better ones I remember for years, and I have a feeling that one which showed a lot of promise but was discontinued far too soon will bother me for years to come as well.
Agreed - I have to mention necroscope86 on YouTube. By far my favorite LP'er. I think he had a snafu with his account that deleted a bunch of videos, but he had some very funny X-COM play throughs. It was more about his commentary and British accent that made it worth watching than the actual games themselves.
Some of my favorite LPs have come from LtMkilla (Dead Space and the ill-fated Bioshock LPs come to mind). His humor probably isn't for everybody (whose is?), but I love his videos.
If we're highlighting great LPs, I'll have to throw in a recommendation for ChipCheezum's LPs of the Metal Gear Solid games. The humour is spot on, and the games themselves are covered in exhaustive detail. His LPs of Mega Man Legends and the Uncharted series are great too.
I think it varies in terms of what a given viewer is looking for, but generally having a voice I can listen to for long stretches, some amount of humor, and competence at the game you're playing. You also need to be able to commentate on it in an interesting manner and do interesting things - nobody wants to watch a Let's Play when they don't understand what's going on, and nobody's going to sit through an hour of you strip-mining some mountain in Minecraft.
But people like different degrees of all that stuff - I generally find YogsCast to be too silly, but thousands of subscribers obviously disagree with me, and I'm sure there are Starcraft or LoL watchers who hate all the contextual strategic commentary that I find absolutely vital in those videos. Similarly, different people and different formats like differing amounts of audience participation - I usually watch stuff on YouTube or Twitch weeks after it was recorded, so Q&Aing with your chatroom means I'm missing half the conversation, but for guys watching it live that's pretty awesome.
eSports is a trend where people play computer games (semi)professionally. This goes to the point where global tournaments are organized and live casts are done on the web.
I personally fancy to watch episodes of FAF (Supreme Commander - Forged Alliance Forever) episodes on YouTube, just because the game is so good. I have nowhere near enough time to play to get to that level of proficiency sadly and I prefer to play single player.
Reading about these battles after the fact is almost always better than actually sitting at your computer for 20+ hours dealing with unbearable sluggishness.
I stopped playing after awhile because it started to feel more like a job and less like a game.
Eve has always been about the fascinating politics and stories that come out of them. Most of what kept me playing for years was the political intrigue and being a part of it.
IMHO this is beginning to rival professional sports tournaments in every way possible. The viewer count (couple hundred thousand) might not me a lot compared to football, but is still pretty significant :)
