This blog post will attempt to combine fumblecore games with a topic from last week—how the internet—specifically the non-gamer audience it introduces into the gaming world—changed individual gameplay experience as well as the evaluation and reception of a game.
Fumblecore games as a genre might not attract as many players as traditional games oriented towards goals and success. It likely falls into the “subculture” category, having a specific group of loyal fans. However, if you look up QWOP on YouTube, the number of videos and their number of views might surprise you. Many of them are watched for more than a million times. I would like to boldly make the claim that this is a triumph for such an old, “subcultural” game.
Why exactly are people making and watching these videos? To answer that, we need to look at what types of videos there are. Naturally, there are speedrun videos and tutorials that teach players “the right way” of playing QWOP. But many of the most popular videos are the so-called “reaction videos;” in this specific context, they are “rage-quit” ones. These videos, rather than focusing on the game itself, center upon the players’ reactions, which are usually intense and extreme. “BIGGEST RAGE EVER,” a QWOP video by Markiplier, has 4.51million views. It clearly fulfills its goal of being entertaining. If you scroll down, you will see more such compilations of failures and frustrations attracting a decent number of audiences. Indeed, the gigantic fan-base of some of these YouTubers - like jacksepticeye and PewDiePie – contributes to the success of their videos, but the fact that such famous YouTubers are willing to make videos out of this game says something: they know that the audience like this. A similar phenomenon can be seen with other fumblecore games, like Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy. Not long after the game came out in 2017, videos of the game can be seen anywhere. Related keywords for this game on YouTube are also “speedrun” and “rage.” The success of these videos might have one simple explanation: in-game suffering is not fun, but watching other people suffer is. Characterized by some level of suffering, fumblecore games have a natural advantage.
What exactly defines the success of a game? As QWOP came out in 2008, I assume that the designers did not take the internet or non-gamer audience into their account. From my point of view, the game is more likely designed as a parody for running games, and the designers probably had a specific target audience in mind. Whether the designers foresaw it or not, QWOP became a huge success with the help of the internet and thrived to this present day. This reveals a general trend, in that with the internet and social media entering the stage, games no longer appeal to its players alone. Millions and billions of non-gamers now have access to gameplay videos. So long as the videos of a game are entertaining, more people will watch them, and naturally more copies of the game can be sold, even though many of them won’t be played for over five minutes. The internet has brought about a whole new standard for evaluating the success and failure of games. With non-gamers entering the game world through videos, games are no longer judged by its playability alone. The frustrating fumblecore games have their own charm; it might dissuade players, but it attracts audiences.
Thank you for this post -- it was a thought-provoking read, and rather than critique your argument, I wanted to quickly share something tangentially related that your post inspired. Reading the words "Suffering is Fun to Watch" in your title immediately made me think of We Become What We Behold's refrain of "peace is boring, violence goes viral." I find it interesting not only how suffering is, in fact, fun to watch (as is evidenced by your brilliant analysis of YouTube videos) but how this simple quirk of the human psyche can have such different impacts depending on the situation. In the case of QWOP and online rage-quit videos, the suffering of others brings us together and creates a community…
i think this tackles something entertaining! a large element in the humor of these games is being able to laugh at and shrug off failure, or laugh at the expense of others who willingly put themselves to the test because you don’t want to have to do it yourself. i wonder about the inverse though? there are also lots of playthroughs of seemingly impossible or challenging tasks that people have managed that also have a substantial amount of views, where their success seems too easy for whatever they’ve played. audiences are also fascinated when players seemingly effortlessly breeze through ridiculous feats. it's intriguing how people take enjoyment from opposite sides of the spectrum and not as much in the middle…