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“ format ; it ’ s informational , but it ’ s also entertainment . It seems that the first Let ’ s Play was of the classic game Oregon Trail circa 2005 on the Something Awful forums , though people can ’ t seem to find the original thread . It consisted primarily of screenshots of the game posted with text commentary , a kind of Let ’ s Play that isn ’ t quite as popular today , but definitely still exists . Some of the most prominent figures in the early Let ’ s Play community include slowbeef , Freelance Astronauts , Psychedelic Eyeball , and Proton Jon . Eventually Let ’ s Plays transitioned from forum posts to silent videos of the game with fuzzy audio commentary on top , and then videos with in-game audio and audio commentary posted on YouTube , a relatively new website in the early to mid-2000s .
Two games in particular skyrocketed Let ’ s Plays to popularity : Minecraft and Amnesia : The Dark Descent . Minecraft is a simulation and building game with highly customizable worlds ( akin to LEGOs ) while Amnesia is a first-person survival horror game . Two of the most popular Let ’ s Players I mentioned earlier , Pewdiepie and Markiplier , got their start with those games respectively .
Their first few videos use the audio-only commentary format . Pewdiepie has short clips of random glitches in Minecraft that eventually expand to an Amnesia playthrough . He began to add more games to his repertoire of videos , and put in a webcam overlay at around 2011 to add to the vlog / live reaction experience ( Markiplier added webcam to his videos in 2012 ). This evolution of video style is common with other Let ’ s Players as well : starting off with short and random videos , proceeding to add audio commentary , and then adding a webcam feed . It ’ s a sort of natural progression . The more popular a Let ’ s Players videos get , the more comfortable they get with sharing more of themselves and the more likely they are to invest in better equipment to make videos with .
This progression doesn ’ t happen with everyone however , as some prominent Let ’ s Players opt for the no-videocam format , and some Let ’ s Players still use the old forum format for posting their Let ’ s Plays . There ’ s three reasons I can come up with as to why : it ’ s a pain to invest in better equipment , especially if you have big commitments outside the Let ’ s Play community ; you may have reasons for not wanting to show your face ; or you ’ ve established an online persona that would be ruined by switching to facecam . GameGrumps and Cryaotic ( more so ) are good examples of the last reason : In each GameGrumps video , small cartoon versions of the
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‘ I love seeing other people have fun , and I think that ’ s what a lot of people get out of these gaming videos ,’ Markiplier says .