retro casting

[korn16ftl3]

i was curious why no one does broadcasts via something like JTV of them playing retro games.

im a member of a PS3 "clan/group" that does this frequently for new releases and things like that some times just for fun, but i think it would be really neat to see a place like racketboy do retro game casts to show off games or in my case show me what a game is actually like play and mechanics wise or just for something to watch.

[Mucx]

I have often wondered this as well. With the enthusiasm for Retro game so strong at the moment it is odd that we don't have a dedicated portal, or at least a place to watch old classics like Zelda or Mario 3 being played.

The issue is, I feel, a technical one. Although there are plenty of people like yourself who can and could stream this kind of gameplay (via emulator or through a capture device for a real system), most people find this too big of a hurdle. The software, hardware and then tweaking of settings can be too much for the average Joe to bother with. Having worked in the media streaming environment, hosting these streams is no easy task btw, but piggybacking off of JTV (Twitch) or Ustream is your best bet.

Twitch.tv, which is JTV's spin-off game streaming portal is fairly active, but the disappointing factor is how few games are being played, and more so the range of different game genres (predominantly FPS shooters or Tower defense). If the screen capture and streaming methods were easier, the amount and variety of games would be greater I feel. That includes retro games.

As an aside: I'm currently the designer on an open source Mac multi-emulation project called 'OpenEmu' and Ive had discussions about how cool it would be to broadcast your gameplay while you play. It seems a lot of people would like to see this. (contact me if you are a Mac developer and want to integrate that specifically!).

[dsheinem]

I think some of this went on earlier this year with Racketboy TV, and it wasn't exactly a huge hit. I don't think that the audience is there for stuff like this, as most retro gamers tend to shy away from watching video of people playing games when they could themselves be using that time to play games...

[Mucx]

I don't know about that entirely. The same could be said for the modern games being played on Twitch.tv... why watch people playing COD, Minecraft or FIFA when you could play it yourself?

The audience is there for that stuff at least, as it has allowed several of the streamers on those sites to quit their day jobs and go 'pro', by earning enough money off the back of advertising on the game streams they produce.

Maybe the failure of the RacketBoy event was more of a marketing or promotion fault than that of an audience being there? (don't mean that to come off as a backhander). A larger streaming portal and site like Twitch has a lot more eyeballs.

Maybe Retro games just aren't nice to watch? (but to contradict that, the amount of views for speed runs, walkthroughs etc on YouTube videos are high... hmmm).

[korn16ftl3]

pssh who needs capture cards and all that fancy pants stuff i was just thinking point a web cam at a TV then run an audio line to a mic port setting the stream to use that for its audio source then boom all set