Because there are not that much entertaining/knowledgeable ones? Or people generally not interested in what they have to offer.

Could be a lot of reasons.

-The streamers being boring
-The game being more fun to play than to watch
-No real reason to watch people play ESO
-People just not watching streamers of any game.

Now why would I want to watch someone who has no strong personality play a game with a soulless look in their eyes, when I could be playing the game myself?

I don't mind watching streams, but I prefer to listen to the game rather than commentary, chatter and narration with it. Most like to chat through them so those I don't tend to watch. I like having them on in the background when doing other tasks

As I see it, there are basically 3 reasons to watch someone else streaming their gameplay:

(1) You don't know much about the game and are curious about it, so you want to watch someone else playing it so you can see the gameplay and learn how to play it. In that case, you're probably going to watch streamers who talk about the game, explain what they're doing and why, and are able to give informative answers to their viewers' questions.

(2) You already know how to play the game and enjoy watching other people playing it. When they run into problems or get stuck, you want to give them pointers in chat to help them out because you want them to be able to enjoy the game as much as you do. This can be a very fine line to walk, because a lot of players seem to like going into a game totally blind so they can discover everything about it on their own, and they do not want any backseating or any spoilers, whereas other players will ask their viewers questions about the game and are grateful for any non-spoiler information about basic gameplay.

(3) You have watched a particular streamer before and enjoyed listening to them chat with their viewers. Some streamers will stream their gameplay and basically not talk at all, whereas other streamers have lively personalities and are interesting and fun to listen to. If you enjoy their personality, it doesn't really matter what games they're playing, because you'll gladly watch them play just about anything.

As far as ESO streamers, I enjoy watching certain streamers who I'm familiar with, but not all for the same reasons. When I'm watching the ones I mainly enjoy listening to, I'll often be playing ESO or Arena while I listen to them, like a radio station. But if I'm not playing ESO or Arena myself, I enjoy watching streamers who are playing content that I don't normally play, such as vet dungeons, trials, or PvP. In particular, I enjoy watching experienced PvPers who can go 1vX against 4 or more enemy players and drag the fight out for a long time before the enemy finally gets enough players together to take them down.

UGotBenched91 wrote: »

I've noticed that compared to other MMOs (WOW/ FF14 being the top comparisons), ESO has a low twitch presence in the community. Not a lot of
viewers watching ESO streamers. I'm just curious what it is about ESO that isn't as entertaining to watch compared to other MMOS.

Lack of PVP and Hard Endgame content. If you look at the other games you mentioned (and twitch in general) the majority of things which do well are competitive pvp games or games with high end PVE content where there is some form of world first races etc.


Unfortunately for ESO the gameplay is either laggy or uncompetitive in general which dissuades larger streamers from bringing in their audiences. And there is no form of competitive endgame for PVE outside of minor time trial improvements which don't really give any viewability factor.

Additionally the player base is rather small in the competitive scene because the game is focused on story and housing/roleplay focused players currently which further diminishes a regular viewing base outside of 'fans' of the streamers.

I watch some streams now and again (not eso). And as some have pointed a lot has to do with the personality, that's why some of the most popular ones retain their viewership whilst switching between games (also known as variety streamers).

MMOs in general are not very popular with viewership. I wouldn't even say final fantasy is popular either. WoW on the other hand has along history and end-game was a big thing for a significant portion of the community both pvp and pve (I'd imagine a lot of viewer base are ex-wow players too) the biggest streamers had along time to cultivate their fanbase.

A big draw of streamed content is having having a different experience with each stream, which is why pvp content is highly popular (each match can be different). ESO doesn't really provide that kind of content, either it's story content, daily PvE routine and noob stomping in PvP (due to the skill disparity). There's just a big lack of tension/excitment across the board.

I see no point in watching other play an video game I can play myself.
I watch build and dungeon guides.
Comments on updates is also nice.
However just playing an game, why unless you clown a lot.

I watch streamers while working. I stream to my TV so playing at the same time isn't an option. And it lets me see things I can't do on my own. I'd never have tried a dungeon if I hadn't watched people do them. I'll almost definitely never do a trial so it's nice to see some and its nice to hear people talk about a game I generally like (still salty about green tree so only doing minimum currently).

rrimöykk wrote: »

Absolutely zero competitive atmosphere around the game as it's less of a mmo than a single-player roleplaying game.

Hmm. This whole "competitive" thing is another bit I just don't get. Who cares that Elitist Ego Guild got "world first" in Raid XYZ?


Personally, I always thought that ESO put too much emphasis on "competitive" with those stupid PvE Leaderboards.