ok, I've seen and heard about this for a while. G(ame)-surfing.

if you don't know what this is, basically people go and watch video walkthroughs for games like a movie rather than actually going and buying the game. Some people have actually gone far enough to make videos that play like movies, complete with cutscenes (go to youtube and look up ninja gaiden movie).

I can understand seeing a couple of clips to see if the in-game graphics are really as sharp and stunning as depicted in trailer, but can people really sit there and watch 6-10+ hours of gameplay? If you're watching some person playing through levels, do you still get any of the entertainment value?

If it gets big enough, could it affect sales of games/consoles?
Is this the latest thing for the financially strapped gamer?
Won't this violate some copywrite law somewhere?
Will this really turn into a big trend?
Does anyone here do this?

I don't know why anyone would want to do this. It actually sounds kind of sad. Maybe, after hours of abusing themselves to explicit Internet imagery in their mom's basement, they no longer have the manual dexterity necessary to actually play a game. Is this not a reasonable explanation?

I just want to point out how disappointed I am that G-Surfing stands for Game-Surfing. I thought I was going to read a post about a hot new trend called Gangsta'-Surfing. Now that's a trend I'm willing to get behind.

For some reason, I watched almost all of the levels of Portal with someone showing how to complete them. I don't know why I did it considering I don't even have the game.

Well, the only time I watch videos of people playing video games are reviews, or walkthroughs. But, meh, some people might want to get a sense of the game before buying. Though, I'm not sure why someone would watch the whole thing.

Because if the game's a bunch of memorization-heavy lameness, it's closely related to movies anyway. That is, you're not playing with your reflexes anymore, you're just going through the motions. Ninja Gaiden, all of them, are good examples of this. Spend time dealing with that bird of the avian family Pitus Bullshitae Cocksuckus, or spend less time just watching someone else do it perfectly.

Basically, any time a developer gets it into their head that they're making a cinematic experience, you're going to end up with something that's a billion times more fun to watch than it is to play. Doesn't matter if it's Another World/Out of this World, or PoP: Sands of Time.

Alternately, the clips are useful if the game is dependent on some arbitrary, yet repetitive trick. See also: Ninja Gaiden. Or God Hand. Or Viewtiful Joe.

Also, bonus points for trying to blow the matter out of proportion with the time estimate. No, people generally don't sit through 6 hours of gameplay in movie form. Good thing that most movies never reach longer than 2, and are easy to find in segmented form. See, the point is to watch someone do it perfectly, or at least well, which generally takes less time than it would for you to practice it on your own.

there are usually 4 or so main reasons people watch game walkthrus.

1) they played it once before and they simply want to see how some one else played it.
how did another person go through and solve the puzzles in the game, much like watching portal and seeing how fast a player solves a certain room. often they pick up something or figure out something you didn't think of which allows them to finish the game or puzzle faster than you did.

2) they want the back story with out the game.
think of playing DMC or Silent Hill and jumping in with the most resent release of the thing simply because you just found it. you are going to come in and a lot of the story is going to be very dependent on you playing the previous games... and often you going backwords on the is usually a let down because it lacks all the improvements the newer version has. so you want the story but not the game.

3) the Challenge breakers.
ya know in Doom at the end of each map you had that 'Par' time which often seemed impossibly low... or the not killing that impossibly nigh invunrable monster, but also in a timely manner. well now you can see exactly that.

4) i finished path a, i don't feel like playing the game again to see path b c and d...
games like deus ex, bioshock, twisted metal, or Mass Effect which all have multipule endings or events which all require you to start from the beginning in order to see that specific path. well i want to see the diffrent path but don't want to trudge through the game just to see a diffrent 5 second clip.

the few game movies i have watched all fall into those catagories.

and no, you will never remove the gamer from the game, nor will this ever hurt video game or console sales. players will always want to interact with the game, control the charicters and feel like they are doing something.

Asif:
I don't know why anyone would want to do this. It actually sounds kind of sad. Maybe, after hours of abusing themselves to explicit Internet imagery in their mom's basement, they no longer have the manual dexterity necessary to actually play a game. Is this not a reasonable explanation?

no, i'm still dextrous enough to play games even after about 4 hours of that.

Hm, well...

First off, i would not see it if the ENTIRETY of the gameplay is featured in it.

Given there are only parts recorded that are vital for the Story (Cutscenes, Bossfights, Big Setpieces, In-Game Conversations, Level Transitions), i'd probably watch it if i do not like the Gameplay, but the Story and Setting...or if i am too lazy to play an Adventure.

I actually tried one time to create a consistent comicbook out of Max Payne by taking the "Cutscene Images" (pretty easy to extract) and capture vital bits of the In-Game Cutscenes and the Gameplay using the developer mode where you can change the camera perspective.

Needless to say, the project died on my lazyness and my inability to recreate the look of the comic images for the In-Game Scenes with Photoshop.
Still, if i'd find out that someone successfully pulled this of, i would give that i read.

(P.S. I guess i would had more fun just "watching" Killer 7)

When watching the game being played is actually funnier than playing it yourself.

I Wanna Be The Guy anyone?

I've seen two full playtroughs of that and enjoyed them immensely but do not feel the need to actually play it myself.

Thinking of it, I might look up a playthrough of the DMC's, I liked the visual style but didn't enjoy the gameplay much.

Ultrajoe:
no, i'm still dextrous enough to play games even after about 4 hours of that.

You must stretch beforehand. Your arms, I mean.

Only for games on systems I don't have.

Other than that I like watching speed runs.

Oh god, this is the last thing I need. My missus along with alot of others is one of those people who yells at the tv constantly, you know the type, in horror movies "HES RIGHT BEHIND YOU" (yet for some reason it wasn't funny when I did it during Brokeback Mountian...) plus she is a back seat gamer "turn left, click on that, shoot him" Now we are going to have to put up with them trying to tell the game movie what to do...

I watched an MGS Portable Ops walkthrough because I'm an avid MGS fan but will never ever buy a PSP. I just wanted to see the story properly.

Okay this is a little different to what you are probably talking about but I just stumbled upon World of Warcraft Tales of the Past. Its just a whole movie but using WoW chars and in game graphics and really, I have to say im impressed. Its obviously fan made but has a (soo far from what ive seen) decent storyline, voices, subs and its actually far more interesting to me then anything ive seen at the cinema latly.
If anyone happens to come across any other of these types please let me know. XD

avykins:
Okay this is a little different to what you are probably talking about but I just stumbled upon World of Warcraft Tales of the Past. Its just a whole movie but using WoW chars and in game graphics and really, I have to say im impressed. Its obviously fan made but has a (soo far from what ive seen) decent storyline, voices, subs and its actually far more interesting to me then anything ive seen at the cinema latly.
If anyone happens to come across any other of these types please let me know. XD

That's called machinima e.g Red Vs. Blue. It's when someone uses an existing engine to make something, there's LOADS of WoW machinima like The Grind, Time Gnomes etc they're all great

Oh and ToTP was made on my old server, Dunemaul. I know the cousin of the dude he made it and he's the inspiration for my 18month addiction to WoW :P

avykins:
Oh god, this is the last thing I need. My missus along with alot of others is one of those people who yells at the tv constantly, you know the type, in horror movies "HES RIGHT BEHIND YOU" (yet for some reason it wasn't funny when I did it during Brokeback Mountian...) plus she is a back seat gamer "turn left, click on that, shoot him" Now we are going to have to put up with them trying to tell the game movie what to do...

In a roundabout way, this is another interesting aspect of watching videogame replays: learning by example.

By watching without playing, you can often notice things you might not have time to notice when part of your concentration is actually being spent on dealing with all the crap a game is throwing at you.

If the game is particularly hectic, you're probably just trying to get by when you're playing. But if you watch another person play a difficult section/game, you can go "oh, i didn't really realize that before" and adjust your own playthrough based off what you noticed while watching. See: Ninja Fucking Gaiden, or any number of games in the shoot 'em up genre.

G-Surfing is...eh.
The only time I'd ever do it is to watch a speedrun for hints on how to shave some time off of my own playtime if I were so inclined. Or watch some other nigh-impossible feat that actually IS possible without tool-assists, just bloody hard.
(Such as, say, completing the entirety of Shinobi 3 for the Genesis in under 15 minutes, without taking a hit. I've done it, but someone online got a better playtime...Got hit a few times though, and I didn't use ninjitsus, so I'm still better!)

I watch speedruns before getting the game to get ideas. Then I almost always buy them.

I'll admit that I've watched a few speed-runs as well, only because I questioned the validity of the times they claimed, like someone playing through the entirety of Half-Life in under 30 minutes. Otherwise I've never seen a point to G-surfing. The main component of a games enjoyment comes from actually playing the game yourself and experiencing the story from your own point of view.

I'll watch the first couple of levels of a game before I buy it if I want to know if the plot or writing is any good. This guy is probably the best one on the web right now:

http://www.bonersgames.com/