Scream detection?

[Bridge]

I'm going to take a wild shot in the dark and guess you're a PDP fan, to a greater or lesser extent. You'll find that the majority of people on this forum are pretty hard core FG fans, and those who really appreciate these games do not appreciate enternetainers (<- not a misspelling) ruining the experience by catering to the lowest common denominator by appealing to a vast audience with almost slap-stick style humor (hahaha, let's watch this guy get scared, scream his !@# off, and smash stuff because there's a physics engine). This sorta stuff really devalues the game in my opinion by centering the experience around laughing at the misfortunes of the player, and really has nothing to do with the game in question itself. I don't think I'm in the minority, at least among fans of FG and their games, on this subject.

This is also why, to a certain extent, most people don't audibly react to scariness in video games. If you're actually scared by a game, chances are you're very immersed in the experience. If you're very immersed, audibly screaming will likely take you out of the experience: if you're screaming, you're reminded you're not inside the game world, you're outside if playing a character inside the game world. If that makes any sense at all.

Then don't watch them? I do not see how they can possibly ruin your experience by simply existing. Also, just because it is contrary to the game's intention doesn't mean it is incapable of being stimulating on its own terms. Watching Let's Plays where people are almost completely silent is the most boring thing in the world. The LPers of course have to entertain the people watching otherwise they have no incentive to. How they achieve this is the difference between good LPs and bad LPs but needless to say not all entertaining Let's Plays are stupid.

I would much rather watch someone make genuinely clever jokes and make the LP funny to watch (without trivializing the game) than watch some guy stoically play through the game fully immersed. It's disrespectful to your audience and honestly, not the point of LPs at all. Perfect example of what I'm talking about is Day[9]'s Let's Play of Amnesia, which I consider the best.