When I was a kid, I watched my older brother play horror games like Resident Evil, or Silent Hill. Young me was fascinated by these, but didn't want to play them: Too scary, too mature, and anyway I was pretty sure Mom wouldn't let me. So I'd creep into my brother's darkened room on quiet weekend afternoons, and just watch. Plopped on his collapsing blue recliner, resting awkwardly against exposed wood slats, I would silently observe the nightmares he explored. Years later, I remember those times with my brother as some of the best we've ever had.
Nowadays, watching other people play videogames is a multi-million-dollar industry called Let's Plays. They dominate YouTube's top earner charts and have formed the broad template for streaming live gameplay on the website Twitch, which Amazon acquired for nearly $1 billion in 2014. Every now and then, an article in some local paper or business journal will pop up, listing the major players in the industry like Markiplier or PewDiePie and asking, with more than a little handwringing: How is it that an entire cabal of young entrepreneurs can make six figures just playing videogames in front of a camera?
Cue the touch of moral panic: What are our children even watching?
