Can you be a fan of a game if you’ve never played it?

[Azazel]

I like certain aspects of games I haven't played. For instance I like Metal Gear Solid's story and themes (so much that I played through Death Stranding as a day 1 buy), but I've never played it because I hated the controls schemes of the early games and didn't want to be lost in the story of later games. Some games I like the art style but the gameplay isn't my interest, so I can't. Like fighter games, I loved mortal kombat as a kid but I'm too shit at gaming to enjoy them now, but I still think of myself as a fan of the franchise.
So I would say yea you can be a partial fan. Obviously you shouldn't ever have a serious "take" on gameplay itself if you've only watched LPs. I would consider myself a very minor fan of these franchises. I think you can really only do this for linear games, I don't see how you could be a fan of say, an open-ended MMORPG like ESO. Even something like the Witcher 3 would be odd considering how variable and atmospheric the game is.

 

[Disheveled Human]

I used to like watching Starcraft autists play because I suck at RTS, my NA hands were laughable so it was cool to see how good people could be at a game you stand no chance of reasonable competency at.

 

[Book Thief]

The Western branch of the Touhou fandom has a term for this phenomenon: "Secondaries." These are people who aren't so much fans of the games themselves as they are fans of the fan-made materials, such as meme videos, music remixes, fan comics, fan art, MMD music videos and machinima, fanime, and ... (Ahem)... "Refined Literature." The reason Secondaries tend to crop up so much in the Touhou fandom is because the primary genre of the franchise is Bullet Hell, which tends to be ball-blisteringly hard compared to most other games.

Naturally, the fans who actually play the games tend to hold Secondaries in contempt, especially the ones who tend to draw lewd artwork as it tends to give Touhou a negative reputation of being a crappy anime series for horny weebs. Their attempts at writing fan-fiction also has a tendency to be wildly off-canon, especially if they're a Westerner given the rather niche nature of a Japanese shmup series.

 

[Your Weird Fetish]

Yes but only if it's Drakengard.

 

[Floop]

I’ll give a pass to online games. CSGO is entertaining to watch and I suck at it.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

If someone is a fan of a game that they haven't played that's fine but they are not allowed to argue about it, arguing is a premium feature not included in the free watching-let's-plays tier.

 

[Pissmaster]

The Western branch of the Touhou fandom has a term for this phenomenon: "Secondaries." These are people who aren't so much fans of the games themselves as they are fans of the fan-made materials, such as meme videos, music remixes, fan comics, fan art, MMD music videos and machinima, fanime, and ... (Ahem)... "Refined Literature." The reason Secondaries tend to crop up so much in the Touhou fandom is because the primary genre of the franchise is Bullet Hell, which tends to be ball-blisteringly hard compared to most other games.

Naturally, the fans who actually play the games tend to hold Secondaries in contempt, especially the ones who tend to draw lewd artwork as it tends to give Touhou a negative reputation of being a crappy anime series for horny weebs. Their attempts at writing fan-fiction also has a tendency to be wildly off-canon, especially if they're a Westerner given the rather niche nature of a Japanese shmup series.

I dont blame them, I didn't know Touhou was anything but hentai for like a whole decade.

 

[UntimelyDhelmise]

I have such a relationship with horror games here and there. I get startled easily so I'm admittedly a bit of a pussy to actually play them myself, but I love to dive into the lore, creature designs and themes explored with the genre you don't typically see elsewhere in gaming.

A good personal example would be Spooky's Jumpscare Mansion (or House of Jumpscares before copyright bullshit or whatever). Never played it but have seen several playthroughs and I spent quite a bit of time reading up on the SCP-like Specimen lore and factoids.

 

[Floop]

A good personal example would be Spooky's Jumpscare Mansion (or House of Jumpscares before copyright bullshit or whatever). Never played it but have seen several playthroughs and I spent quite a bit of time reading up on the SCP-like Specimen lore and factoids.

I don’t really understand how that game can be scary when it’s about a cute girl and the title is called Spooky’s Jumpscare Mansion

 

[Your Weird Fetish]

I dont blame them, I didn't know Touhou was anything but hentai for like a whole decade.

I'm just learning this right now from this very thread. I thought it was a porn thing.

 

[Mimic]

Like others have said, you can be a fan of what makes the game a complete package without actually playing the game, but if that makes you a fan of the game itself is a grey area.

SMT games. I love the lore, the atmosphere (usually), the character designs, but I can only really stomach playing a few of them.

 

[UntimelyDhelmise]

I don’t really understand how that game can be scary when it’s about a cute girl and the title is called Spooky’s Jumpscare Mansion

That's the catch. It starts out with cheap jumpscares with literal cardboard cutouts as you traverse the mansion's various rooms, but after a while you start to come across the "Specimens" that try to hunt you down. You know that common nightmare where you're running from something chasing you? That's the true gameplay.

 

[Floop]

That's the catch. It starts out with cheap jumpscares with literal cardboard cutouts as you traverse the mansion's various rooms, but after a while you start to come across the "Specimens" that try to hunt you down. You know that common nightmare where you're running from something chasing you? That's the true gameplay.

I might have to try it sometime. I hope it’s not Bendy tier levels of “scary”

 

[Agent Abe Caprine]

There's a surprising amount of Silent Hill fans who have never played the games, so sure.

There's an unsurprising amount of Drakengard and Nier fans who never played the Drakengard games. Same goes for the first Nier. For Nier, the gameplay would be tolerable for most. Only those who expect absolute perfection would be bothered by it.

For Drakengard, only masochists will seek out the games. They are interesting rides when played, but I'd never recommend playing them. If you want to, welcome to Yoko Taro's land of jank. Enjoy your stay.

Now if you call yourself a fan of Deadly Premonition without playing it, no fk in the coffee for you.

Spooky's Jumpscare Mansion is something you need to play to understand. It isn't scary so much as it is tense.

 

[Book Thief]

I'm just learning this right now from this very thread. I thought it was a porn thing.

I can't exactly blame you. Even if it's not pornographic, fanart tends to play up Japanese-styled fanservice. For example, in canon, the girls tend to wear Victorian-styled bloomers under their skirts (examples here and here), but in fanart or MMD models, it's not uncommon to see them wearing modern-styled panties and lingerie, because horny Japanese dudes gotta have their fucking loli panty shots.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

There's a surprising amount of Silent Hill fans who have never played the games, so sure.

The downside to "being a fan without playing the game" is the people pissing and moaning about how a game was so great and it won't get a sequel because it didn't sell well and gamers are idiots that don't recognize greatness - but they didn't buy the game themselves!

With some games you really get the feeling that it won't sell well but it will be very popular on the internet in a year or so. It will have more fans than copies sold.

 

[Marissa Moira]

9 times out of 10 people who are fans of games that they've never played will demand that future installments work like a movie or remove any and all game elements because they get stuck and can't get through the story.

 

[Your Weird Fetish]

I can't exactly blame you. Even if it's not pornographic, fanart tends to play up Japanese-styled fanservice. For example, in canon, the girls tend to wear Victorian-styled bloomers under their skirts (examples here and here), but in fanart or MMD models, it's not uncommon to see them wearing modern-styled panties and lingerie, because horny Japanese dudes gotta have their fucking loli panty shots.

Plebs. Victorian styled bloomers are sexier.

 

[Detrogen]

If someone told me they sat through all of the cutscenes from the Metal Gear Solid series on YouTube and said they were a fan, I’d believe them.

 

[Pope Negro Joe the XIIIth]

Sure, I'd say you can enjoy the story and lore of a game without actually playing it, but we all know that's not what we're talking about here. This is about fucking losers who can't beat Cuphead's first boss, or can't figure out how not to button mash in Dark Souls but want to be seen as "cool gamers" while they sit on ResetEra and talk about how much they hate video game culture. It's participation ribbon nonsense where these people think they need to consume every piece of media in existence because they don't have an actual personality to fall back on and if they can't actually consume it, they should get to pretend they did.

Fucking sad, just learn how to play the game.