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Games are exploding in the weirdest ways these days. Only one stream from a BTS member can propel a virality of type among us to among us. Likewise, as the already massive Deep Rock Galactic community recently learned, a fat vtuber joining the ranks of the space dwarves can indeed bring all the weebs into the yard. Luckily, this group of fat miners welcomed these new green beards watching anime girls with open arms.
It all started a few days ago when Shishiro Botan (opens in a new tab)a vtuber under Hololive with nearly 1.3 million subscribers on YouTube, streamed Deep Rock Galactic for about two hours to over 10,000 viewers, ending the stream with a positive review of the game. The vod for this stream is sitting at 160,000 views at the time of writing, so there’s no doubt he’s put a lot of eyes on the game – and not just in Japan and wider Asia, where Hololive is usually the biggest, since Botan clearly has a non-trivial western audience too.
Let’s be perfectly clear: Deep Rock Galactic has been out for a few years and has amassed over 140,000 Steam reviews with a 97% positive rating, not to mention its Xbox and Game Pass release. Realistically, no number of Shishiro Botan viewership will materially change the already bright outlook for this game.
That said, as we’ve seen before – because it’s kind of not the first, second, or even the third time Hololive has appeared in gaming news – games often circulate in vtuber communities and eventually catch the attention of several important audiences. (Botan apparently chose DRG after an all-male group within Hololive gave him a chance.) Even so, I’m less interested in the numbers resulting from this and more in the response from the DRG community, which was really comforting.
“Watch out brothers and sisters,” said Redditor and space dwarf OechSenpai in a Message of public interest. “We have a really big Japanese Hololive streamer, Shishiro Botan, playing DRG right now. Expect a massive amount of new players.”
“Be tolerant and welcoming of new miners no matter where they come from,” one Reddit mod said in a comment to the scorching post. “Greenbeards joining the ranks should be celebrated. Spend your energy helping out a few greenbeards instead of being grumpy on the internet. Community is a big part of what makes Deep Rock Galactic great.”
Naturally, this inspired memes and illustrations.
in_light_of_recent_news from r/DeepRockGalactic
to start to work!!!! ⛏️⛏️⛏️⛏️#ししらーと pic.twitter.com/HlGGVrTZpaJanuary 9, 2023
The comments on these posts are a sea of supportive jokes that give me hope for humanity. “Rock and stone, Lalion”, written Ax222 (opens in a new tab), marrying the battle cry of the space dwarves with Botan’s apparent catchphrase. “You mean green beards,” Youth_natural_5941 (opens in a new tab) said of the “new players” OechSenpai describes, putting all players on the same level no matter how many cat-girl vtubers they watch.
“Honestly a little surprised by the response to this,” wrote Twinkman (opens in a new tab), summing up my thoughts perfectly as well. “I guess a lot of people would hate for a bunch of weebs to join this game. The more players the better!”
Deep Rock Galactic is one of best cooperative games you can play today – click this link for 24 more.
