The voyeurs are coming

I realised something today while perusing the internet for a game of StarCraft to watch: broadband has become cheap and the gaming world is adapting to it.

In the past, I have always been the person who watches other people play; if I liked the game immensely, I would play it myself. But watching people play games has taken a new step these days: sites like justin.tv and broadband connections are providing gamers with a way to open up their world to a bigger audience.

Nowadays, you can watch total strangers play PC games in high quality. Curious about the Witcher 2? Just open up a stream! Interested if Brink is worth buying? See someone else play it. Bored? Put on some random StarCraft II tournament and be entertained.

It opens up the question: do people prefer to play or just want to be entertained by it? I am sure people still want to play, but I would bet watching games is going to grow insanely: the voyeurs are coming.