Are Quick Looks too long?

I'm just running through my downloaded videos of the past few weeks, looking for something short to watch while eating lunch or dinner. I have six Quick Looks, and none of them are under 45 minutes. This is making me question the quantity vs. quality thing for the first time in a while here.

I understand a big game getting a long video, something in the realm of The Witcher, Bloodbourne, or MGS V. But everything I have to choose from in my folder is a smaller, shorter indie game. So I'm getting a sixth of Undertale, a fourth of Stasis, and a whole lot of Assault Android Cactus.

I suppose the solution is to turn off the videos quicker, which might make me eventually just tune out altogether. And as much as I like GB East videos, it seems like most of their videos run a little long (most recently, Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime). In a recent podcast, someone talked about their data caps, and choosing the feature-length Dropsy Quick Look instead of patching their game probably isn't a good trade off.

This gets discussed once in a while, so I guess I'm just curious what the current thoughts are of this here community. With so many lengthy streams coming regularly, do Quick Looks need to be as long as they are? We now have two offices putting out a whole lot of stuff, so the play-til-they-feel-satisfied model results in a lot more total downtime in videos than before. Downtime in my life.

I see value in having videos of variable length. They could have played 20XX for another half hour, but the brevity of that video kept me engaged and wet my appetite for playing the game. And Afro Samurai 2 was just long enough to make me realize "fuuuuck that."

Edit: Well, looks like people here really want Quick Looks to continue being long. Probably even longer! And I've come to realize that they've done a lot of good, shorter stuff in recent times, as well. Everyone's a winner.

Edit 2: Months old thread is bumped again, but this same thing was addressed 4 years ago. Might be worth reading through for historical purposes!

No.

Oh, dammit, I guess I'm wrong.

no

I believe their lengths are just fine. A unique quality to GB content is that we, as the user, are here partly for their coverage on video games. The other part is the entertainment value of their personalities. At least that's what I'm here for: I hardly play games, but I love Giant Bomb because of the community and how hilarious the staff is in their content.

No

This is something I've been thinking for quite some time. As you said, there are absolutely some games that benefit from long videos: games like MGSV or The Witcher 3 that have a lot of systems/depth and need more time to be shown off properly. On smaller games, however, it seems far too common that the crew keep going well past covering what a game is and just want to keep playing because they're having a good time.

I know that this criticism likely isn't a very popular one. As someone who likes to watch pretty much everything that appears on the site, it can be overwhelming to have a day where a podcast, premium feature, and 2 hour-plus QL appear on the site, especially when neither of those games needed the longer videos. I know that I could just stop watching one of these videos when I get bored/need to do something else, but there's still something to be said for brevity in coverage of a game.

Indeed, most of the time I have these in the background and just listen to the banter. The video games are almost secondary in a lot of ways. But keeping it entertaining for that long, that often, is a tough task.

I dunno, the guys seem receptive to feedback but I suppose I'm the only one nowadays.

Edit: Wait, @wemibelec90 joins the fight! Not much of a fight, of course, if people dig the long videos then that's just fine.

I think it will probably be much if somebody was trying to watch everything. Looking at the current Quick Look pages, I've watched 8 of the videos listed, so by not watching the other 16 or whatever videos I haven't watched about 10 hours worth of content. That's quite a lot of videos!

But those other videos I will probably never watch (like NHL). So yeah, individually I'd say no. But when you line up all the Quick Looks, podcasts, premium streams, etc, I just think how I'm never going to watch all of that/never feel like watching those videos anyway.

No

I'm very happy when I see gb east do a quick look cuz I know it's gonna be longer. And I love me some Vinny.

Nope.

Nah

Long Quick Looks are only a problem for me when Brad is playing a game that involves making decisions.

Considering how much time in a day I don't have after work and other commitments, my time watching GB videos is getting less and less because I just can't devote so much time to these videos. For years I would watch every single piece of content, and it was manageable with the decently sized chunks of video, but now everything seems so long and unless I'm completely invested, such as in the MGS videos, or something that really seems interesting, then I don't even bother and that sucks.

I've been thinking this for a few weeks now. I haven't been able to keep up with GB content for awhile now because I just don't have the time to watch everything they put out. But when I do have time and I'm trying to decide between videos and they're almost all an hour or longer, it really limits what I can actually watch. The GBeast videos are a little much, even as someone who loves hearing from all those guys. I love long quick looks for big games, or ones that lend themselves to hilarity, but many of them lately are just unnecessarily long. I've found myself skipping through a lot of them or leaving them on in the background and not really paying attention.

Sounds like we're in the same boat. I used to have 2 to 3 hours of commuting a day to catch up, but now that's down to 20 minutes and I spend my time doing something else.

Anyway, I've been playing a lot of story-based games lately, like uh... Advanced Warfare, so maybe once Halo comes out and I'm doing multiplayer this armada of downloaded QL's will come in handy. When I have some free time and a couple of podcast games, an overabundance of Quick Looks comes in handy. Which is why I'm keeping that Destiny raid around for a rainy day.

I'm kind of surprised to see how one-sided this thread has become, but ah well. This certainly beats weekly threads of "where's the content??"

...yes?

OK, not always, but Quick Looks haven't been Quick for a while now and they're getting longer and I'm watching fewer and fewer of them. Most Quick Looks shouldn't be longer than 40 minutes - something like The Witcher 3 is an exception, of course. I'm someone that has a hard time devoting two hours to watching a movie, even a great one. It feels like a lot of Quick Looks these days are an hour plus in length and I certainly can't justify spending that much of my day watching two or three dudes play a game and banter off topic. As far as background noise goes, sure, maybe, but whenever I try to use something that isn't music as background noise, I either wind up paying more attention to the background noise than the task at hand or I just turn off the background noise because it's bothersome.

I don't really want to watch everything, but Quick Looks are what brought me to the site and they often get me interested in games I wouldn't otherwise try. If I do watch one, it's usually no more than ten or twenty minutes of it while I'm eating breakfast. I don't want Quick Looks to be that short again, generally, but sometimes it would be nice if I could reasonably finish them in one sitting without feeling like I wasted some time.

EDIT: How many of you saying no have a full time job? This makes me think back to a post I made a week or two ago where I asked how people put a hundred hours into a game that's less than a month old...

As someone who doesn't tend to watch Quick Looks so much anymore; yes, they're too long. For the most part I'd prefer that they were 20-30 minutes long. However, I don't know how much I'm worth listening to, because I don't tend to find the content itself that entertaining anymore.

No

We are on the same page OP. Yep, quick looks are too long. The solution I found is to only watch the quick looks you are interested in. I sometimes spread a single Quick look out over multiple sessions, like that Destiny Taken King quick look for example. Or I just stop watching the quick look if I become disinterested. :/

It will be a miracle of the GBeast crew ever records a Quick Look in under an hour.

Same, I skim through and can't choose a video unless I wanna remember timestamps when I'll return to it. So instead, I end up watching WWE highlights or something crazy like that.

Reminds of when I used to watch Starcraft 2 videos because of Tastosis, but there was so much of these cool guys that I realized it felt like work to stay up-to-date. And I haven't watched a Starcraft video now in over 4 years.

I'm inclined to say yes but it depends. I used to consume everything this site put out and now, I simply find I can't. I even used to watch videos of games I had no interest in just because the GB crew made them so entertaining to watch but now with most videos at 45 minutes to an hour or even more than that and having a couple of those a day sometimes means I'm actually sacrificing time to watch videos of people playing games over actually playing them.

No, they're job is to create content and Quick Looks are as concentrated as it gets. The viewers that watch for information have a lot of content on the games of interest and the viewers that watch for entertainment have a lot to choose from.

Yes, reduce them to a Planck length. Billions and billions of quick looks in a matter of seconds!

Na.

Like 2-3 years ago I would have said no, but I don't have time for them anymore. I have to spend at least 10 hours a week to keep up with everything they put out, and at that point wtf am I doing with my life? It was eating up all my free time that I didn't actually have time to play games anymore, or really do anything else. I basically just do The Bombcast, Beastcast and UPF, and between just those three that's like 7 hours of content. I usually stop watching QLs after about 20 minutes 'cause I usually get the gist of the game by then, but I do miss a lot of them.

I like me some long Quick Looks, but there are definitely times I wish there was some shorter content to watch...if I don't remember to make a bookmark in VLC, I have to guess where I left off when I shut down for the night. I definitely have less time these days, but that isn't their fault. Maybe I should eventually give up on watching everything, it's just hard when I more or less like everything.

Quick Looks are NEVER too long.

Nope.

What I've noticed over the last few years is that I've become much more accustomed to stop watching a QL early. Now if this is because they're too long or because they've been "branching out" is hard to say. I would say though, who does it hurt if the QL is 30 minutes longer than you need it to be ? As long as you can watch the first 10-20 minutes and get the info you need isn't it just good that it's longer for the people who want that ?

As I said, I find myself more often than not stopping the video pretty early, but at the same time I can't imagine I would buy Contradiction if that QL was only 15 minutes long. When the right game comes along watching the guys play through a good chunk of it only helps to wet my appetite.

the only thing that may be too long are the actually openings of the quick looks, sometimes they just ramble on about something dumb and sometimes thats funny but other times it goes for like 5 mins and I skip them all together other times.

No. They're as long as they need to be. Each quick look is different and requires different amounts of time.

Edit: haha If they make the videos shorter we get people whining that there isn't enough content.

I hope Giant Bomb just ignores these kinds of threads and just continues doing their thing. You don't have to watch everything and the idea that any person doesn't have enough time to watch every video because they're too long, and therefore they shouldn't be, continues to be incredibly absurd.

"Hey Cartoon Network, you have too many shows I want to watch but I don't have time to watch them all. Could you just sell ads for more time throughout the day so you only show your outstanding original programming when I have time to watch all of it? Thanks, that'd be great."

That's absurd.

nope. Strongly prefer longer quick looks when I'm not going into it with interest and if Im going in with interest, most of the time I'm buying it before the QL is posted.

Nope I like long quick looks because it's means I get to listen to the guys more while I'm racing in Forza or playing Hearthstone.

Nope,

Even if I feel they are I just stop watching when I understand what the game is about/like. Just because they are 60 minutes long doesn't mean you have to watch all of it.

I haven't watched a Quick Look in months so yeah, they're probably too long.

nah

Naw

Where's all the content?!!??!

Oh, wait, this is the other one...

No.

Oh and, hey, that answer would apply either way. Woo!

Which reminds me... the only thing I'd love to see more of is... silly stuff:

But, hey, the end of the year approacheth and that holds the promise of Silly...

No, they should be longer, if anything.

Giant Bomb was transformed into a site about long form content and it'll just keep getting longer. Which easily conflicts with everyone that has a 8 hour job they need to do 5 days of the week. Like you said in your post the logical answer is just to cut off certain quick looks once they aren't providing a comedic value or informing us of unique gameplay systems. Or just not watch all of the content since that doesn't mean you will suddenly turn into someone that dislikes his silly website that is kinda about video games.

I want to hear them as much a possible and I feel that in many of the smaller indie games tons of rambling happens which is what I'm there for and not the game. I agree with the sentiment of your post that I would probably rather make MORE shorter QL but I fear that even if they cut them down in length the number of QL would probably stay the same.

I feel like the're as long as they need to be.

Not long enough, plus besides GBeast and Drew any more "endurance runs' would be great!! But honestly I have to say the guys have been awesome churning out video content this year.

The too much content posts are always super weird. You don't have to watch everything and you don't have to watch all of something. Turn it off when you've seen enough, problem solved.

Nope, arguing that an internet video is too long will NEVER make sense. You don't have to watch it and you aren't paying for it.

No, they're fine. I wish I had the time to watch everything, but I'm OK missing some stuff now and again.