Postage stamp gameplay on streams

Now I ain't no producer and I know putting 16:9 Extended HD gameplay with facecams without covering up the game is going to leave a smaller screen for the game but I feel they could be made a little bigger. Hell, lets just look at the differences between GB East and West:

See how the GBW stream has much more vertical and horizontal space dedicated to the game? I don't view GB videos full screen so now we have a postage stamp inside of a smaller window like this:

and I mocked up what it would be like if we removed some of the wasted space around the facecams and dedicated it towards the game:

Not really a huge difference but I think it is a bit nicer just to make the Xtreme HD gameplay a bit bigger.

It looks fine to me. If it's too small you can make it bigger, choosing not use provided functionality doesn't mean it's a bug.

Moved to General, this isn't a bug.

The difference at that size is so minimal it's a non-issue from my point of view. Why not use the fill browser or fullscreen options?

I personally agree with you. Sometimes when I am doing something else on my screen I arrange the window so I end up cutting off the whole right part of the GB streams manually so I can see the gameplay, otherwise it is too small.

I'm all for an increase in the real-estate used for game-play; it really needs to dominate the screen. I think the multi-angle shots are unnecessary for me and are filled with too much dead space.

I generally agree that the gameplay should be fullscreen, and they should just have an almost literally postage-stamp-sized shot of the staff in one of the corners of the screen, on top of the game. In The Surge, the upper right isn't very important and could be covered with a feed of the staff, and in Crypt of the NecroDancer the lower left isn't very important IIRC. There are some games where information is in all 4 corners of the screen and it sucks to cover any of them.

I'm guessing they do it this way with the sidebars because it doesn't require the staff feed to be rearranged every single stream.

How big are the postage stamps from where you are from?

I would much rather have it this way than have any part of the gameplay covered up by playercams. I'll agree the space could be better used in this GBE example, but I'm also not watching these streams just for the gameplay so it isn't a huge deal for me.

What ever happened to the talking animal thing they unveiled one week and never really used again?

Personally I'd rather have it this way than the way most twitch/youtube streamers do where they cover up some corner or section of the game with their facecam.

It is mostly an issue during actual live streams where I want to look at chat at the same time, so I don't use fullscreen.

I really wish they would just eliminate the in studio camera for stuff like this. Is it really that important to get reaction shots?

@barrock: people come here for the staff. it's nice to see them on at least some of the content, and some stuff plays to the camera (like randomly shooting the shit prior to or during a stream).

This has always, always bugged me about Giant Bomb streams. I've never gained any benefit from seeing their reactions on studio cameras during segments, and I don't understand why they insist on sacrificing so much gameplay real estate for headshots. I feel like it's become progressively more of a problem over the years, to the point that the team's video producers are now almost habitually obsessed with studio images of them being as large as possible, and shrinking gameplay to the point I have to squint to make anything out.

YouTubers and solo streamers alike have accepted that it's far more effective to use a green-screen backdrop and overlay their images on the gameplay rather than opting for rudimentary cutouts, but GB seem evermore resistant to change. It doesn't make GB's approach unique, or positively differentiate them from the 'competition'--it just makes their videos less tolerable. I used to enjoy streams here far more when I could only hear the squad's voices, to be honest.

Take that iconic Dead Island video with Ryan and Patrick et al.: amazingly hilarious stuff before the dawn of studio shots. Would it really have made the stream better to have seen their reactions? Sometimes one's imagination works wonders.

I felt like I was the only one who ever voiced my issue with GB's format before now, so I'm thankful that someone else piped up.

Why not just fill the browser or fullscreen it? If I really need to see gameplay, then that works for me. As for chat, can't you pop it out? Just lay that over the face-cam side bit and fill the browser. Should work, no?

I come to Giant Bomb for the dumb antics that the studio cams offer. I barely watch quick looks for this reason.

i'll agree they can probably stand to increase the gameplay size, but it is a definite overreaction to call it postage stamp size; i can see everything perfectly fine. and this is just personal, but 90% of youtuber culture annoys me so even though nothing would technically change i would feel ever so slightly repulsed at a greenscreened talking head (with or without boom mic in shot). in short: i hate change, get off my lawn.

I have thought the gameplay window has been small in some recent GBEast Content.

The only time this has ever truly bothered me is when they've done weird shit in the past like skewing the gameplay and studio shots to technically optimize use of frame space (but distorting everything in the process) or having the staff wide shot rotated 90°, which thankfully seem like habits of the past.

As a brief side note, people were complaining a lot in Vinny's Murder Island stream for having his shot over the kill feed, so appeasing everyone will never happen. I tend to sympathize with that view and am pretty strong in favor of keeping studio shots and the gameplay feed separate and non-overlapping. That said, even if it doesn't bother me all that much, I don't disagree about GBEast being able to use some of that space better.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately. The format used for older Breaking Brads and Metal Gear Scanlon is a huge step up from two sides of the screen being entirely taken up by not just one shot, but the same shot repeated multiple times. At least with the old format you could still get their reactions and such without sacrificing a frankly ridiculous amount of screen real estate.

@cthomer5000 said:

@newfangled said:

I've never gained any benefit from seeing their reactions on studio cameras during segments

This is the only response this thread needs. Without good studio shots of the crew, the world wouldn't have "white guy blinking."

I get where some of you guys are coming from, and I agree that some layouts (like Metal Gear Scanlon) are more attractive than others, but generally speaking I have no problems with the gameplay size.

Besides, most of the videos on the site (including Quick Looks and several features like Demo Derby) still only have voiceovers and don't have any studio shots at all. It's all gameplay. Why can't special shows like Unprofessional Fridays be different? If I wanted a format that was just like most of YouTube, I'd just go to YouTube. I come to Giant Bomb to see its staff as much as I do for the games.

Also, I know sending physical letters through the mail isn't as common as it used to be, but postage stamps are much smaller than that, y'all.

@sargus said:

@cthomer5000 said:

@newfangled said:

I've never gained any benefit from seeing their reactions on studio cameras during segments

This is the only response this thread needs. Without good studio shots of the crew, the world wouldn't have "white guy blinking."

I get where some of you guys are coming from, and I agree that some layouts (like Metal Gear Scanlon) are more attractive than others, but generally speaking I have no problems with the gameplay size.

Besides, most of the videos on the site (including Quick Looks and several features like Demo Derby) still only have voiceovers and don't have any studio shots at all. It's all gameplay. Why can't special shows like Unprofessional Fridays be different? If I wanted a format that was just like most of YouTube, I'd just go to YouTube. I come to Giant Bomb to see its staff as much as I do for the games.

Also, I know sending physical letters through the mail isn't as common as it used to be, but postage stamps are much smaller than that, y'all.

I agree with everything that is said here. When the game is the "star" of the show, like Quick Looks, etc., they only do voice overs. When it's a special thing like the Saturn Stream or UPF, they have the crew there because it feels more like you're "hanging" with the crew, and I'm assuming it's meant to be that way. That's how I kind of feel about it when I watch those.

And @sargus is correct in saying, you can always hop back out to YouTube to see full screen gameplay streams with people doing commentary of it. Or just raw ass gameplay. I, and a lot of us, come here for the crew usually more than the games at this point.

just get rid of the voices and staff too. in fact, forget the blackjack!

I had this issue with the most recent BGE Playdate, even in fullscreen I found myself wishing that the gameplay was a bit bigger. I had some trouble seeing and reading stuff going on in the game. Having my computer hooked up to a TV that I sit a few meters away from probably also contributes.

I don't mind the setup they have for showing the staff, in fact I like it, but I want the gameplay to be bigger.

this is what y'all sound like

HOT TIP: On the chat/live stream page, the vertical bar dividing the two is moveable. So you can drag it to the right side to make the live stream bigger and chat smaller, or vice versa.

Something people should realize is that the face cam for most YouTubers only need to show the face of one, and at most two people. This makes picture-in-picture, or overlaying face cams on top of gameplay feasible. But when you're trying to fit 3 people on a couch, 1 person in an armchair, and 1 person behind a computer across a 15 feet (4.5 meters) area, it makes more sense to give face cams their own area, otherwise it will block out too much of the gameplay. Even if you did picture-in-picture 5 face cams, it will essential block out a large portion of the gameplay.

Giant Bomb did experiment with green screens when they first moved to the CBSi building. In fact, it was an entire green room, where all of the walls and floor was entirely green. This was mostly used during Thursday Night Throwdown. But the same issue occurred, overlaying a large couch with 3 people, and an armchair with another person covered way too much of the gameplay. So that was eventually ditched for what Giant Bomb is currently using now.

When Giant Bomb is trying to create more formal content, and strictly stick to exhibiting a new game and its features, they don't use overlays or face cams. Features like Quick Looks, Unfinished, What It Is, and other preview coverage make do without face cams because their personalities take a beat seat to the game. But realize this is a personality driven website. So for other features where they don't pay 100% attention to the game all the time, it feels more natural to have their faces on screen. The GB staff regularly goes off on tangents during these more informal videos. If there were no face cams, there's kind of a weird disconnect between seeing a video game, and hearing disembodied voices talking about completely different things that don't relate to what's going on on screen. It's kinda like watching TV and trying to listen to a podcast at the same time. For me, it's easier to have faces to put to the talking voices, so my visual synapses can have something to focus on that's related to it.

If you're mostly interested in gameplay, there's tons of that on YouTube and GB features like Unfinished and Quick Looks. I mostly come to Giant Bomb for the personalities and their feelings and reactions to games, and the face cams help convey those things quite well.

I don't come here for professional layouts, I'm here for the people. I like hearing them but I love seeing them. I don't use chat during streams since I focus on the GB crew and their interactions with each other and the games they play.

If they want to clean up dead space in frames, sure, have at it,
but please don't shrink the "duders" - the precious moments and gifs are blurry enough as it is.

I think UPF/Playdates and the japanese-style facecams are intrinsically connected as concepts and I love it.

It could be smaller but I do prefer the way it's shown in the OP than when they have a floating screen in the corner; seems to inevitably cover up some part of the HUD or game text.

I am all for the studio cameras over screen space. I don't come to this site for gameplay footage but a combination of the staff and the games or whatever else they are doing. However, both of the options in the top post look fine to me.

I thought this thread was going to be about Vinny showing off postage stamps on streams. I was thoroughly disappointed.

Now I want Vinny to do a stream about his coin collection.

Occasionally having Japanese TV style picture in picture boxes would be fun.

Something along the lines of this

I'll fully admit that I use most Giantbomb video content as supplemental podcasts; I love the Yakuza series but I barely watch it; of each two hours, I catch maybe ten minutes of actual video. I even usually run them full screen, but I'm always playing MLB The Show so my attention is elsewhere. When it comes to the live streams (just about all of which I catch archived due to a weird hitching issue I've had with every stream since switching to the new player as well as almost always being scheduled to work during a stream whether it's day or night) I've come to enjoy their facial reactions a lot as well; Tender Loving Care was all about how the crew was reacting to the game, not the game, and most of the games they play on UPF don't grab my attention at all bu I love the conversation around and apart from those games and how Jeff or Brad react to certain things they're seeing on screen.

So this hasn't ever bothered me to be honest, and in most ways caters to the way I consume GB's content though I understand it's not entirely the norm, though I'd wager it's actually a shockingly high percentage of GB consumers who don't actually watch a lot of what they put out on video, but listen to nearly all of it. Like, I "watch" Quick Looks of games I have no interest in just for another "podcast" to listen to.

Let's face it, if we are here, we are here to see the GB crew just as much as any game. So all the little thumbnails of the player, the crew watching, etc has to be there for this to be satisfying. If some people want to see game play with a one inch postage stamp of a players off in the corner - Twitch is over that way.

The "root concept of GB videos is most the MST3K model of "quips" about games superimposed some way over game play on a screen. They can't just be shadows because only Jeff is consistently THAT funny; and video games are a bit more about reactions as people have demonstrated with all the meme-worth GIfs.

We must have optimal Vinny for when things break or get weird.

Obviously what we need is an official Giant Bomb second screen experience.

Full-screen gameplay on your TV or computer monitor. Full-screen staff reactions on your tablet.

Have a third screen? Join the conversation on your phone and chat with other users.

Got an Apple Watch? Premium members can use the Giant Bomb Quad-Screen Experience app to get a live readout of each duder's pulse and blood oxygen levels.

Ever wanted to know if Brad's heart ever goes doki doki? Now you can.

You're in (half) luck! Vinny did a stream about Alex's coin collection about a month ago. Good stuff!

Ooooh. Never saw that. Gonna have to find that.

Has been more than fine for me, but I'm someone who definitely likes seeing their reactions for all of the crazy/cool stuff clearly. With something as boring as The Surge, I almost could've gone with just cam feed of Alex & Vinny's faces and none of the gameplay.