Should Jeff continue to use his video overlays?

An interesting aspect of this website, and the subreddit for that matter, are topics like this. They basically go like this:

- Small group of people hates a thing

- Significantly larger majority aspect likes it

- Giant Bomb makes no changes

- The small group complains that they don't listen

We have been around that merry-go-round with everything from personalities, to shows, to music, to now overlays and I'm probably missing many in between.

Personally, I don't mind the overlays, but I'd prefer Jeff just do what he wants and if it bothers people, they just not watch.

All things being equal they don't bother me, but I'm a bit paranoid about static images on my expensive OLED.

@frytup: I hear your call for more animations on screen loud & clear :)

I only ever comment when i hate something and that’s rarely. Just like yelp reviews. I think a lot of people are the same way. So I’m always surprised when so much weight is given to comment criticism

Jeff's audience are the elderly. And old people love that shit. Watching decades old games with all the crap floating around. Let him cater to his audience.

The overlays are phat.

I don't care about the overlays but DAMN am I burned out on the solo streams and do I miss old Giant Bomb. I can't even get through a few minutes of any of these solo streams. Gave them up.

That's not Giant Bomb and it's been a bummer to see them seem to do more solo streams as this goes on. I figured they would have an urgency to try to get back to more than one person on a stream because that's the entire point of this site. Oh well. I guess I won't be watching much until this blows over.

they’re badass

but

ADHD makes it impossible for me to watch his videos, I’m constantly losing focus to all the shit moving on screen. Wish he’d turn them off for Quick Looks and the Minecraft streams.

When has this ever been the case? As @sethmode mentioned above, throughout the years the staff have been quite adamant about not taking any cues from the userbase. Least of all Jeff who has a very low tolerance for dealing with that stuff.

If nothing else I think these sort of threads are interesting to see what the public opinion is on certain things. At this point I don't think anyone that has spent any reasonable amount of time on the site expects any actual change to occur.

"Should Jeff continue to..." is such an annoying way to pose a question. Just imagine seeing a thread title like that about you, and a poll about something ridiculous you enjoy. I find it really pathetic, I have to say.

Just ask people if they like it or not, that's harmless, but this is a weird way of wording it, like it's a controversial government decision to use obnoxious overlays, haha. Nothing is going to change, but it still somewhat welcomes overtly knee-jerk answers. I think this kind of thing is exactly why the crews don't like us at all sometimes.

ha- i debated making a comment like yours for maybe 15mins., ultimately letting it go. but you're absolutely right- i feel like another version of this is the profanity-on-the-bombcast thread.

aside from issues where staff are actively doing damage (for example if they were using slurs or bigoted language), it never ceases to amaze me when editorial/content decisions are put on trial in the form of a question on the forums. i get why it happens, but do the authors actually expect staff to care about their unsolicited personal opinion?

but then again- i suppose those are the tablestakes if you provide a service that transacts directly with its customers. it must feel like the userbase is effectively a rando hanging out over one's shoulder, incessantly commenting on one's work.

I love them for the general streams, but not for quick looks.

@mellotronrules: @mellotronrules:

it must feel like the userbase is effectively a rando hanging out over one's shoulder, incessantly commenting on one's work

Precisely this. It's why I generally have a big issue with people backseat gaming in the chats of streams without being specifically asked for advice. Abby's initial Resident Evil streams were AWFUL for that and sometimes users were getting downright nasty, petty and insulting. Like the constant moaning about her using too much ammo when it had no bearing on her finishing the game whatsoever. Just relax and enjoy the stream and have fun talking with each other.

Let Jeff be Jeff. This poll is out of character for this community and seems especially weird to worry about right now with everything else going on.

Also what if Vanilla’s flow was very sick and on point on that track and you had no way of knowing?

https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/news-force/2870456

yes.

I basically agree with the premise that it's fine in general but bad for Quick Looks. Quick Looks are still in part a purchasing decision thing for me, so a real-time view of how the game looks is part of the value. Having the video window shrunk down so far really gets in the way of that.

It looks like the width of the game window is 66% of the video window. If I can still math, that means the game window's area is only 44% of the screen, which makes it very hard to tell how anything looks. It was particularly gnarly on the C&C video because he was talking about how bad the remastered graphics looked, but because he shrank the screen you really couldn't see well enough to judge for yourself.

More overlays! I demand overlays on the overlays.

I like the overlays and the soundboard. I'm on the younger side (28) so I don't necessarily have the nostalgia and rose tinted glasses of many for his retro streams. Still, I think it gives viewers a hint of Jeff's personality and that you've entered the Jeff Zone. I would love to see overlays from the rest of the GB staff during their streams to give them a little more character. Abby with an overlay of St Vincent, Bjork, a bottle of seltzer/tea, and Tater would be funny but I also can see how the overlay would be distracting for many. Jeff should keep on keeping on in my opinion.

Go to the extreme, make it 90% overlay, make it so it simulates playing all games as if they were on that new game gear micro.

It shouldn't be in quick looks but I love the overlays

@sombre: Considering the poll and comments here seem to have a majority of people saying they like it, wouldn't it be listening to feedback by continuing? If a ton of people did actually come out and hate it then I could see what you mean but...it seems like people are generally fine with it.

This controversy over Jeffs overlays only reinforce their legitimacy.

Static overlays are fine, but the lady holding a gun with the flashing green sunglasses that he's been using in all his streams makes them absolutely unwatchable for me unless I'm on PC where I can resize the browser window and cut off the top portion of the video.

Regarding the " it's only a minority who hate it" sentiment, is having having flashing shit in the overlay really so funny or bring so much enjoyment to other people that it's a hill worth dying on, as Jeff himself might say? If it makes his videos uncomfortable to watch to any portion of GB's paying audience, are the overlays honestly worth keeping?

There are things where it absolutely is worth annoying some portion of the audience to keep around for the people who do like it, but I really can't imagine this is one of them.

I mean I'm not a fan of Jeff's spamming the soundboard either, but you can skip over that. Gun lady is up there in the corner flashing away for the entire video. Imagine trying to listen to an audio book with a fire alarm going off for the entire duration. That's what his animated overlays are like for people who very easily visually key into motion and flashing things.

@sweetz: But...if Jeff has fun doing it, especially during this insane time, who cares? Let him do what he wants, minority or majority or whatever. If people aren't enjoying it, there are like 50 other videos a day they can watch without the overlays. I feel like that is the larger point some of us have been making, and it seems kind of...shitty to make these polls just so people can bitch about this. The majority do think it is funny or whatever, or at least don't mind, and also think Jeff should do what he wants. The minority, don't. The easier option here is not to say "Jeff you should do this different because some people say so" it is to say "People that don't like it, don't watch it and watch something else."

@vallian88 said:

I pay less than $5 a month for GB. I am pretty sure this is the cheapest sub I have of all the monthly things I sub to.

I do not like the giant overlays and Jeff should do what he likes. End of story.

@frytup: yeah same I got an oled like a month ago so I usually watch jeff streams on my phone or tablet.

Only reason I voted "No" is because sometimes I have a hard time telling what is gameplay and what is the overlay when watching on my phone. I watch a lot on my phone. Ultimately I don't care but the question was asked.

I love them and the sound board, Its such a cool Jeff vibe that gives his content real character (I would like to see others also adding there own twist on their content if they wanted to), that is what I am here for not some super serious game informational thing that seems to be what some people are after.

@sethmode: Jeff makes content that is really not represented elsewhere on the site, specifically his old games stuff, which was one of my favorite features. He also has knowledge and skill with games that exceeds that of other members of the staff. He can do goofy overlays, but the flashing stuff is just not worth it for the dumb joke. I honestly cannot comprehend how anyone isn't driven absolutely nuts by constantly flashing gun lady. Toning some of that stuff down is not an unreasonable request.

I ain't about to tell Jeff how to video game

You got a problem with Jeff's overlays you got a problem with me and I suggest you let that one marinate.

yes

@sweetz: I feel like it's a bit much to call this some sort of hill that people are wanting to die on personally. I don't find them hilarious, I just don't really notice it. It's just dumb pictures. I do feel bad if there are some people watching that have trouble focusing when there's distracting stuff on the screen though. For me, I read all of the pictures the first time around, chuckle once, and then I focus on Jeff and the game while all of it kinda goes invisible for me. It's like staring into the sun and becoming blind in one area and not minding the black spot in your vision anymore lol. Nah I'm just joking around but it does all fade away for me after a while.

I do agree with others that on the Quick Looks it should probably not be there. I feel like Quick Looks are usually more informative and more, I don't know this sounds dumb to say but...more "professional"? Lol. But at the same time I still don't really care. That's cool if they wanna mess around!

@sweetz: I don't know what to tell you, but I'm not bothered by any of it. I think if it is really bothering you maybe you should reach out to Jeff directly? I personally just don't see the point of complaining about it in this thread, especially when compared to people that either don't mind it, like it, or just want Jeff to do whatever he wants.

Not a fan of the images or the soundboard, personally - but the main reason I don't give these videos a shot is for fear of OLED burn-in.

@sethmode: There was one episode of the Bombcast (I think Bombcast) where they were messing around with the idea of playing music over the e-mails section. Brad said it bothered some people while Jeff and Ben were excitedly egging him on to do it. Brad then said something along the lines of maybe they shouldn't do it if it's going to make the podcast uncomfortable for anyone if they don't have to.

That is a reasonable and I think great approach to any situation. I'm not bothered a lot by the flashing stuff in the overlays either, but if there is a small percentage of people that it does bother then I, as a fellow viewer, wouldn't mind if Jeff took it off in order to make his content enjoyable to as many folk as possible. I'm sure it wouldn't hurt him to do so, and in fact it would be weird to hear someone say "I love your content but these strobe lights are hurting my eyes" and then insist on keeping them anyway.

I also think it's a much better idea to make a thread about it that can live, grow and have various people discuss it, rather than a random person sending a singular message to Jeff on any one of his social media sites that will probably get lost in the shuffle of a thousand other messages. (Jeff has mentioned many times that he doesn't read PM's on this site)

@humanity: the big difference is the majority of people complained about the music in the comments and specifically via email. I'm not saying PM Jeff, but send an email to the Bombcast and maybe others will too, or comment on the videos, because this thread is now officially pointless.

One, Jeff should do exactly whatever he wants and two, it's funny.

How hard/obnoxiously Jeff leans into his home streaming setup is something that I find very funny and always will.

Also: this is about a man streaming video games at home. How seriously do we really need to take this?

I always love seeing the little changes they get. They're a very Jeff thing and I wouldn't want them to disappear for the sake of some clean narc stream.

I really like them, but I do think they shouldn't be there for Quick Looks. Only then because there is a standard format for Quick Looks, which is just the game screen and talking over it. That's the only reason. Other than that I really like them and love that they keep changing and increasing randomly.

I like when he changes it up. Same with the sound board.

@the_nubster: (#38) Jeff should do what he likes and people should like and enjoy what they like. However, you have expressed how I feel about it very well. It's a long running fascination with things that are "dumb". Sometimes, it seems it's at the expense of things that are not "dumb". It's just not for me. (But, of course, not everything has to be for me and I'm cool with that.) Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

Hesitant yes vote because I like to see the weird stuff he adds. The overlay on that C&C stream was a bit much, though. Maybe reduce the opacity of the overlay to 50% or something? Something that makes it a little less bright/distracting.

Hope he keeps them, feels like im going to the 90s shitty internet each time. Gets me all nostalgic, if only Netscape could run the streams.

Love them.

I am only worry about static image and burn in. As long as the overlays are moving/rotating i don't care.

I can't explain how or why, but it's this.

Jeff's self-aware ridiculous bullshit is his art and I would never take that away from him.

yeah, but not for Quick Looks. QLs ideally shouldn't even have facecams