Quick Look Everything - User Submissions?

So, after hearing Jeff talk about how he wants Giant Bomb to have video footage of every game, it's obviously going to be a massive task, which is, again obviously, slightly sarcastic. Jeff would obviously like this to be a reality which he knows is very, very unlikely, so why not allow users to submit gameplay videos of games that Giant Bomb hasn't got any video content of? Obviously this means games that are already released for a while and will likely not receive any video content in the future.

We could perhaps do it in a way that Steam's Greenlight project works. A user submits a Quick Look to a game, then other users vote on the good ones, and then finally staff and/or moderators approve them to the site? Also, we could have the same sort of points system found in the wiki, where the more points you have, the more flexibility users can get adding videos.

I would like to add videos to the site, but I also understand it's the staff's own personalities that people want on the content, so I would like to just add gameplay with no commentary, or something?

Anyone think this is a decent idea, or should I just keep my mouth shut and go back to editing the wiki?

This sounds like a worse version of those I Love Mondays user submissions that were in the past. A lot of what the community does that puts them in front of the camera can be cringeworthy, so I'm not sure I'm too into the idea. The staff are really good at what they do, mainly being entertaining, so the quality would need to be pretty high for this to be something I'd want.

And I don't see the point of user submitted gameplay videos with no commentary, either.

I think a good way to do it would be to only allow the top editors of a game's wiki page submit video. It's probably a long way down the road though.

@FluxWaveZ said:

This sounds like a worse version of those I Love Mondays user submissions that were in the past. A lot of what the community does that puts them in front of the camera can be cringeworthy, so I'm not sure I'm too into the idea. The staff are really good at what they do, mainly being entertaining, so the quality would need to be pretty high for this to be something I'd want.

And I don't see the point of user submitted gameplay videos with no commentary, either.

Yeah, I know. It's obviously open to interpretation. The thing is, wouldn't you like to look at a random game you have no idea what it's about, and be able to go into the wiki, click on the video and see how it plays for a while? Commentary, no commentary, either way you're still getting something that text can't always fully explain.

@mosespippy said:

I think a good way to do it would be to only allow the top editors of a game's wiki page submit video. It's probably a long way down the road though.

Yeah, but I'm sure not everyone who has the top editor status has a way to record, etc. Which is the reason I said about the Greenlight method.

No please no.

I can't wait till they FF7.

Unfortunately no. I like the idea in theory, but I don't really have the desire to listen to just any random person with access to FRAPS and a microphone.

@BeachThunder said:

Unfortunately no. I like the idea in theory, but I don't really have any desire to listen to any random person with access to FRAPS and a microphone.

Yeah, I myself hate every 'Let's Play' on YouTube, but this is obviously where the Greenlight method comes in. If it is shit, then it gets canned right there and then, if it's a good, short view of a game then it's allowed to be on the site. I know there's going to be a low margin of users able to get this sort of quality, but surely there's a few out there. Also, it won't come under a Quick Look banner, and it'll be explicitly stated as a user submission. Look at the community section on the main page, it's awesome.

@Baillie said:

Yeah, I know. It's obviously open to interpretation. The thing is, wouldn't you like to look at a random game you have no idea what it's about, and be able to go into the wiki, click on the video and see how it plays for a while? Commentary, no commentary, either way you're still getting something that text can't always fully explain.

Sure, but it's because there's probably video for anything on sources like Youtube; random gameplay videos can be found anywhere. I suppose the same reasoning can be applied to the information found in the wiki, but I believe that that's different compared to gameplay content that's exactly the same anywhere else compared to collected information and formatting that differs from wiki to wiki.

If there is no commentary I'd be down with it. I do not want to listen to random users commentating on a gameplay video.

@Baillie: If submissions videos were capped at 15 min or something like that, I think it might just work. Heck, you could even have a requirement that someone not be talking or on camera while filming it. If you want that more personal touch, though, you could encourage that, too. If you had clear guidelines for consistent content, I think this could actually work.

I do not like this idea unless they intend none of them to have commentary. 
 
As said before, Giantbomb dudes are interesting to listen to, but most people suck at lets play "quick look" or other types of video game videos. It's probably best left to the Giantbomb dudes.

Fantastic idea if there's a no commentary rule. I'd love to contribute some raw gameplay footage for the super-obscure titles that I'm sitting on.

I'm so pumped for them to play the Lego Island games.

@laserbolts: @TruthTellah: @CornBREDX: @ShaggE: I would like to point out I would much rather the videos have no commentary. I've made a few videos on some games on my youtube, and I do not talk at all. I prefer to have videos where they need to be good enough where commentary isn't needed. Guide the viewer through with straight-forward videos, it's obviously harder, but a lot more effective I think.

I too, also think if this was to be a feature, that there should be strict rules regarding the videos. 15 minutes is a nice number but I wouldn't mind that being extended, say if you want to give like 5 minutes to certain features of games.

• No commentary
• 720p Video (Pre-HD content rendered like how GB do it)
• ~15 - 25 minute videos, or like 5 minutes showing different parts of the game, etc.
• Greenlight method of acknowledgement.

Jesus, there is not much love for each other on here is there?

@Baillie: I think you should have a starting 5 minutes or so of just playing the game, then go into some explanation or looking at menus(if necessary), and finally play a bit more of it with that further information.

That fits with the best Quick Look content we have seen, which involves introducing normal gameplay, then explaining mechanics, and finally showing how things might develop either through further play or later in the experience.

The staff is good at what they do and there are only a few members who are good at doing let's play videos, so the site would just end up with a bunch of bad Quick Looks and only a few good ones. It just sound like one large mess.

Gameplay with no commentary means it won't have any personality and there's no incentive to watch it over anything that'll already be on youtube.

@TruthTellah: Yeah, I think to begin with we'd need strict rules on how people go about producing their videos, but after a while people will have got a bunch of knowledge from them, thus having a little more freedom on their videos if they have earned enough points/reputation on doing these. Still though, it would need a good guideline. No spoilers, show fundamentals and such things. Don't show too much where the viewer doesn't need to go buy the game.

I guess you can really just learn a lot from the Quick Looks themselves and figure out ways to get the same amount of information and quality over without commentary. I'm sure if you're talented enough, you can pull this off and be 'greenlit' onto the site. Having only one video per game, too yeah? I think it's a very interesting concept.

@BraveToaster said:

The staff is good at what they do and there are only a few members who are good at doing let's play videos, so the site would just end up with a bunch of bad Quick Looks and only a few good ones. It just sound like one large mess.

This is the thing though, bad videos won't be on the site. If they're bad, they won't be recommended and picked to be on the game page.

@WickedFather said:

Gameplay with no commentary means it won't have any personality and there's no incentive to watch it over anything that'll already be on youtube.

I agree Giant Bomb videos are personality driven, but the wiki is information building. All these videos are for are purely to show what the game is like in video form. That's all. A place where you can go, read a wiki about the game, and have a quick viewing of the game in motion not controlled by a PR for the game, you know?

@CornBREDX said:

@Baillie: I'm fine with no commentary videos, and actually generally prefer them when looking for games. I would argue you can get these anywhere and don't see a need for them on giant bomb but the quicklook everything thing I do see where your coming from. I just don't see the point.

Like I said before, Giant Bomb is also a gaming wiki. It's striving to be the 'place to go' to find out information about any game. The wiki does a fine job at that, so why not add a little video to get a better sense of how it plays.

I remember when Gamespot did this and I didn't really care for it. It just became Youtube. Actually, I think they were Youtube videos to begin with.

@insane_shadowblade85: Did you ever watch How Not To Play Hitman? If so, Gamespot was a massive success. :P Difference here is structure and strict guidelines.

@CornBREDX: Yeah, I know you're not being mean, and I totally understand. All I'm saying is, it'd be nice to have a place where everything is consolidated. Cabela's Big Game Hunter... what the hell is that? Check out the Giant Bomb wiki while watching a little video showing you how it plays. I know all this stuff is out there already, but having it in one place is also pretty awesome. Imagine if you had to go to different sites to find out about PC games or action games or whatever. It's just nice having everything in one place.

Jeff answered a question about this on his tumblr, essentially stating that he's not inherently against the idea if quality control stuff can be resolved. We'll see if anything pans out on that end, but if the end goal really is to have video footage of every game ever made on the site, some additional assistance would probably be ideal.

To that end, to those of you who are (very understandably) not keen on having the videos riddled with commentary for quality reasons: what about people who'd want to play Japanese-heavy games (or games released in other non-English languages, for that matter) that were never localized in English? To give an example as a Japanese speaker, let's say that I try my hand at capturing footage of a game like Mizzurna Falls on the PS1. It's a game that a lot of people are curious about, especially Deadly Premonition fans, since it's a Japanese-only pre-GTA III open-world game whose characters operate on a real-time clock, all wrapped up in a murder-mystery plot. No commentary works fine for when you're just driving around the world and whatnot, but like Deadly Premonition, there's a lot of text in the game dedicated to both moving the story forward and teaching gameplay mechanics. For a Japanese speaker like me, I'd be fine if there's no commentary since I have those language skills at my disposal, but for the 99% of the site that doesn't have those skills and are still interested in the game, a lot of general contextual stuff would probably be lost if there wasn't at least some commentary explaining in English what the game is actually saying. People can argue that subtitles could potentially do the job, but for long, Quick Look-length videos, that can be a serious time-sink going back and adding text to the video and keeping it all synchronized with the game, whereas verbal commentary, whether it's done as the game is being recorded "live" or afterwards is generally a more straightforward process, with post-processing work being mostly reduced to adding an extra audio track with properly leveled sound.

Obviously, it's one of those things that's situationally dependent on the game. Mizzurna Falls might need the added linguistic commentary, but something arcadey like Money Puzzle Exchanger works fine on its own. But there are enough games like Mizzurna Falls where I think commentary would be highly beneficial to get viewers up to speed on what they're actually seeing, since the wiki is both about accumulating information about games and disseminating it in a comprehensible matter. I think that if a user submission system is ever implemented, voting and moderation systems like this would be taken into consideration, but as somebody who would love, love, love to be able to use my Japanese translation skills to show off some games to a community that might not otherwise have the means to appreciate and examine them, I don't think we could be completely absolutist about commentary in videos one way or the other.

@Baillie said:

@BraveToaster said:

The staff is good at what they do and there are only a few members who are good at doing let's play videos, so the site would just end up with a bunch of bad Quick Looks and only a few good ones. It just sound like one large mess.

This is the thing though, bad videos won't be on the site. If they're bad, they won't be recommended and picked to be on the game page.

Okay. It's not a bad idea. The only things to worry about would be downvoting something simply out of disliking someone, and who would manage it?

@Baillie I don't remember that one though the name sound really familiar @_@

@Pepsiman That makes sense, though...screw it I'll just say it. I PREFER SPRITE! Face!

That would be pretty sweet if that were to happen!

I'm only against it in that it would probably make the the staff think they can quick look less games or only quick look games they are interested in.

Don't you guys think it's a bit immature to be hating on "Let's plays" still? It's 2012 and there are plenty of fantastic personalities and com-mentors on YouTube that deliver great content. I, for one, would love to see the community interaction with this sort of project - especially with a green-light sort of voting system. If you don't feel the narrator is professional enough, vote with your mouse-click. Don't sit back and just judge without actually giving it a try - all that does is make you a snobby nosed elitist.

Footage for every game, fine. No commentary and non-linear play means call it something other than a quicklook. There, I'm happy.

My suggestion is everything. Done

I'd be up for it if it were controlled with only having the best quality of videos.

The only way this would work would be if they had to approve them, which would take way way way way WAY too much time to be worth it.

@DoctorWelch: I really can't see there being much videos for them to approve at any given time. It'll take a little while for any video to even get to a stage for them to approve them.

@Pepsiman: Yeah, I agree, but this is only just a suggestion at the moment, and if it ever moves beyond that, then there can be exceptions to the rule. I still think that if the video is good enough to be recommended by the community and approved by the staff/moderators then it should be allowed on the site. If two users make make a video for a game, one has commentary and the other doesn't it's still up to the community which one is better. The commentary might not be as bad as everyone is expecting. If it is, then there's a video that just pure gameplay. It's win-win.

@BraveToaster: I'll manage it! Nah, obviously we can figure out a team, much like the moderators who already approve wiki submissions. There are people out there who know what they're looking for. Also, with a community as big as this, someone downvoting a video due to disliking the person and disregarding the quality of the video itself won't really impact it much, will it?

@MiniPato: This is why I said to make it for games that are old and will most likely not be covered in the future.

@Phatmac: Controlled is what I like. Rules, regulations. I HAVE THE POWER.

It'd probably be for the best if it was subtitles only

@Baillie said:

@DoctorWelch: I really can't see there being much videos for them to approve at any given time. It'll take a little while for any video to even get to a stage for them to approve them.

I think you are underestimating the ease at which you can create video of a game. Give me an hour and I'll give you a 20 minute video of any game I own along with commentary. Grant it I have a Hauppauge HD PVR 2, but recording footage of an old game with an emulator would be super easy. Also, if they didn't require commentary it would be even easier.

That said, I'd love to start making videos for the site if I was able to, I just don't think it's something that's going to happen. Maybe if they figure out a way to weed out the terrible or fake videos it'd be more viable but I'm not sure if that's something they are going to think about right now.

@DoctorWelch: Have you really not been reading what I've been saying? They'll be weeded out at the first stage. They have to get enough votes from this very own community to get past the first stage, and then onto the video moderators and then finally onto the staff or something.

I think the whole point of this is Quick Looks by the GB staff. There's already footage of every game ever up on YouTube, but who cares? It's the personalities and knowledge of people like Jeff that make GB great.

@Baillie: Oh yeah, I'm totally all behind a community approval system in general, possibly with something like our karma system so people can't abuse the system. I just wanted to bring up non-English games to make sure people realize the implications of what they're saying if this hypothetical non-commentary rule were to apply to all user-made videos since legitimate Japanese speakers on the site like me are a very distinct minority.

@Pepsiman: This is just going to be rules and regulations that make the overall quality of a high standard, but obviously we would take account of things that you bring up. Overall, I think with the approval system and the layers of levels to finally get the video onto the site itself is enough for basically any video to get up there. If it's good enough, it'll make the cut.

All this is just to get the ball rolling. Get the first batch of videos with high quality so users can use them as a blueprint for their own.

@Baillie said:

@DoctorWelch: Have you really not been reading what I've been saying? They'll be weeded out at the first stage. They have to get enough votes from this very own community to get past the first stage, and then onto the video moderators and then finally onto the staff or something.

What are the stages? Who is going to be video moderators? No one's going to want to watch and judge hours of video for free. How is it going to work? How will the community voting work? Who's going to spend the time implementing this system and when? These guys are too busy as it is, and Dave and Alexis aren't going to be in a position to add anything like this until a while after the new site is launched.

This isn't going to be an easy thing to implement, and then once it is implemented the guys aren't going to be able to just let it go and look at a few videos every once in a while. If they are going to do this it's going to need to be a big part of the site, and I don't think that's what they are aiming for. Jeff and Dave have already said multiple times that they have thought about user video stuff and it would just be a giant hassle that ultimately would be more of a hassle than it's worth.

So, add all this up with the fact that they would spend all this time and energy to do something that would result in 0 revenue for the site, and it pretty much becomes an imposible dream.

I'd love for it to become a thing too. I'm just saying don't get your hopes up.

Maui Mallard in Cold Shadow

Oh, and I'm not into the whole user submitted Quick Looks. I just hope the staff does a video of Maui Mallard in Cold Shadow.

What intrigues me about Operation: Quick Look EVERYTHING is to see how far Jeff will go before he says fuck it and quits. In order to get the full, unbridled madness, I don't think users should be submitting video.

This sounds like a cool idea. I'd vote for Orcs Must Die 2 damn it! The quick look for Orcs Must Die was what sold me on that game.

Or Secret of Mana 3 player co op!

Seems interesting, but the problem I see with the idea is in order for the Greenlight-style system to work, we'd actually have to watch dozens of these who-knows-how-long amateur videos. Don't get me wrong, it could be cool and I'm not saying that there won't be good videos or that all of them would be bad, I just think most people wouldn't take the time to properly evaluate the videos and vote them as necessary.

Greenlight works because it takes anywhere from 1-5 minutes to see if a game is interesting. These videos would take so much longer, and that would be time spent on something that I potentially then do not vote for, which is time that nobody is likely going to want to give.