What happen to video reviews?

Hey, I was wondering if anyone knows why there hasn't been any recent video reviews? I am guessing they stop doing them, but I can't find the information (it is probably in a bomb cast somewhere which i missed), so I was wondering if anyone knew for sure what the situation was.

Video reviewing is actually incredibly dangerous.
 
It's like the Deadliest Catch but with HDMI cables instead of crabs.

I miss 'em as well. It's been quite a while it seems...

It takes a lot of time to write a review, perform it, record your sessions, weed out the useless shit, and then organize it all in a way that makes sense.

This same thread comes up every few weeks...please stop it.

Yeah more would be awesome.  5 star rating video reviews always have something great and funny at the end.

There's usually a pretty long pause between video reviews. They don't do them very often, usually saving them for really big name games.

As said, extremely time demanding from a production standpoint. Vinny & Drew have more than enough to do already.

I do miss them though.

@SadPatrol said:

This same thread comes up every few weeks...please stop it.

Watch the quicklook and if that's not good enough go to Gametrailers.

First off, thanks for the replies (well most of them, ImmortalSaiyan and SadPatrol's trolling excluded (if you don't like topics like this, then don't post in them, you are required to respond/read/acknowledge every topic that comes up)). Yeah, I figure they had too much to do, and that is why they haven't done one in about 5 months (usually there are about 2-3 video reviews every 3 months). But just so that i understand this correctly, as far as we know, they (GB staff) haven't made any official statements regarding this?

@Zor: No, because an official statement isn't really needed.

More would be awesome but the only one I like doing video reviews is Jeff. Brad seems really stiff and uncomfortable. Ryan is too big and mean. And Vinny, he is too racist.

The video team is putting their resources into daily subscriber content. The pay off for them is much better than the pay off from doing video reviews.

@TheHBK said:

More would be awesome but the only one I like doing video reviews is Jeff. Brad seems really stiff and uncomfortable. Ryan is too big and mean. And Vinny, he is too racist.

Hey, hey now! Vinny is only casually racist!

Between the Quick Look and written review, do you really need anything else?

@SpartanAmbrose: I don't need the video reviews, but they were a nice feature that i enjoyed, and their absent lead me to wonder if they had been discontinue. And i was wondering if an official statement was ever made about them (i don't listen to every bomb cast (I know, i am sorry, i should)) that i missed, so i figure i would ask the community to see what other people knew about the topic.

The official statement was that they take too long to create compared to written reviews.

They get a lot of page views but given that they need to write a separate review script (ppl complain if it is too close to the text review) and then the production overhead is large - they probably get as many hits from doing two 30 minute quicklooks which take very little prep and much less production.

This thread has happened way too many times already.

Quick looks.

They are a bit redundant with quicklooks.

@Video_Game_King: This pretty much. I think I remember Vinny saying that it can take a while to capture video of the game that's relevant to the part the reviewer is talking about.

I think Quick Looks give a better impression of the game than a video review anyways.

Learn to read and they all become irrelevant.

I am able to read.

Somebody set up us the bomb?

We have quicklooks and the written review why would we need more?

Yeah I'm sure their busy doing other video content for paid members and doing TNT and such. Also i think it is very time consuming to create professional edited video content such as a video review. but i wonder if the whiskey media family now working in one big office cuts down on everyone using the video room or whatever it called. Because i have notice some of the other sites cut back on video content which is a bummer too. Only tested is going strong with video content it seems.

This is what happened.

@Zor said:

Yeah, I figure they had too much to do, and that is why they haven't done one in about 5 months (usually there are about 2-3 video reviews every 3 months). But just so that i understand this correctly, as far as we know, they (GB staff) haven't made any official statements regarding this?

So you knew the answer to your question and asked anyway.

I don't know if anyone has said it yet, but you'll notice they hold off on them until a game that deserves it (in they're opinion) needs one. Generally it's games that have five out of five stars, and they give them a video review because it's considered special. So let's say Modern Warfare 3 and/or Battlefild 3 gets a five star, they'll probably get a video review, but when we have a sports game that also gets a five star, it probably won't get one, because they feel that those games aren't quite as special to most of the giantbomb community and to themselves.

I heard from many credible sources that Quick Looks have become so popular here that GB gets about the same amount of clicks on a QL (as long as its a popular game or something stupid/silly like the Michael Phelps thing or Michael Jackson The Experience).

Now consider that a Video Review probably takes 10 times as long to produce, factor in writing, performing and yea. They could just drop the video reviews altogether tbh

I do remember they explained the specific reason Video Reviews are time-consuming is the capturing of game-footage to go into the review. Sometimes, Jeff really needs a specific moment to be recorded to show off a certain feature properly, and so they might even have to boot up an old save or start a new save file to get to the moment he's looking for. Assassin's Creed II, for example, doesn't allow you to replay old chapters; as a result, you'd have to start a new save file to access certain features again. The same is true for Batman: Arkham Asylum, and a few other releases. Most games, obviously, are not as difficult as those, but it can be difficult and time-consuming to get the proper footage.

Maybe it's because I haven't seen many of these topics personally, but I don't understand why everyone seems to be burning the user at the stake for asking a question. I think that the video reviews done on GB are incredibly well done. I like watching them. They have surprisingly fantastic production value and can occasionally have something doofy and awesome added as well -- in the most recent case, a brilliant mix of Batman, Wu-Tang text and GL;HB.

I can understand the WHY on their rarity, but I enjoy them nonetheless and feel that they can still be relevant. Arkham City just made me realize that it's kind of been an absurd amount of time since we've had just a single, solitary video review.

Never understood the concept of video reviews, they just basically read the written review infront of a camera, seems a bit unnecessary.

@mikey87144 said:

Quick looks.

This. Quick looks and bombcast reactions are imo 10x more informative. I wonder how much the viewier statistics say about both of them, my guess would be that the QLs are way more popular than both the text- and video reviews.

I prefer the Quick Looks now, but I do miss some IGN video reviews. I like how the break down the rankings by category.

Batman Video Review.

Posted 3 days ago...

I would like them more often though.

Would rather have more quick-looks if I had a choice, can deal with just reading a review if I must.

What do you get out of a video review that you can't get from a written review and a quick look?

As said, extremely time demanding from a production standpoint. Vinny & Drew have more than enough to do already.

I do miss them though.

Video Reviews for games are so the 90's

I really don't care that much about video reviews - text is more than enough for me. I'd rather that they focus on the quicklooks and other unique content, as that is what makes this site so great.

I miss video reviews, but they should still produce written reviews as well.

I agree that video reviews need to happen more often! I like video reviews because I can't read.