Are Quick Looks and the Bombcast too long?

Maybe it's because I'm older and busier than I used to be, but I just don't have the time or desire for a 30-minute Quick Look of Nicktoons MLB or a 40-minute Quick Look of Kinectimals: Now With Bears. I don't really need or want the Bombcast's average length to be creeping up on the 3-hour mark either. I used to have the time to sit and listen to an entire Bombcast in one go, but now it takes me almost the full week to get through it all.

Now, I get that not everybody has the same time constraints as me. But, for instance, did the Dark Souls Quick Look really need to be an hour and a half? As someone who has beaten Demon's Souls and watched a friend play a fair amount of Dark Souls, I didn't need to be informed on Dark Souls, so I was just watching it for entertainment value. But if I was someone merely curious about Dark Souls, I would've started the video, seen that it was an hour and a half, and closed it immediately. Obviously, that's not a game that can be shown well in a 10-minute video, but think back to the Demon's Souls Quick Look. It was, what, like 30 minutes? That was long at the time. And it was super fun, and informative, and funny. I watched that before I got Demon's Souls, and it sold me on that game. I still go back and watch that Quick Look sometimes. I don't think I'll watch the Dark Souls Quick Look again.

I've tried to get my roommates and friends into Giant Bomb, but they were kind of appalled at the length of the videos and the podcast; they just don't have the time to listen. I try and make time because I already love Giant Bomb. They wanted videos to be 5 to 15 minutes long. I think "no longer than 20 minutes (except for the occasional special case)" is a fair compromise. I mean, do you really need 30 minutes on the new Michael Phelps game? Do you really need 50 minutes on Renegade Ops or TrackMania 2? Do you really want 3-hour Bombcasts to become the norm? Only Game of the Year deliberation episodes used to be that long.

I already emailed the Giant Bomb crew my thoughts and they said they read me loud and clear, but I wanted to get a sense from the Giant Bomb community if I'm in the minority or not.

Do you need to listen to the whole bombcast in one go?

.....Get out!

The longer the Quick Look or Bombcast the better, for me.

The Quick Looks can be, but I think the Bombcast is fine.

They are perfect in every way possible

Bombcast could definitely use some more editing. It's mostly fine but some of the discussions (Gears 3 and LA Noire for example) drag way too much.

Nope, they aren't too long. Think a QL is running long, stop watching it.

Some Quick Looks are too long now in my opinion. The Dark Souls one wasn't, though. That was one of the best in a while!
That game is hard to understand and I feel like the QL explained pretty well what it is and why.
And I'm fine with a long bombcast. You have one week to listen to about 2,5h and you can do it while doing other stuff.

Isn't it PERFECT that it takes you just about a week to listen to it? Then you have a brand new one when you're done with the previous one.

I kinda like long Quick-Looks and Bombcasts, of course I usally listen to them on walks or doing homework or something like that so I guess I prefer them to take that long. But I hear you on the Bombcasts, it does take me a few attempts to get through it, but oh well.

No, that one of the reason why they are great.

@whatisdelicious said:

Maybe it's because I'm older and busier than I used to be, but I just don't have the time or desire for a 30-minute Quick Look of Nicktoons MLB or a 40-minute Quick Look of Kinectimals: Now With Bears. I don't really need or want the Bombcast's average length to be creeping up on the 3-hour mark either. I used to have the time to sit and listen to an entire Bombcast in one go, but now it takes me almost the full week to get through it all.

Now, I get that not everybody has the same time constraints as me. But, for instance, did the Dark Souls Quick Look really need to be an hour and a half? I finally had the time to watch it today though, and, yeah, it was a fun time. As someone who has beaten Demon's Souls and watched a friend play a fair amount of Dark Souls, I didn't need to be informed on Dark Souls -- it was all entertainment for me. But if I was someone merely curious about Dark Souls, I would've started the video, seen that it was an hour and a half, and closed it immediately. Obviously, that's not a game that can be shown well in a 10-minute video, but think back to the Demon's Souls Quick Look. It was, what, like 40 minutes? And it was super fun, and informative, and funny. I watched that before I got Demon's Souls, and it sold me on that game. I still go back and watch that Quick Look sometimes. I don't think I'll watch the Dark Souls Quick Look again.

I've tried to get my roommates and friends into Giant Bomb, but they were kind of appalled at the length of the videos and the podcast; they just don't have the time to listen. I try and make time because I already love Giant Bomb. They wanted videos to be 5 to 15 minutes long. I think "no longer than 20 minutes (except for the occasional special case)" is a fair compromise. I mean, do you really need a full half an hour on the new Michael Phelps game? Do you really need 50 minutes on Renegade Ops or TrackMania 2? Do you really want 3-hour Bombcasts to become the norm? Only Game of the Year deliberation episodes used to be that long.

I've already emailed the Giant Bomb crew my thoughts and they said they read me loud and clear, but I wanted to get a sense from the Giant Bomb community if I'm in the minority or not.

I can sum this up.

"I don't have enough time to watch Giantbomb videos, so I emailed the GB crew and told them to make their segments shorter just for me. I also don't have enough time to watch a full hour of the news in the morning so I called the station and told them to shorten the news to 5 mins. When things don't fit in my world they should change to fit it, I shouldn't have to deal with or conform to other people especially when it is something that I don't need like entertainment. Instead of finding things that I can fit into my schedule, I like to complain about things that don't fit and try and get them to fit it in."

Quick looks can be a little overlong sometimes, but the bombcast can be as long as it wants to be. Why do you need to listen to the whole thing in one go? Spread it through the week; by the time you're done, the new one is out!

.....Get out!

The longer the Quick Look or Bombcast the better, for me.

I just listen to quick looks mostly when I play multiplayer games or am playing a part of a game that is not plot relevant (like collecting blast shards in Infamous), so long is fine for me. You did not seem to say in your opening post that the problem is quality suffering from too much quantity? If that the case I can totally see your complaint. I just find it hard to complain when the long quick looks I still really enjoy. It just more of what I like.

Edit: one more point, I will never understand why people don't like long videos on the internet. I watch hour long shows on netflix and hulu all the time. I just consider the quick looks to be episodes of the "giant bomb show".

Nope, the longer they are the better. If I don't have time to watch a QL all the way through I simply watch the rest of it at a later time.  Yes I do want Bombcasts to be 3 hours, I listen to it over the course of a whole week.

The Bombcast certainly is. I can deal with Quick Look length because I'm being visually stimulated, something that isn't there with a podcast. I either have to sit there and watch the podcast or wander around the web, half-listening to it and forgetting why I did it in the first place.

@Titus said:

Isn't it PERFECT that it takes you just about a week to listen to it? Then you have a brand new one when you're done with the previous one.

No, I actually hate that. I use my mp3 player for nothing but the Bombcast anymore.

@Jams said:

"I don't have enough time to watch Giantbomb videos, so I emailed the GB crew and told them to make their segments shorter just for me. I also don't have enough time to watch a full hour of the news in the morning so I called the station and told them to shorten the news to 5 mins. When things don't fit in my world they should change to fit it, I shouldn't have to deal with or conform to other people especially when it is something that I don't need like entertainment. Instead of finding things that I can fit into my schedule, I like to complain about things that don't fit and try and get them to fit it in."

Weird, did I say that? I could've sworn I was just rationally explaining why I personally don't have the time for a lot of Giant Bomb stuff anymore, and what a fair compromise could be, and asking what other people's opinions are. But I guess I'm mistaken about that, and really I was just trying to impose my own will over everyone and shorten all Giant Bomb videos down to 5 minutes. Whoops. My mistake.

@Cloudenvy said:

.....Get out!

The longer the Quick Look or Bombcast the better, for me.

Then don't watch them. Its not rocket science pall. If you've already finished a game why are you complaining about the length of a quicklook for it? It certainly seems like you've got time on your hands.

Quick Looks should maybe be about 20 minutes. Not all are about that. I dont mind 30 minute videos. Did you know theres a button that lets you skip parts of the video?

bombcast is great.

quicklooks can be a bit long lately, but alot of them are still great even being long. like that dark souls one was great. the kinectabls one i watched like 15 minutes of. its hit or miss with the long quick looks.

NOT LONG ENOUGH.

Yeah more recently I too have been short on time, so I have had to find ways to either watch content while I am doing something or listen to the bombcast on the go. I don't necessarily mind the length of the videos, I just need to find the time to actually watch it, which may occur as I am sketching something out, or other tasks that don't require complete or full attention. As for quick looks, just because you have seen a lot of dark souls doesn't mean other people have. I for one was extremely interested in dark souls and glad they devoted that amount of time to it in a quick look. Really when it comes down to it, the length of the content is going to stay, for those of us who don't have a lot of time to sit and watch or listen we need to find ways around it and be selective on the videos we watch.

@Sawboss said:

I just listen to quick looks mostly when I play multiplayer games or am playing a part of a game that is not plot relevant (like collecting blast shards in Infamous), so long is fine for me. You did not seem to say in your opening post that the problem is quality suffering from too much quantity? If that the case I can totally see your complaint. I just find it hard to complain when the long quick looks I still really enjoy. It just more of what I like.

I find myself checking how much time is left in a Quick Look or a Bombcast more often than I used to, a sign that I'm starting to get bored. I didn't want to talk about quality in the opening post because I assumed people would get too defensive about it, but I do think they'd benefit from brevity. And I definitely used to have them on while playing stuff like inFAMOUS or multiplayer games too. Really cool to hear that other people do that as well. I just can't do that as much anymore -- roommates and friends sitting in the living room with me don't seem to appreciate it as much as I do.

I don't have a lot of time either but I love their lengthy content.

i think bombcasts are fine. two hours (or so) is a great amount of time for the guys to talk about all they'd like to without feeling limited by time restrictions. on the other hand, quick looks are pretty lengthy, but they don't always keep my attention. granted, i don't watch them much because a lot of the games they play don't interest me that much, but i do find myself turning off quick look long before they're done. 

@MisterMouse said:

As for quick looks, just because you have seen a lot of dark souls doesn't mean other people have. I for one was extremely interested in dark souls and glad they devoted that amount of time to it in a quick look. Really when it comes down to it, the length of the content is going to stay, for those of us who don't have a lot of time to sit and watch or listen we need to find ways around it and be selective on the videos we watch.

Fair enough; I was wondering how people unfamiliar with the Souls games would react to it. That's why I brought up the Demon's Souls Quick Look. 30 minutes long and it told me everything I needed to know about Demon's Souls. It was funny and fun and totally sold me on that game. I thought the Dark Souls Quick Look had a lot of filler. Yeah, it was still really funny at times, but it was also almost three times as long.

I guess it just bugs me most when I try to get people into Giant Bomb. People like you and me and everyone else in this thread already love Giant Bomb, so we'd spend all day long watching Quick Looks and listening to the Bombcast if we could. People who don't already love Giant Bomb, though, get really intimidated by how long everything is.

I wish every bombcast was 24 hours long so I would never be bored.

I don't have time to watch most quick looks longer then half an hour, so I just remember where I left off and come back.

i agree, its the same with books. why the fuck are they so long.

i mean do they really expect me to sit there and read 400 pages when i have a full time job and a little girl, all books in my opinion should be no longer that 20 pages so i can read it in about 30 mins and get on with the rest of my busy day.

@yoshimitz707 said:

I wish every bombcast was 24 hours long so I would never be bored.

God, me too.

I honestly wish everything they did was longer. If you don't have time, come back to where you left off. You don't miss anything and the people who love long content can still get it.

Quicklooks and bombcasts are all the original content that non-premium members such as myself get nowadays so I will take as much as they dish out. Long podcasts are awesome.

@BirdkeeperDan said:

The quick looks are definately getting too long. 1hour quicklooks are crazy. I mean thats half a movie and I get more out of half a movie than one quicklook. Ryan used to be a great advocate for keeping them short ~20 minutes but no longer.

The bombcast is generally fine but at least for a while there Ryan always asked everyone what they did on their weekend and they would talk about it even if it was boring and not video game related. It should at least be video game related or interesting preferably both.

you do know the video have a 'stop' button. so if you've had your quicklook fill you can press this and the quicklook will cease playing. this means you can kind of tailor the quicklooks length to suit you.

Who care's if the quick look is long? just turn it off when you have had enough....

The Bombcast on the other hand... is far too long and unstructured. That's why I listen to Epic Battle Cry

Posting just to not create a perception that people agree. The longer the podcast the better. Quick Looks are cool any way they are but 30-60 minutes long ones are the best.

No the only worthwhile content for non-paid members isn't too long.

I agree with the Quick Looks as I never finish most of them since I get the jist of the game half way through, however the Bombcast can never be too long.

No.

No.

Shorten the Bombcast? What the fuck is wrong with you people?

While I realize you're trying to approach this in a civilized and adult matter, the fact remains that -- as one person pointed out -- the brunt of your complaint could be summed up as, "I sure wish they could tailor their products to my specific schedule". Granted, people are entitled to their opinions and criticism can lead to improvement, but when the crux of your argument is, "I just don't have the time to devote to your product", it comes off with a fairly strong air of self-entitlement.

Your example of the Dark Souls quicklook is absolutely terrible, as that is the kind of game that is perfect for an extended showing. On top of that, there is nothing to stop you from watching 15 minutes and going, "Yep, that's all I needed to see." and close it. Your argument as to why it was "too long' was incredibly short-sighted and selfish -- "I've already played Demon's Souls and I don't wanna sit through this video". Putting aside the fact that not everyone shares your experience with Demon's Souls, are you saying that you just don't have the ability to press the stop button on a video? And let's not getting too hyperbolic here; your friends were appalled by video lengths? Did they, too, fail to realize that videos can be stopped part way through and the mere thought of having to sit through a whole video was akin to being strapped to a chair and forced to watch gratuitous sex and violence a la Clockwork Orange? If my imagination was that unhinged, I'd certainly be appalled at the thought, too.

Coming as no surprise, I like the lengths of the videos and podcasts offered here. If I have no interest in a particular video, I skip it or end it prematurely. As for the podcast, I generally enjoy listening to them through and through. If they do spend a bit too much time on a particular game, it's not difficult for me to fast-forward a bit.

Don't watch the quick looks, don't listen to the bombcast.
 
Problem solved.

@Cloudenvy said:

.....Get out!

The longer the Quick Look or Bombcast the better, for me.

yup

I agree with most people here, the Bombcast is fine. It often takes me a week too, but I'm OK with that. But Quick Looks? Whoo! those could use some slimming down.

Yes and No.

I feel that the length of the Bombcast is fine, as I generally don't just sit down and listen. I usually do other things whilst listening to the Bombcast, as I'm not required to sit down and focus all my attention on the Bombcast to get the full experience.

Whereas with a video, I need to sit down and watch the video in order to gain the full experience. Sitting down for 40 mins to watch a commentary of video game is a time commitment. If you've got a busy lifestyle, I can see how it may be difficult to sit down to watch a QL unless you make time for it. In which case, you've probably got better things to do with your free time.

But to be honest, I don't think the length of the Bombcast and QL's should be cut down. A lot of people including myself enjoy the length of the content, and I feel your only complaining because it doesn't really fit within your lifestyle.

I want them longer honestly, I wish every QL was an hour and the BombCast was still 3 to fit in more emails and random anecdotes.