Brad Shoemaker - Inventor of the Quick Look

Duders, this is a pretty fun piece of trivia.

Correct or not, I've always credited the format of Quick Looks to Giant Bomb. I just don't know if any site before them did anything like it, but I sure as hell never saw it before Giant Bomb. And I always thought that the Quick Look was something Jeff brought to the table.

But it seems I was wrong. I've been catching up on content from the last couple of months, and I'm currently watching a UPF from a couple of weeks ago. And in it, Jeff credits Brad for being the inventer of the Quick Look. It's around the one hour mark in this video.

I thought it was a fun piece of trivia, and it makes me wonder a bit more about the whole dynamic of the crew. Are they just this video game think-tank, or do they have more specific roles, like the idea man, the flavor commentator, the host and stuff like that?

What do you guys think?

I've always wondered how they operate as well. Moreso how their workday operates. Cause i always hear about jeff being the supervisor/boss and wonder how it all plays out throughout the day.

Brad owns this site, then. Royalties forever!

They have roles on camera that they're comfortable in. But their best trait as a team is that you don't really notice. And behind the scenes? I stopped thinking about it because every job has a ton of stuff that you wouldn't think about unless you spent a day there.

They do have specific roles behind the scenes. For example, we know that Brad is the one who handles most of the contact with devs and publishers for the site to get codes, games and other stuff like that. Jeff is the EiC of the site with the responsibility that entails, which means he's representing the site in meetings with CBSi etc. Vinny is the "head video guy" for the site, so he's the "boss" of Drew and Jason, and they showed a bit of the meetings they have every week in the No-Go video.

There's probably a lot more that we don't know of too. This post by Vinny is a good way to show how much behind the scenes stuff there is at GB:

ll speak to my role, since, you know... it's mine. I'm head of video for Giant Bomb. Where Jeff is head of editorial, I'm head of video. We both report into the same boss. That means for my part in CBS Interactive, I'm responsible for all our video production. That's costs, technology, archiving, how we're spending man hours, etc. Luckily, I have fantastic producers like Drew and Jason that make my job a lot easier. Being in content is not actually my main responsibility. Making sure there is video content on the site is. I think that's important to remember.

What is my week like? Currently, a lot of it is navigating this studio build and laying the foundation for more content here. Currently we have a lot of issues, from actual studio space, budget, and getting network access. All of these things need solutions. From putting holes in a wall to asking IT to allow access to Xbox Live, everything requires meetings and time. We're still working on getting air conditioning in the studio. The lights went up yesterday.

So Monday, I come in and go through data and emails. If I can I'll usually start playing a game to QL I will. Let's take an actual week. So I'm playing Castle in the Darkness prepping for a QL. Then I jump into Lisa. At about 1:30 there's a meeting with my boss to go over video and whatnot. At 2:00 there's a meeting with Drew and Jason to go over the week in production. I'll play some more to prep. That week happened to be the week our quarterly budget was due, so I probably spent more time working on that.

Tuesday we recorded Castle in the Darkness, Grow Home, and Lisa. Had a meeting from 4-5, probably did more studio crap after that.

Wednesday start prepping Supreme and Darkness Assault. Spent a long time trying to find where Darkness Assault saves, I remember that. Couldn't find it so I had to replay some stuff in the studio. Had a Wednesday meeting 1-2pm. Then I meet with Drew every Wednesday to see how he's doing over there. Not sure where the rest of the day went, but making those quarterly budgets eat up a lot of time.

Thursday we recorded Supreme, there's a weekly meeting with the whole team, and I think I spent a bunch of time trying to figure out why the colorspace on our videos was mismatching. I think I also tried to rig a better baffling solution that week in the studio. Got a new capture device as well. Figure out why one of our capture machines wouldn't record 4 channels of audio (kind of...).

Friday we recorded Darkness Assault and Sunless Sea. Did some other stuff. Can't remember, I actually have to run. Giant Bomb East is not an island. So let me move on.

If corporate is concerned with where their money is spent, I have never heard it. Actually, you're maybe the first person to question my work ethic in my 15 years of doing this. Not offended by it. I can see how a lot of what happens doesn't make it to the public.

We don't have the money to hire someone else to build the studio. That's the short answer and actual one. Who is going to build it? Same reason we don't have someone else to record and post the videos. Or clean the studio. Or fix the 135 problems we run into a day that go into doing content. Everything costs money and we need to stay profitable.

Ok, really have to run! Hopefully, this answers some of your questions! If not, let me know. Happy to share.

--Vinny

If anyone wants the exact timestamp it's 1h:07m:35s - 1h:09m:10s

Well Brad may have been the first guy who brought up the idea of doing quick look style videos on Giant Bomb but Time Trotters with Jeff, Ryan, and Rich Gallup from Gamespot is basically a bigger budget predecessor to what quick looks would become.

@amyggen: What prompted Vinny to write that?

@legion_:

Originally Posted by komplanen

What is your work week like? How about Alex's? Theres no podcasts, no premium videos and less reviews so how do you spend your weeks? Does corporate ever ask what they are paying for? Also why didn't they outsource the studio build to people who aren't content producers? I mean looking at the few live shows you guys did it's obvious you guys have done a lot of work but isn't it better left for people who would have done it two months ago?

Also how told on me? I bet it was that Rorie, wan't it? I'm gonna give that tatle tail cooties!

Peace. No animosity intended.

A person in the thread was questioning what he and Alex did all day when the office was still unfinished.

I mean, no. There have been plenty on youtube years before Giant Bomb did it (and yes I mean partial playthrough with comments). Jeff and Ryan already did them at Gamespot years earlier, as well, but ya I guess in the Giant Bomb office he could have been the one to put the idea on the board when they were originally coming up with content. So, for that we can give Brad credit even if it's an indirect spark of creativity from what they did at Gamespot.

The modern Let's Play is mostly influenced by the advent of the "riff" which was created in large part (pop culturally) by the MST3K crew.

Head of Video sounds more fun than Head of Editorials. Especially when you have good producers like Drew and Jason. Organizing creative work is much more fun than actually performing creative work. Plus, managing all those deliverables gives you a good resume item, whereas insightful yet funny commentary on video games doesn't count for much.

Wait, isn't Jeff referring to Brad inventing the Quick Look-type format in the GameSpot days? GameSpot has been around since the mid 90s as a website and Brad was with GameSpot by 2000. YouTube didn't exist until 2005, so forget YouTube Let's Play videos pre-dating anything made by GameSpot. Jeff has already acknowledged that this entire generation of Quick Look/Let's Play videos stem from people growing up with MST3K, so that's not the question. The question is who first came up with the idea to play a chunk of a video game, record it with commentary, and post it on the internet. Even if Brad didn't do the first one on GameSpot, Jeff is saying it was Brad's idea.

I wonder which person/boss do Vinny and Jeff both report to?

@htr10 said:

Well, a "Quick Look" is a more specific concept than a general Let's Play. A Quick Look is covering a newly-released game using a moderate length (20 minutes or so) chunk of commentated gameplay from at or near the beginning. So that's what Jeff means when he claims that Giant Bomb innovated the "Quick Look" format of covering new releases. It was something that other major gaming sites weren't doing at the time, even though of course Let's Plays already existed.

@prestige: So, just to really beat this into in the ground, in the video from this thread, is Jeff crediting Brad with inventing the Quick Look at Giant Bomb or is he suggesting that it was Brad's idea to basically do an early version of the "quick look" at GameSpot? I got the impression they were discussing the latter.

L.L. Cool J, I'd imagine.

David Letterman.

I remember, I think in response to a bombcast email, Jeff name dropping Something Awful as being the origin of the Quick look format. (Or at least, he said they were doing it first) I don't really know anything about that site myself, but as far as I'm concerned Quick Looks are all that matter.

Maybe my memory is wrong too.

Something Awful is where let's plays were invented, which are similar to quick looks but not the same.

The let's plays on SA were mostly screen caps with text commentary anyway, at least at first. Not all that similar to QLs to me.

Thinking about it, when you factor in the existence of stuff like MST3K, the huge audience for game related "content" on the internet, and the increase in bandwidth with broadband, it's really not that inconceivable that a bunch of people came up with the idea for extended gameplay videos with commentary around the same time. Hindsight's 20:20 of course.

When you think about it, Jeff and crew have kind of been at the forefront for a lot of internet video game content that's common place now. Quick Looks, live shows, podcasts, live streams. Remember when Greg Kasavin did that Oblivion marathon? stuff like that is everywhere now, but back then that felt special.

The first ever Let's Play was in 2007 on Something Awful. It became popular in and broke out to general Youtube audiences in 2008. Same year Giant Bomb was founded. It would be more accurate to say that Something Awful inspired the Endurance Run.

@pcorb: There were plenty of dudes doing Video Let's Plays on SA I can name 3 groups off the top of my head and I haven't been to that site in years. Chip and Ironicus, the Freelance Astronauts and Tipping 40's.

I also found those early growing pains--when QLs moved from one person to two, so that the player would have someone to bounce conversation off of--to be quite fascinating. Those early videos are fine, but they really hit their stride almost immediately after switching to a two-person minimum. Pretty neat.

Also, and this is something I've thought for years now, it seems like way too big of a hassle working for something like CBS. It sounds like 90% of the time they spend some days is going to meetings to prove that they are doing things correctly/for not too much money, meeting the requirements of an employee (filing reports, taking HR courses, etc.), and answering emails (which to be fair, they already did a bunch of before). It's a marvel they manage to get anything done with so much bullshit to wade through week after week. Maybe I'm just overestimating how much time and energy these meetings take, but it seems like a fucking nightmare.

And, for the record, I would still love to hear these daily/weekly series of events from each of the members of Giant Bomb. They are an interesting way to delve deeper into what each person brings to the site.

People were making videos of games long before this website, sure I don't think many websites based the majority of their content around it unless we include YouTube channels.

Although, who really cares. It's such a broad thing that anybody laying claim to inventing it will come across like a fool.

Jeff says Brad did it at 1:08:10.

Yeah, more comparable to endurance runs than quick looks, since they're about playing the game from start to finish.

That said, there were some Quake videos with commentary available on PlanetQuake, Adrenaline Vault and other sites like that back in the late 90's. They obviously were mostly about showing off stunts, mods and new maps, and not to explore entirely different games, but the presentation was somewhat similar, I guess.

That's pretty much the reason I installed RealPlayer back then.

Also beards.

Les Moonves.

i mean, brad did do the first quick look. lotr conquest, one of the worst game i've ever played.

Well since you ask about the GB crew's dynamic, they remind me of the cartoon Top Cat, named Boss Cat for a while in the UK for copyright purposes:

Jeff - Top Cat (overall wheeler and dealer and in effect, Supes)

Vinny - Choo Choo (it suits him and he's said it at least once with an expletive on the end)

Alex - Spook (a bit off centre)

Brad - Brain (the sleepy looking one, inventor of the QL since he didn't want to do something twice)

Dan - Benny the Ball (this has no possible explanation)

Drew - Fancy-Fancy (That's the last major character left that makes sense, but also given the love for Drew presented on this site it seems appropriate)

Jason/Matt - No major characters left that make sense! They could easily sub in for one of the above though.

CBSi - Officer Dibble (given that they allow GB to exist nowadays, they have to be seen as a bit clumsy but affable. I'm sure that there are those who know better)

I invented playing video games and eating pizza at the same time!

Did anyone ever watch Talkthroughs? I don't really know where they date in relation to Let's Plays but I was certainly aware of them before I was aware of Let's Plays (2007ish). They're more or less the same thing under a different name, but I'm always surprised I never hear anyone ever mention them.

It's a little sad to me - some people I watched do talkthroughs in like 2007 are still doing them and still calling them that while having basically the same number of viewers they did back then. I always wonder if theyd be doing better if they used the Lets Play title instead once it caught on.

As someone on the inside, I always thought a day in the life video would be interesting. There's lots of cool stuff that goes on behind the scenes to bring you the content you see. They're essentially the same off camera as on and sometimes even a boring meeting can feel like a UPF. CBSi isn't the big corporate overload they're made out to be. Sometimes they're a pain but there's people, like me, in between the guys and the suits.

Which video was it that Quick Look was coined? Was that during a Burnout Paradise video or Fable or what?

I think it was that Burnout Paradise DLC video, but I'm not entirely sure.

Since you seem curious:

Gamespot wasn't doing "Let's Plays" or "Quick Look" type content in the late 90s to early 2000's. They were doing video reviews and displaying game play footage captured off a VCR or whatever their setup was (it's not really important that I remember).

This is an important distinction because just displaying gameplay footage is not the same. I feel we can agree on that; you just aren't aware what they were doing in the early days.

YouTube didn't exist until 2005, so forget YouTube Let's Play videos pre-dating anything made by GameSpot.

Ya, long (couple years) before Jeff and Ryan did Time Trotters. People had already begun doing "Let's Plays" and "Quick Look" type content long before that. Forgive me for forgetting that this predates even youtube in some niche cases. Even still, that's not really important because Gamespot wasn't doing them even if they existed longer.

Jeff has already acknowledged that this entire generation of Quick Look/Let's Play videos stem from people growing up with MST3K, so that's not the question.

The MST3K sentence is a fun fact. That's why it's a separate paragraph.

The question is who first came up with the idea to play a chunk of a video game, record it with commentary, and post it on the internet. Even if Brad didn't do the first one on GameSpot, Jeff is saying it was Brad's idea.

As I said already, it could have been Brad's idea when throwing up ideas for Giant Bomb content. This doesn't make him the inventor of the format, but I'll give him the style and what Giant Bomb does today. I know that Brad watches other internet shows (such as Redlettermedia for example) so he would have thought it was a good idea (as would I or you). Jeff had already done this at Gamespot (no, Brad wasn't involved in those, but I'm sure he knew about it- there was only 1 released episode and a second in the can that was never released before stuff happened).

A few examples of "Quick Look" type content already produced before Giant Bomb:

Angry Video Game nerd. I'm sure you'll argue about how he does skits and what not, but regardless his first video is very much a quick look type format. Unlike Giant Bomb he just expanded his series to both be historically informative and have some form of story line with a character as the host. Giving his opinion while playing the game is still core to the concept. (created for his friends in 2004, but he probably posted it on Youtube in 2005. The dates are fuzzy because I was in a war at the time so forgive me)

Armake21. One of several popular people to initially follow in the Angry Video Game Nerds footsteps. In those days it was considered somehow bad if you tried to do these videos because "AVGN already did it so you're just stealing from him." I only bring this up because this is what made it fairly niche unless you watched AVGN who had millions of viewers for years at the time. (2005 or 2006 I forget)

SpoonyExperiment. I consider Spoony in a line of second generation "youtube reviewers" who spawned from the craze that followed AVGN's work. Initially his videos were unscripted (sound familiar?) and he considered them more like short form angry essays (or rants) than anything else. He has since expanded his format, much like AVGN but to an even greater extreme in a lot of cases, even going as far as to go through an entire game as he rants about it (such as his extensive Final Fantasy videos). Despite the editting, and ranty nature what he does is still very much in concept a quick look. (I believe he started in 2007, but it's hard to remember because Youtube removed his videos a lot for untrue copyright violations and thusly he has moved to several different video websites over the years. So either 2006 or 2007).

There are many others. These are just examples. They were all doing it before Giant Bomb.

I also find it funny that people say "Let's Plays" were invented by SA. That's mostly not true. I mean they very much made it popular, but there were "Let's Plays" with very little views long before SA made them popular by actually doing them well. I suspect SA very much coined the name, though. They weren't called that in the early days.

Hopefully this helps explain my disagreement with the idea that Brad "invented" the quick look. I can see how he may have been the one to bring it up to them as something they should do, and Giant Bomb very much did their own thing with the concept, but to say any of them actually invented it outright is very untrue. Like many between 2005 and 2008 they just saw that people were interested in it and evolved it to fit their needs. Giant Bomb actually caught the tail end of that era in most respects, so people who came here were starting to already be accustomed to the idea in general (watching videos of people playing games while commenting- often humorously). It was very good timing on their part.

@cornbredx:

I appreciate the thoroughness of your response.

I'm not familiar with Armake21, but there was a time when AVGN and TheSpoonyExperiment filled the role for me (to a lesser extent) that Giant Bomb does now.

The most interesting part of your response is that you are saying that GameSpot never did any content in a "Quick Look/Let's Play" type format. Sounds like most people are interpreting Jeff's comment in the video as indicating that Brad suggested the Quick Look format for Giant Bomb. It sounded to me like he was saying that Brad was the first person he ever heard suggest doing a Quick Look-type video and that he suggested doing that during their GameSpot era. In my mind, the Quick Look format is playing an uninterrupted and unedited chunk of a game with commentary and that is your video. If it is the case that GameSpot never actually did any videos in that style then it becomes a moot point and I could just as easily say that I had that idea to invent the Quick Look/Let's Play in 1992.

@htr10: The most interesting part of your response is that you are saying that GameSpot never did any content in a "Quick Look/Let's Play" type format.

They did, but very little and as far as I recall it wasn't until around the end of 2006 or some time in 2007. I actually partially forgot to mention the date they did any of that stuff, but ya. They actually didn't do those types of videos for a couple years after Jeff left, either, then when Giant Bomb started getting bigger (around 2009 or 2010) they started doing them more seriously. It may actually have been Danny ODwyer who mainly started getting it done over there, but I actually don't know because when they first started doing it it seemed like a lame attempt by Gamespot to draw in the Giant Bomb crowd after dumping all their integrity. So who started it there and the exact dates on that are a little fuzzy to me. I was hesitant to accept just about anything from Gamespot at the time.

Anyway, sorry. There's so much of this nonsense in my head. It's incredible you read any of that haha. So, thanks! =P

Really? I'd like to think Greg Kasavin was the Father of the Quick Look with his Elder Scrolls Oblivion gameplay bids.