YouTube Video Padding Reddit Discussion

https://www.reddit.com/r/speedrun/comments/1kbcper/minirant_about_a_certain_type_of_speedrun_videos/

Mini-rant about a certain type of speedrun videos: Just get to the point, man…

Without mentioning the creator, they made a video about a new strat discovery. The video was 15 minutes long. How long did they talk about the new strat? 2 minutes explained at the end.

What happened in the 13 minutes? 2 minutes of sponsors, 11 minutes of basic history of the run that could be condensed in a few minutes tbh, but was stretched out to farm more ad revenue.

We have to get our bag sometimes, I get it, but come on man…

What do you think? He got some interesting replies, but share your thoughts before reading the responses blurred below.

Assignment for @eternity and @lmd. A sentence or two with your initial opinion is fine but I’d suggest spending a minimum of five minutes trying to come up with thoughts. Maybe you’ll think of some further aspect to analyze. After you respond, read the blurred replies and then comment again with, at minimum, whether you agree or disagree with each comment and whether you changed your mind about something.

bismuth9 (who’s speedrun videos I’ve liked):

As someone who makes speedrun videos and who has received their fair share of accusatory comments about padding for ad revenue, engagement or watch time, let me say this.

You’re sort of right but mostly wrong. Yes, there are channels who shovel out padded out slop with little substance, and it sucks that the standard of quality of the average viewer is low enough that they can thrive so much on so little value. The best you can do with these channels is just to click on the three little dots next to the thumbnail and select “I’m not interested” or “Hide this channel”.

However, what you’re describing is different. A video about a new strat discovery that doesn’t explain the context around it is simply not doing its job very well. To better understand how important a new discovery is, you need a basic grasp of why. Why is this a big discovery? What does it skip? Why wasn’t it found sooner? What other tricks did you have to do before that are now obsolete? Why does it work? How much time is expected to be saved from it? How hard / consistent is it? All of these are valid questions to ask, and the more answers you get, the more complete a picture you have of the magnitude of the discovery.

Now, when you’re already familiar with the game and you watch a video that talks about basic mechanics or the casual experience of the game before introducing the new discovery, you’re thinking to yourself “Why is this idiot YouTuber greedy for sponsor bucks wasting 10 minutes of my life talking about things everyone already knows? Who watches a video about Cow Adventures 4: Attack on Mootown and doesn’t know about Super Moo Milk skip?” Well, as it turns out, a lot of people. Just because not every part of a video caters specifically to you, doesn’t mean it’s worthless.

To take a specific example, I made a video about a TAS of Minecraft in which I took the time to explain exactly what a TAS is and how specifically Minecraft was TASed in this context, and I also took the time to explain what the game mechanics are before talking about how they got exploited. I received dozens of comments saying all four of these things:

  1. Thank so you much for explaining the mechanics in detail so I could understand the TAS
  2. Thank you for explaining how this run was created, I understand Minecraft but not speedrunning
  3. Who the fuck watches this video and doesn’t know what an ender pearl does
  4. Who the fuck watches this video and doesn’t know what a TAS is

My video reached over 3 million people. In trying to please each and every one of them, there was simply no winning.

So, when you see a video that breaks down information that you already know, instead of rolling your eyes, think of this xkcd comic and skip ahead to the part you wanted to watch.

sirgog:

I’m in Youtube content creation (albeit not in speedrunning)

It’s partly a style thing, partly monetization, partly the algorithim.

Videos under 8 minutes make very little money on Youtube and videos under 3 minutes are much worse again. They do, however, take a damn long time to make. The more tightly you condense a video down the longer editing takes.

My approach is to make videos as long as they organically need to be, only padding it if it’s organically in the 7 min 40 to 7 min 59 range. But a lot of people will pad videos that would organically be 5 min to hit that magic 8 min 01 sec.

Unless someone has a six figure amount of subscribers, the difference between a 7 min 45 vid and an 8 minute 05 vid is that both take 10 hours work; the former pays 5 hours minimum wage and the latter 8-12.

But then there’s the question of style and the algorithim.

If a large number of people skip a lot of a video (in Youtube terms, low average view duration relative to vid length), the algorithim will treat the video as suspected clickbait. If people watch a lot of it (high AVD for the vid length), the vid will get recommended more widely.

If a vid does really, really well on that metric it gets recommended to wider and wider audiences until it stops. So perhaps it starts out “Super Metroid speedrun watchers” then expands to “speedrun watchers” and “retro games enthusiasts” then if it still does well, wider again - it’ll get tested with 1990s (non-gaming) nostalgia enthusiasts, general gaming audiences, etc.

The videos you are being recommended are the ones that have done well. So you might not like the style, but others with tastes similar to yours have liked it. And that’s why it’s succeeded in the algorithim so far. What you consider basic theory might be needed background for a lot of people.

And a video without that background might never get to you, because people click away thinking “i have no idea what’s going on here”. Algorithim assumes it’s clickbait when it’s just a high prerequisite knowledge level, and the video fades.

Ultimately, any niche you get fanatical about you’ll learn a few names whose style gels with you, and a few you won’t gel with, with most in between.

1 Like

Hmm. I don’t know how long I spent thinking on it. I read the assignment and then went on my day. Presumably my subconscious thought on it some? I consciously gave it some thought sporadically throughout the day.

One thing came to mind is the target audience of the video. OP complains that he was stretching for time and that:

I don’t know though. I don’t know the video in question, but what if it was created for a general audience? If it was a cool new speedrun trick that he wanted a lot of people to see (including people who don’t speedrun or speedrun that game) then it makes sense to go through the history. Its possible the history felt like padding, but it could be that OP is just more knowledgeable about the game. He can be fine with less information.

Also idk if its just ad revenue, it could also just be the algorithm. Its possible it was stretched for time, but it also could be stretched so it reaches a larger audience because otherwise YouTube won’t push it as well.

Also idk the type of videos this creator makes. Does he make a bunch of speedrun videos? Is he someone who shows off a bunch of strats? Then that would make sense to have short videos. The content you’re creating involves just getting to the point, but if he just shares a cool strat here and there (and maybe for various games) it makes sense to go through a bunch of stuff.

Also idk just go to the end for your new strat? Unless the video is made in a sort of unclear way that you wouldn’t know you can just skip to the end. Just skip to the end for the part you care about.

Also I can’t speak for everybody but I also just like longer videos. Overtime I don’t really ever watch short videos for entertainment now. If I’m watching a short video its usually for an educational reason.

Ok. That is it for now I guess.

I agree with his comment. Its similar, I feel, to what I was saying. My mind wasn’t changed.

I agree with his comment. I didn’t know shorter videos can take a longer time to make. Interesting. I guess other people also don’t watch shorter videos as much anymore (maybe cause if they want shorter videos, they would watch YT shorts?). I feel more informed but I don’t any information presented here should/did change my mind.

1 Like

why not mention the creator? Do they not want to provide helpful feedback to them? Maybe they don’t want it to look like they are trying to harm their reputation? But maybe most people in the community would know who he was talking about and the reputation harm would happen anyway, but he could plausibly deny it?

I’m guessing “strat” means strategy? Like a new speedrun strategy.

So the poster was annoyed about the fact that he had to watch a 15 min video to find out the new strategy? I mean that’s shorter than trying to figure out the strategy yourself. Also, you can watch video at double speed and maybe click around till you find what you’re after.

So the poster thinks that the reason the creator didn’t get to the point was that the majority of the video is to get paid for ad and sponsor revenue?

Idk my initial opinion, without knowing ~anything about this community or having seen the video he’s talking about is that he seems ungrateful and impatient.

The point about artificially stretching your content out to get more revenue seems like it could be something to analyse.

I just realised that I’m assuming that the creator of the video was the one who discovered the new strat, and aren’t just making a video about someone else’s discovery.

A lot of these videos are made by someone else, not the creator/inventor.