I do find gameplay videos very useful, but when people seem to post the official 40 second 'doesnt show you any useful gameplay' promo videos i cant stand those personally.
I agree that the videos that are posted are straight up - start the game, play for 30 minutes, post - videos. The thing about that for me is that it ruins the first part of the game and when I play the game I always get that feeling of deja vu. So I don't even watch them on a game that I am interested in and will hunt for the developers preview or promo video. If the videos had snippets of the game and were edited in some way that would be much more meaningful for me. When 5 or 6 posters do the same thing then its exactly the same video over and over. It becomes more click bait in my mind. When I see a new thread, especially on a Wednesday or a new release day, more often I just skip to the second page to start reading comments and see what questions people have. I totally agree that while not necessarily spam, the posting videos only habits have to change in order to encourage a more meaningful dialogue amongst the community.
Why don't you just skip around in the video then? That way you won't get that déjà vu. I almost find promo videos completely useless because a lot of the time it barely shows any game play if your lucky. Also those vids can be very misleading. If TA has a YouTube channel, why don't you link those vids to the forum? Then this wouldn't be as big of a problem as it is now.
That doesn't really solve any problems though. What I'm imagining is like... Take someone like AppUnwrapper. She's been around on the forums forever, is active in basically every vaguely noteworthy thread, and posts videos once in a while. I think she's the perfect example of a really awesome TA forum member. These are the kind of people we should encourage to post videos as she records them and is around to contribute to the discussion that results from the video. Her presence all around makes the forum a better place. Now, compare that to the people who do nothing but post videos. Sure, you could argue they start threads once in a while, but if someone wants to discuss a game, they'll make a thread... But, my point is, their overall presence on the forums is complete night and day. Yes, videos can be relevant, but the people posting them add nothing to the discussion. As a discussion forum, that should be the primary goal. It is absolutely no challenge to find people recording the exact same first 30 minutes of gameplay video on YouTube, it is difficult finding people discussing those games intelligently. So, we implement a 10% rule, worst case scenario we have a little less video content on the forums. Best case scenario, we convert a bunch of the people who do nothing but post their videos into AppUnwrappers. That doesn't seem like much of a down side, it seems like a major up-side.
But going by that thinking how about the Geometry Dash thread ? Tons of kids posting like its a kids chatroom. They dont talk or buy any other games, they dont join in in any other threads. They dont contribute to the forum in anyway, just often quite a pain as they're arguing/swearing/spamming levels time after time or posting silly faces just to get the page count up to 3000. 99% of threads people talk about the game, they dont use it as a kids chatroom. I want to delete spam/shillers, not babysit a bunch of kids who dont add anything to TA. Most users here buy a variety of games and have opinions on these games, that juvenile GD thread has turned into the old chat thread which used to be in the Lounge section which was eventually locked (and rightly so)
You should just stop reading that thread, it almost never gets reported (aside from actual spam posts for penis enlargement and similar), I'm not sure why you're so infatuated with it.
Edit - Just seen the new post Think its a great idea to let them have a sub topic/forum bit or whatever. Works for everyone. Think we had one a while back for minecraft or something ?
Could have a gameplay video section on the forum. That way you know what you're getting into when you venture into it. People who are only promoting themselves/channel without contributing to the community, that is spam. I only ever used to watch videos if posted by Sanuku, they were quality. I usually don't bother with others unless they are official trailers on the TA front page.
im curious in whats happening over this. Just today i posted details of a game i found, included the official trailer in bio and added my own game play including what i thought of the game which i think is fair. For then to have see second video posted which really was similar video to my own offering nothing new does is pointless.
I remember a while back, not sure how long it's been, some guy posting in the price drop thread over and over. It was nice of him to help out the community letting us know of price drops, or games that went free, but all he would post was the app info bit, then videos of his gameplay. Just like Eli mentioned. The problem came from two different areas. One was that he would just blatantly post his videos even when someone else started a thread, providing absolutely nothing else of any value. His videos had no commentary, just gameplay. Then... Nothing. He provided nothing else. The other issue arose when I would see one I suppose he started, and he would post about 5 different replies to his own thread. There I am thinking there'd a good discussion going on about whatever game, and I click the thread to see; I then scroll down an entire page and it's nothing but this guy's videos, with no comments from any other members. I haven't frequented all the sub sections in the forums as often as I do that or "upcoming games", but I can see this being an annoyance all around, in any section. If this is what is happening, I absolutely agree that something needs to be done about it; however, I also fear that whatever is done about it may become entirely too strict, and TA will then become a playground for Nazi moderators. Which is not the TA I know and love. I just think whatever is done should be carried out carefully and with some thought.(Which is why I appreciate this thread.) I don't post videos on TA often (if I ever have, not sure) but I just fear that one day I might, and I'll suffer ridiculous consequences for it. Just what I'm thinking.
This thread is exactly what I'm talking about by the way- http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?t=277270
This is the EXACT reason I quit what I was doing. It would take quite a bit of time for me to do my homework on the game and dev, play the game for awhile and figure out what would be good to record and what wouldn't be, actually do the recording/editing/ect. Just to upload the video and have it overlooked as yet another "first hour gameplay video." It's a shame.
