Decline in Content Quality & Exclusivity of Content

[GeekaWhat]

Unlike others I am going to mention this in what I feel is a fair manor.

 

Since the new office move I feel LMG content has declined in quality. I understand the lack of new product releases lately is ultimately gonna lead to a lack of GREAT videos, however yesterday I watched Linus put 8 GPUs into a 32 core beast server and today 'How to Install a GPU' like come on. I know this is a scrapyard wars week and this has led to videos that have to be faster to produce but I don't feel scrapyard wars, which will probably drag on too long at the end should lead to a week in which content is imo pretty sh*t. I feel aside from the xmas pc modding, fallout build guide, server videos, 7 gamers 1 CPU and the latest holy sh*t video it has all been quite disappointing. We haven't seen a build guide in the new office, like a full tutorial - I love those - especially the ULTIMATE ones!

 

I would however like to say the quality of editing has drastically increased, as has filming - not to say some sexy graphics overlays from Edzel really gave LTT videos a quirky look before and I feel LTT needs more of this.

 

To address the exclusive Nerd Sports, I'll be honest I was initially p*ssed. However seeing @LinusTech post on the forum about it I now fully understand why and have ti say I love the idea. Exclusivity and content behind a paywall is always gonna be controversial, but providing it doesn't take away from other content (for which it seems that way this week) I fully agree with the move, and whilst I am yet to make a decision may be the sole reason i renew vessel membership!

 

Linus my personal viewpoint/advice on this would be not to take on too much  I love some of the latest LTT videos but others have been awful imo. I understand this time of year lacks for product releases but aside the 'show style format' more reviews would be great - because that's what you do best. From new employees that you have mentioned it seems you are facilitating for all this new content you plan to make. 

 

Tech quickie has also been superb lately.

 

Finally Brandon, Edzel, Taran and John are great on camera and seeing more of them would be great. 

 

This is all subjective I know but these are my opinions and if you were to see this I hope I have put across an unbiased argument and would love to know what everyone on the forum thinks.

[Samfisher]

It's not really about exclusive content so much as content they were commissioned to do that were never a part of the LMG brand anyway.  I'm fine with that.

[ben dover kid]

i agree with the "how to install gpu" and others like that on ltt channel lately. i just got vessel, what a work to watch full weeks content in one night. but not all the times you can create top of the line quality videos

[ThinkWithPortals]

8 minutes ago, GeekaWhat said:

 

I feel the quality of set, filming and B-Roll has graeatly improved since the move. Video quality has been ok, I notice they're doing less reviews and more investigation/workshop videos, like the cable management, liquid cooling and hyperthreading vids released recently, which I'm totally fine with. I would like more build logs/guides, however.

[AngryPandaPC]

I would love to see more Ultimate Build Guides since it has been a while, however I know that is largely a hardware cycle lull and with new gpu's and enthusiast chips on the horizon, we'll be getting back into the thick of it soon.  I look forward to that. The high end server content is nice since as a prosumer, I will probably never touch that stuff. I'm going to go against the grain and say that I appreciate the experimentation and diversificstion of formats. I liked the GPU install video, personally. Not long ago when I first got into LTT that video would have been a reassuring guide into my first install. I think there has to be room for those types of videos too. I think the only mistake they made was by clumping together a bunch of new styles in their release schedule and timing that with the roll off of Vessel freebie subs. So the unusual formats only serve to fan a lot of the flames that were there for another reason.

[Mantisean]

2 hours ago, AngryPandaPC said:

I would love to see more Ultimate Build Guides since it has been a while, however I know that is largely a hardware cycle lull and with new gpu's and enthusiast chips on the horizon, we'll be getting back into the thick of it soon.  I look forward to that. The high end server content is nice since as a prosumer, I will probably never touch that stuff. I'm going to go against the grain and say that I appreciate the experimentation and diversificstion of formats. I liked the GPU install video, personally. Not long ago when I first got into LTT that video would have been a reassuring guide into my first install. I think there has to be room for those types of videos too. I think the only mistake they made was by clumping together a bunch of new styles in their release schedule and timing that with the roll off of Vessel freebie subs. So the unusual formats only serve to fan a lot of the flames that were there for another reason.

Well, I guess they'll going to make an Ultimate Build guide when Pascal, Zen, and Polaris is released 

[Master Disaster]

I know I am not the only one who thinks this to be the case....

 

So let me begin by saying I am not bashing Linus, LTT or any of its employees here, I am simply posting some concerns I have about the way in which Linus appears to be taking LMG now he has grown.

 

Linus got famous doing unboxongs, we all should know this and while his unboxings were great there's only so much anybody can do with unboxings so he moved on to what I refer to as "the golden period" which was the period where he was working from the house with only a few employees creating amazing content like unboxings, build logs, hardware reviews and a small amount of silly things. It was during this period when his popularity grew and he started to gain his huge following on YouTube, pretty much everything he released was gold and people (myself included) were always waiting for the next video to drop so we could see what he would review next. This period continued on for a fairly long time until he outgrew the house and purchased his own premises.

 

During the move he did the Moving Vlogs which I have to admit are just abut my favourite videos he ever made, despite the low budget apearence of these videos it was like we were all going on a moving journey with the crew and it felt close and personal.

 

Since then however his content has taken a huge nosedive, at this moment in time we are lucky if we get 3 videos a week that are actually about PCs in any way and even then 2 out of the 3 are about server stuff. Recently we've had 6 minutes of Luke asking us to join the VR Thread on the forum, Luke warming a god damn pizza up with a PC (like wft?), 7 minutes of Linus talking about review samples, Linus making a DIY painting booth, oven baking dead components and even a years old unboxing video which he admitted was made but never released.

 

I'm loving Luke's workshop content and I'm even loving Holy SbeeeeepT too but were is the real PC stuff, where is the reviews for hardware, software, peripherals, chairs, headsets, tablets, phones, speakers and cases? Where are the build logs? Where are the gaming performance benchmarks? The bread and butter content which got you your 2 million subs in the first place.

 

Honestly I have no qualms about the server stuff you've been doing, that's more interesting than the basic stuff but remember, when you have such a huge following on YouTube and people are looking for honest reviews (something which Linus is one of the best in the business at doing) and you guys don't have any videos uploaded people are going to ignore you.

 

You can make the argument that you want to be different all you like (and I do get it to a certain extent) but honestly, if you don't do the basics, the stuff that every other reviewer is doing then the people who are not already part of your following are never going to invest time in your content.

 

I get the impression that recently a few of the videos have just been filler content, either because you guys are out of ideas or because your too busy to dedicate the time required to make a video. I'm not sure which is the case?

 

Please note this is all my opinion, if you disagree feel free to post but please, lets keep this to a civil discussion and not start flaming anybody who disagrees with you.

[AlwaysFSX]

Every year there's the hardware lull and all the whiners come out of the woods to complain. Really? They're doing really interesting things, that's something to complain about now?

[79wjd]

7 minutes ago, AlwaysFSX said:

Every year there's the hardware lull and all the whiners come out of the woods to complain. Really? They're doing really interesting things, that's something to complain about now?

Warming a pizza, a somewhat poor attempt at testing the importance of airflow, and a poor example of delidding don't seem like interesting/good video concepts. I understand that there's a lull in content, but that doesn't mean the quality should drop.

[Master Disaster]

1 minute ago, AlwaysFSX said:

Every year there's the hardware lull and all the whiners come out of the woods to complain. Really? They're doing really interesting things, that's something to complain about now?

Warming a pizza up using a PC is interesting?

[Paralectic]

Just now, Master Disaster said:

Warming a pizza up using a PC is interesting?

Yes

[Crowes]

5 minutes ago, AlwaysFSX said:

Every year there's the hardware lull and all the whiners come out of the woods to complain. Really? They're doing really interesting things, that's something to complain about now?

What can I say? People want better, get used to better, and then desire even better. It's stupid. Be grateful for your daily, interest content.

[itsmyjobtoknow]

A. ScrapYard War Season 4 is happening. (Based on Linus's Twitter Feed)

B. They can't necessarily do reviews as they have on-going projects taking up their time

C. As far as I can tell, there isn't much new hardware in Q1 of every year...

D. They do have to put some sort of content onto their channel...albeit "interesting" content. 

[Tieox]

I'd rather see a silly videos, then a total pause in content due to it being a crap time of year for that type of thing.

[ShadowCaptain]

21 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

SNIP

 

I have to ask you.. what new hardware is there to review? there really hasnt been any new hardware worth testing in a while

 

Headset reviews are pointless since we cant hear them, case reviews are pointless since most people either like or hate the aesthetics, and most dont care about the rest

like really there isnt much to make videos on, they cant make new graphics card videos every day, that would get boring

really not sure what they could do better

[79wjd]

4 minutes ago, ShadowCaptain said:

 

really not sure what they could do better

They could show off cool/cheap hardware/software/anything techy. Every once in a while I find random stuff that's just 'cool' (like their beaming wifi video). Although, I obviously understand that that's not a practical set of videos due to the costs associated with it (but still, it's something I'd like to see). 

 

I think it would also be cool, if in their downtime they maybe went into the software world a bit and spoke up the software they used/how they go about setting up the servers, etc... 

[Master Disaster]

14 minutes ago, ShadowCaptain said:

 

I have to ask you.. what new hardware is there to review? there really hasnt been any new hardware worth testing in a while

 

Headset reviews are pointless since we cant hear them, case reviews are pointless since most people either like or hate the aesthetics, and most dont care about the rest

like really there isnt much to make videos on, they cant make new graphics card videos every day, that would get boring

really not sure what they could do better

Pointless to you maybe but I guarantee there's are thousands of people who would have clicked on them videos if they existed, but hey don't exist so those people click elsewhere.

 

Linus has said that every case is just a box, true. But that doesn't mean there aren't thousands of people looking for reviews on said box.

 

Linus seems to be making the classic business mistake of concentrating on stuff he likes, the problem is if other people don't like what he likes then they don't click, that reduces ad revenue and eventually everything implodes in a huge ball of unpaid debts and bankruptcy forms (obviously that's sensationalist).

 

Remember, why he is ignoring this other "mundane" tech other reviewers are not and people are clicking on them videos instead of Linuses.

[Thony]

There is nothing new in CPU/GPU industry ATM. So Linus and others are looking for other alternatives to make a video about. 

 

If all the whiners listens to Linus when he said how repetitive it gets to do the same videos about same stuff and how he is looking for something new and interesting to him, then these kind of posts wouldn't exist.

 

The only exciting thing happening soon are all the VR headsets and accessories that come with it.

 

AMD has been boring for years now so Intel stopped pushing itself and therefore we haven't seen anything worth mentioning.

 

Luckily there will be new AMD CPUs coming out this year so there's that

 

PS. If any of u complains about how many kids LMG posts then you need to understand that videos they make don't take 15 minutes to shoot and edit. 

 

And LMG has more than one channel on YouTube. 

 

PS2. 

The only decline in quality would be the uncolour-corrected sponsor spots from the past.

[ShadowCaptain]

3 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

Pointless to you maybe but I guarantee there's are thousands of people who would have clicked on them videos if they existed, but hey don't exist so those people click elsewhere.

 

Linus is a smart guy, who analyses the channels growth and other analytics, he can tell what content goes down well, what content is ignored, what content people watch the most that gets the most views

Also, perhaps it isnt JUST about getting views, if he doesn't feel enthusiastic or care about a product, he should not review it just because people think he should (unless its something that effects people in a serious way)

Like, im sure things like "case number 47 unboxing" videos get less views than "$30000 PC" videos

its more of an "edutainment" channel, than just 40 minutes talking about frame timings

[Jacktastic-Mofo]

I for one really enjoy the direction in which LMG is going, they're moving a bit away from doing the generic "product review" videos that literally anyone on fucking YouTube can produce and are moving more towards creating videos that explain what happens and why, a more scientific approach to the questions we have when building, modding, and designing our systems.

Although that's my personal opinion and you may not agree I think it's good that LMG has really separated itself from the pack instead of just being a product review channel.

[madaday]

I've only just really gotten into LTT and I found the Scrapyard Wars videos some of the most fun, and would love to see more of those. Yes the unboxing and tutorial videos are great, but sometimes I would love to see maybe a "Computer Abuse" set of videos, pushing components to the limit and finding the point of no return.

 

Maybe buy some cheap computers off eBay (like the ones suggested in the DIY NAS videos) and have a competition to see who can get the most out the same system? I'm sure some people would just go ham and upgrade gfx and ram, but maybe there are some less obvious upgrades they could do? That could easily be a weeks worth of videos, one introducing the challenge and the identical systems they have, then one each that shows the changes each person made, before a final head to head match up?

 

Just my opinion! I might have go back and watch those scrapyard wars ones again soon actually.

[_A5heS]

I don't feel the quality of the videos has gone down. In fact I think it has gone way up. It's the content itself that I'm finding less enjoyable. I love The Workshop, ScrapYard Wars, but stuff like that $7000 3D printed thing, I don't really care about. Also all the product driven videos, I could do with less of those. But i'm still a fan, I still love the channel.

[jx22]

I'm going to preface this long post to say that I am personally against most of the criticisms that I've seen lately on Vessel and YT comments. Here's my perspective on the issue.

 

Criticism: Where's the tech reviews and the proper tech related content of old-style LTT / You guys run out of ideas?

Content that's been on Vessel for the past week has been criticized as insinuating that LTT has run out of ideas. LTT is being criticized for not doing more things like proper reviews or build logs or unboxings.I think it's got alot to do with the transition period that LMG is just going into from its traditional unboxing roots to the now "edutainment" style of content. I'm a fan from early 2014 so by no means a long-time fan but I have seen LMG content on both sides of the transition. 2 things I remember Linus saying alot. Firstly, he does not like to produce content that is quite similar to one of his videos. That's kinda why he does not talk about all the different laptops because to him they'd perform about the same or similar as the one he did release a video on. To him that's boring and therefore leads to the whole enthusiasm argument. Therefore if there's a product you want reviewed but Linus has reviewed a similar product that has similar results then Linus isn't all that interested in making another video on the latter product.
 

Master Disaster above said that the PC related content, the reviews, the gaming benchmarks, so on and so forth are the bread and butter of how LTT has gotten its 2 million subs. I agree that that is true but we live in a reality whereby Linus doesnt want to solely do that for the channel. He and Nick Light have gone on recent posts to say that there's nothing really here around the Q1 of this year. If you look back at some of the content in Q1 of 2015 there were things like Titan X reviews but IIRC there isnt a new GPU on the market right now. And I'm sure there are new things like cases and headsets being released over the Q1 of 2016 but maybe they don't do anything too different that warrant a video in Linus' POV. Linus' video on how he gets free stuff (while criticized by the OP) is actually pretty informative on this issue. We're told that the companies send the emails out to him to ask him to review a certain product and he'll probably do it if it brings something new to the table but if not, then he probably will either do a very short segment on it (like the video reviewing the Corsair Strafe and a Cherry Mx board in one video because of the lack of anything to say about them independently). Also to be fair, one of the recent videos on the server chassis that could store 8 GPUs was basically an unboxing video of that chassis. And we've also got the Dell XPS review that came out a week ago or so.

 

The videos that LTT used to do back in the old days are still there but not in as high a frequency and that's just really where the channel is headed. Linus has stated this at many Wan Shows (admittedly not as a topic on its own but he more or less mentions it now and again). LTT has such a huge audience at this point that they can afford not to review every case that comes out or every peripheral that comes out and still be relevant. It's big enough to have companies sponsor them for videos like "Showing off the editing den" and "7 Gamers 1 CPU". I understand lots of people wanting that old LTT style but it's not going to be like the old days, at least not as much. Also in terms of lack of reviews or such lately, taking a look at a channel like JayzTwoCents, Jay also hasnt released a video related to reviews in a couple of weeks. I think the most he's done in terms of reviews was one gaming router. So I think Linus and Nick are not exaggerating when they say it's been pretty barren lately in terms of tech releases. But we know for sure that when they do review something, it's either going to be criticism of a product that doesn't do much new or praise for one that's innovative (in a way). I find that to be more interesting than watching reviews of product I know I'll probably never buy. So then we ask what will replace the videos that would have otherwise been more reviews and unboxings. This relates to the next criticism about the new segments of the show.

 

 

Criticism: Why are you releasing videos that we already know the outcome to?

That said, the second thing Linus has said is that he's wanted LTT to become like what Top Gear is for cars. It's not a show about cars as much as it is a show involving doing things with cars. That's where we have the entire new segments like Holy S**T, The Workshop and The Archive. A lot of people have questioned the point of videos like "Does water cooling cool the room?" but I think they forget that not everyone knows the answer. Even in the strawpoll, 17 percent of people incorrectly answered that it would cool the room. Here's my argument. If LTT does not want to do videos related to reviews as much anymore, then they need to come up with another way to appeal to people that recently discovered LTT. It's not unreasonable to assume that these people don't know whether water cooling actually cools the room or whether there's a difference in performance if you apply thermal paste differently or even if a 1000 dollar HDMI cable is anything but snake oil. So imagine that some parts of The Workshop or How to Basic are targeted at that audience. It all leads back to transition to a more "edutainment-like" channel. I understand that it's not always nice to watch videos that we know the outcome to however it's also not very reasonable to have every video they make to be made specifically for one specific set of their audience. It causes alienation and isnt very good for the community. Some people will have learned something and others will have not.

 

That said, there's an argument to be made about how basic something should be such as whether a whole video should be dedicated to just instructions on how to install a GPU. That argument normally stems from the fact that LTT has actually got build logs that address that issue (albeit not specifically in that video). Ultimately that's a creative decision on their part to make such a segment. Nick Light has already stated that How To is a new segment that's going to have more than just the Basic difficulty, so there may be instances of where there are How Tos with Expert difficulty. The creation of a tutorial segment as a whole would inevitably have come in conflict with their build guides (which are tutorials) in some way or form. But they decided to do it anyway and due to time constraints since SYW4 is being filmed this week, they did one that was relatively simple. They rushed out the easiest video to make which leads to the next criticism.

 

Criticism: Your content feels rushed or that they're not as interesting anymore (aka quality dip)

People have been saying that some pieces of content have felt rushed and Linus has gone on record saying that if a piece of content feels rushed, it probably was. That's the reality of having to produce daily content. SInce I think Linus takes pride in his daily content output, I dont think he sees moving away from that as an option. He's got things like sponsor spots to meet as well as YT's algorithm on his videos to take into account if he wants to stop making daily content. I won't argue that the content was not rushed or that some of it is not as interesting as before (7 Gamers 1 CPU as a frame of comparison to a how to basic). However, I would like to bring to your attention that maybe some of us take the interesting content for granted. Maybe we take for granted how often ideas like SYW or 7 Gamers 1 CPU or Whole Room Water Cooling come about. Maybe we then even take for granted how long it takes to film the content and get it edited.

 

I'm not saying people cant get upset at the lack of interesting content but maybe think of it as a situation of bad timing in some respects. I've already said that Q1 of this year has been pretty barren. So the LTT crew in my mind have taken this bad situation and made the best of it by experimenting on video formats for the future reality of the channel. They've come up with new segments and are trying new things that they need to test out to find if it sucks or that it works well. So by all means, criticize the delidding video for not having been done as thorough as you would like. There's nothing wrong with that but I feel that we as fans seem unreasonable when our criticism is merely that "LTT has no more good ideas" or "they're reaching for the bottom of the barrel". The reality of LTT is that this is the way the channel is moving and that involves them doing things that havent been done before for the most part. It involves experimenting with video formats and finding what works and what doesnt.

 

Of course this is merely my opinion, feel free to post a reply if you disagree.

[DaiGurenMK42]

20 hours ago, ben dover kid said:

i agree with the "how to install gpu" and others like that on ltt channel lately. i just got vessel, what a work to watch full weeks content in one night. but not all the times you can create top of the line quality videos

What about the frog vlog?

Guys... I have defended this stuff for as long as I can. But WTF is this? I enjoy your personalities and have enjoyed the content over the years. But who gave this project a go? Has there been a delay in production due to the sports channel? And reviving material from 3 months ago on LTT? Have none of you thought of your image on LTT? CSF makes sense for VLOGs like this. At least have a server

[79wjd]

21 minutes ago, DaiGurenMK42 said:

What about the frog vlog?

Guys... I have defended this stuff for as long as I can. But WTF is this? I enjoy your personalities and have enjoyed the content over the years. But who gave this project a go? Has there been a delay in production due to the sports channel? And reviving material from 3 months ago on LTT? Have none of you thought of your image on LTT? CSF makes sense for VLOGs like this. At least have a server

The frog VLOG was stupid....BUT, I think it's still different than some of the other actually bad/not well thought out videos. The frog video is just a lack of ideas/items to make videos about (although, when they really have nothing....like the frog and pizza videos) they should really just make more of the How To series. Whereas some of the other videos clearly seem half-assed at best.