supposed short attention spans or longer gameplays?

MrMattyMoses

MrMattyMoses

Active Member
when i first got into youtube all of my friends wanted me to make shorter and shorter videos. under 5 minutes to be exact. do you guys buy into the idea of a majority of people have a short attention span e.g. vines videos or that let's plays are the way to go? i personally have a hard time sitting down and watching someone play a video game for 20+ minutes when i'm in a position to be playing said video game myself. what do you guys think: short and sweet or long and stuff?
 
Well, I make gaming videos so I surely hope people like 20+ min videos. But seriously, I think it's what the content is about. If you make sketches or vlogs I would watch if they're under 5 minutes, but if I'm watching a 'let's play' I don't mind watching for 20+ minutes. My opinion is that people have short attention spans for the things they're not too interested.
 
Check your audience retention and see what they like or not like. If you have a sharp drop-off at the 5 minute mark than it means that you would be wise to keep your videos shorter. Maybe the 10 minute mark. 5 minutes of 10 is 50%... 5 minutes of 20 is 25%
 
TheDutchTexan said:
Check your audience retention and see what they like or not like. If you have a sharp drop-off at the 5 minute mark than it means that you would be wise to keep your videos shorter. Maybe the 10 minute mark. 5 minutes of 10 is 50%... 5 minutes of 20 is 25%
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Ha! I have a sharp drop off after 10 seconds!

I don't think I could make videos less than 10sec long ;)
 
I tend to lean toward the shorter attention span of people. I do have Pokemon Let's Plays on my channel, and I have found that people watch more when it is shorter. About halfway through my current Let's Play, I decided to make my Let's Play episodes 15 minutes or less. Since then, I have gotten a lot better audience retention. That's just my experience though. I do not mind watching 30 minute LP episodes at all.
 
Depends on the type of game I used to do longer video around 15 to 20 mins but found that people didn't care much for longer gameplays but shortening them to around 10 min or less worked a lot better for my content. It just depends on what you play I think :)
 
MrMattyMoses said:
when i first got into youtube all of my friends wanted me to make shorter and shorter videos. under 5 minutes to be exact. do you guys buy into the idea of a majority of people have a short attention span e.g. vines videos or that let's plays are the way to go? i personally have a hard time sitting down and watching someone play a video game for 20+ minutes when i'm in a position to be playing said video game myself. what do you guys think: short and sweet or long and stuff?
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Sometimes, short and sweet doesn't often work. You need to find the balance and since you're a gamer, do something else apart from a Let's Play.

My friend does Easter eggs primarily and now has 4k subs. It helped him a lot since the videos were short and to the point, but not too short, or else there wouldn't be enough time for info/details/etc
 
Short and sweet (time is money when it comes to cell phone bandwidth), highlight the best of the best and those funny commentator moments.
 
I think it's better to stick to short videos. Unless you have a really fidelized audience, I doubt they will ever watch a full 15 or more minutes video.
 
Depends on the game. I'd watch people play through certain action games... but I'm not gonna sit for hours and watch some dude slowly upgrade his pokemon by walking back and forth in the same spot over and over again.
 
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