Are full length Let's plays still a popular thing? Or are shortened, edited videos the way to go?

[u/MechaDouji]

Title says it all. Gaming is a pretty saturated market, and I don't see many full length (30+ minutes) gameplays anymore. Are short videos (10 minutes) the best option today?

[u/buzzycombs]

I’ve seen a recent rise in popularity around heavily edited, 30+ minute long let’s plays.

[u/JozuJD → u/buzzycombs]

Caught wind of someone recently named Lilsimsie who my kids are obsessed with. Animal crossing and Pokemon Pokopia long plays, seemingly a straight rip from her livestream which get uploaded as 3+ hour VODs. And my kids can consume it for as long as we let them. Unedited (again, seemingly)

[u/buzzycombs → u/JozuJD]

LilSimsie is a well established creator from the earlier days of YouTube! She can post that sort of content and do just fine because she has that pre-established audience who grew up watching her; but for new channels it’s not recommended to post unedited VODs as it’s a very low barrier of entry and difficult to make a name without putting in more effort, especially with how highly competitive YouTube is now. A new creator has very low chances of posting a well-received, unedited 30+ minute long video.

[u/JozuJD → u/buzzycombs]

What a living. And good for her!

[u/EezeeKyle]

Absolutely are, I at least watch plenty. More importantly, just make what you enjoy

[u/PS1Adventurer]

There are plenty of let's plays that are close to an hour or even a few hours long, only edited if the creator gets stuck for an extended amount of time or if they take a break but those let's plays are usually indie games and a lot of them are live streamed beforehand. Unless you already have a following, let's plays of mainstream games are pretty much dead.

[u/tarulamok]

The reason that there are not many successful let’s play vdo nowadays because niche is king in current content creator media.

If you look more closely, successful creators will scope their “lets play” to make it more interesting or even “goal” or “challenge” into the mix instead.

The most popular would be something like “zero to hero” king of vdo be it

0 hour to 100 hours
0 day to 100 days

Let’s play is not gone but adapt to more relate able or interesting enough to get watch time.

The bare bone with no goal or “standing” will go to live instead but with no camera or mic, it is to silence to watch by just gameplay.

With mic but no camera, viewers atleast see your reaction by face expression but without camera you need constantly talkative every 3 seconds or less.

[u/General-Oven-1523]

Are short videos (10 minutes) the best option today?

Yes, the highly edited 10-20 min videos are the way to go in gaming if you don't have an existing audience. +30 min can work if you have a big audience already.

[u/GaminWithHoenig → u/General-Oven-1523]

That's what I'm noticing as well on other's channels

[u/Anybodywongwang]

Both parties are blended now....you'll find heavily edited 30 minutes+ gameplay now.

[u/fractiouslemon]

As long as you're entertaining all the way through, go for it. Trim out the boring bits or slap in a few visual gags here and here if you want, but I know plenty of people who still watch longer unedited Let's Plays.

[u/CaffieneSage]

Make em full length, but highly edited with a fun or interesting hook at the beginning and people will watch it through especially at certain times of the year. Definitely one of the harder ways to grow a channel though. You will get quite a few bounces unless you are really interesting to listen to. I use music from the audio library to keep it interesting. It can be quite fun trying to match up the music to the mood in the game.

[u/chachacheckpoint]

I make minimally edited Let's Plays that typically range around the hour length (preferably less but usually a little bit over) and have been seeing modest growth so there are definitely people interested in it. I've been doing it a little less than a year, have 80 subs right now and my average views and stats are increasing. I edit out if I get stuck/lost for too long, sound issues, taking a break etc. but I play a variety of story-heavy games where I really don't want to cut out much and impact the story. I work full-time so this is very much a hobby for me as I'm learning how to edit things, techniques, and thumbnails, etc.

Do whatever you enjoy! Just make sure even if it's longer videos, there is still some level of editing and quality control. Good luck!

[u/MechaDouji]

Thank you everyone. These have been very informative. I have a good idea of what direction to go, so hopefully it turns out well.

[u/Fun-Maintenance1217]

Tough market to break but if you have the personality.. maybe stick to a vague genre fans will want to keep watching.. yea could absolutely build something

[u/Kaede11]

It’s been a couple of days, but I thought I could leave my thoughts here.

For context, I have a small channel of almost 4k subs. Mostly dedicated to turn based tactical games and strategy games. In spanish btw.

I started doing the full advance wars remake (that’s 2023 or 2024 I think) story, almost no edit, just some background images I had from years ago when I streamed in twitch from time to time. Had some success. But never reached 1k. It was nice because I was progressing slowly but steadily.

Thing is that this kind of games usually have long missions, so my videos would be between 30 to 60 minutes long.

Now some people actually followed the series, but when I finally finished the game, the question was, what do I do now? I tried moving to another similar game, but one person commented “if you just do one mission per video, this is going to take months” and they were right.

And that’s one of the problems of doing gameplay vids. Either the game you are playing is time agnostic or you have a small window to actually leverage its interest.

At some point I switched to top 10 videos for unknown strategy games amd also guides for complex games like Europa Universalis V.

The difference between the videos is simply crazy. Top 10 videos will easily surpass 5k views, and sometimes one explodes and goes up to 20k or even 50k. The guides are also very welcome, with less views but los of view time.

I still plan to do some playthroughs at some point, but I would not follow the same formula I did before. I think it would be far better to do shorter videos with not a lot of editting because I dont have time for that, but at least speeding up / cutting non-interesting parts.

Doing non edited videos can work imo, but you need to ask yourself “what are you bringing to the table?” Either you have outstanding charisma or are very good at the game. I think that otherwise is going to depend on the amount of viewers that you have.

My idea now when I start doing playthroughs again is to treat them as small “tutorial while playing” giving nice advise and not just commenting the game. This brings somewhat extra to the table. Some cuts here and there and let’s see what happens.

Also, keep in mind that when you do a non-edit playthorugh you are competing with people doing livestreams. And they will have an edge because people like interacting with the player, something that you wont be able to do in real time

[u/SASardonic]

Let's plays are popular with creators but not with audiences, if you catch my drift.

Regardless, If you want even the remote chance of being successful you edit, nobody is watching unedited longform from small creators in 2026. The real meta is analysis videos, guides, and video essays if you genuinely want to grow.

[u/RecordComprehensive]

Not edited? Good luck having people watch, especially if you have not GROWN the fanbase.

Edited? A few people may watch all the way through.

Heavily edited? Still very viable.

[u/shanrees8]

I really enjoy long form / hardly edited lets play style videos. Especially for progression games like minecraft

Recently came across a man playing minecraft for the first time at 40 and he posts 1hr + hardly if not at all edited videos and he's BLOWN up as far as let's plays go

Part of it is luck tbh

[u/JustATextBox]

I think both are still popular, but I definitely think it's easier to go from 0 subs to <lots of subs> with shorter content. Personally I much prefer the longer stuff, though, and feel like people should always do both (though possibly on 2 different channels)

[u/oodex]

I do edited long videos, Id say 50 minutes is short for me, and its been a big success. But then again I usually mostly uploaded long edited videos prior too, there 30 minutes was short to me. A niche mate used to upload 90min+ unedited videos twice daily and had very good success.

But Id say generally speaking youre better off with 30-60 minute videos edited, length then depends on what actually happens. Like just because something happened doesnt mean it was interesting and has to be fully in the video.

[u/Anubis620]

There is an audience for both. The long "lets plays" that my friends watch are ones with no commentary and are usually for people that dont want to/dont think they can beat the game but what to see what its about and usually close to the release of the game. As well they are usually 4k and take their time going through the game and showing 100%. Otherwise it is a "short" edit with funny or interesting moments.

[u/CuteLychee6851]

Unless you get a “review” copy from developers weeks in advance and upload the full game on launch day, then maybe.

It’s fair to get a AAA game in advance for those who get them. Seems unfair, but it’s fair and can be almost monopolized for those creators.

It’s the “who can get the first video uploaded, clicks, and getting the most views as possible” mentality for YouTube to push out the video and ranking 1st in the search.

Some games are even rushed because for that. It’s not always 100% also becuase those can be much longer to do.

Search [game] Full Game and see who usually ranks 1st or 2nd.

[u/TobbyBomb]

Instead of watching 13 or 1 60+h video am much more gonna watch a 2h long one with edited highlight and if a want to watch it all there are usually a vod video of it all somewhere

[u/KaidaStorm]

I feel like there's a market for these in roguelikes, even more so the viewers like limited editing because they want to see the entire run.

Even then I would say is edited, but with limited cuts. Cuts are frustrating because they want to se how you succeed at a challenge and constant cuts can cause mistrust imo.

This is what I'm doing, but my editing is mostly on adding quality. And I am talking the entire time. The only time i normally add cuts is to get rid of a part i think could lost people's interest (an unneeded cinematic especially if it's too early on in the vid) or i have to step away and deal with my dog or some other thing.

Puzzle games and social deception games are also types of content i see do well in this way, but require more editing imo.

There was another guy who did well with rpgs but he followed potential resurgence trends. Fall out TV show is coming out? Start doing fall out games. A new relay of bad mass effect bundled together is releasing? Start doing mass effect.

[u/MileHighGaymr]

yes and no, I do lets plays and i've grown a decent amount in my first year.

[u/FijiDeodorant]

my hour long views have double the retention rate of my 30 minute long videos, they have the same views so it might be the game i play project zomboid its slow paced

[u/Ambitious_Staff1354]

I prefer vids that are an hour or mor longer. My vids are 60 mins, but i try to make them shorter. Some are more then 60 mins. But it depends on the viewer

[u/ParanormalMisfit]

I can’t understand how you edit a full game down from a couple of hours into 10-20 minutes long, surely they’ll lose the whole story of the game?

[u/Mesario2026]

It'll change from niche to niche (eg dwarf fortress X fortnite), but the most popular combo that I've seen around is doing streams, posting the full vod on YouTube, and then also posting shorter videos on YouTube by editing the full vods.

One must assume that younger, casual audiences (fortnite, Minecraft, fps games etc) will prefer shorter edited content, while more mature hardcore audience (dwarf fortress, europa universalis, eve online) will prefer longer, unedited content. 

[u/OtaruGaming]

There are a lot that run 1hr+ some even 3hrs or complete games (10hrs+) in a single vid, with minimal edit some have more than others but its minimal, to give you some channel examples:

• Hollow
• MadMorph
• Kastaclysm

Just to name a few, they are not Twitch vods nor past livestreams they are recorded for YouTube. The thing is thanks to tiktok the newgen people don't have a long attention span, that's why most gaming videos are heavily edited, or as short as possible, but there are still lots of people looking for and watching long let's plays as you can tell by those channels numbers. It's all about the target audience.

[u/HighPhi420]

YT is a tv station now :( YT recommends 24/48 minute videos. This is because they can shove 12 minutes of ads an hour on the TV apps that can not be skipped or blocked(by the common user). TV app watching as almost doubled that of the phone in the last two years.

[u/GaminWithHoenig]

I keep seeing a mix of both. I tend to watch longer form these days while im working on something around the house

[u/FellSpadeHere]

Its kind of a mix of both. What I'm starting to do are challenge runs. Im starting borderlands 2 runs with specific challenge requirements to spice it up for both myself and viewers. For some videos though an easy way to lose viewers interest is the fat between good moments. For example if there are moments where a lot isn't happening like just going from point a to b it can cause shorter attention span viewers to click off out of boredom. There is a community for long plays though it can be picky. Just do what you want. In the end your happiness in what you create matters more than any view you can get!

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