{"id":129389,"date":"2019-02-08T17:03:38","date_gmt":"2019-02-08T17:03:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sftarticles.wpenginepowered.com\/en\/?p=129389"},"modified":"2025-07-01T22:24:41","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T05:24:41","slug":"what-happened-to-machinima","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/what-happened-to-machinima\/","title":{"rendered":"RIP Machinima"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you were a gamer in the past 10 years, you already know what Machinima<\/a> was. We say “was” because as of February 1, the company has officially announced that 81 of their employees were laid off and all remaining operations ceased<\/a>. “A select number of Machinima employees remain with the company, which is now actively providing services to supercharge the combined portfolio of Otter Media<\/a>,” said Machinima. “Machinima has ceased its remaining operations, which includes layoffs. Russell Arons still remains with Machinima, and is assisting with transitional activities as she explores new opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n

While this may simply sound like another company lay-off to some, for many YouTube<\/a> fans the news hit pretty hard.<\/p>\n

\n

Long time Youtube Staple, Machinima, is dead. Otter Media took over the channel from Warner, and has since deleted all videos off the main channel, which is over a decade of videos perhaps lost forever.<\/p>\n

A huge inspiration of fledgling Youtube, gone, just like that. #RIPMachinima<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/nSH9s2uECI<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 TRAFON (@RiseFallNick) January 19, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What was Machinima?<\/h3>\n

Founded in January 2000 by Hugh Hancock<\/a>, the Los Angeles-based Machinima fused video entertainment with video games before it was cool. Manipulating video game technology to create animations, Machinima created memorable, funny, gaming-themed live-action content, and was a cornerstone of YouTube culture since the website’s earliest days.<\/p>\n

\"Halo
Rooster Teeth’s<\/a> Red vs Blue<\/a> is a great example of the ‘Machinima’ technique.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Home to some of the most famous web series including Inside Gaming, ETC News, Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn, Arby n\u2019 the Chief, and Two Best Friends Play, Machinima was to gaming videos as Twitch<\/a> is to game streaming today.<\/strong> The company was so big in 2012 that it even earned the attention of Google, who invested $35 million into the company<\/a> in hopes that it would turn its attention toward larger audiences and one day dominate television.<\/p>\n

What happened to Machinima?<\/h3>\n

On January 18, all of the channel’s content was abruptly set to private before being removed<\/a> days later. The sad news quickly hit social media, with hurt fans and creators sharing the information, donning the melancholy hashtag #RIPMachinima<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Machinima
This used to be a hub of gaming fan videos<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The news has hit consumers of gaming content hard, but the creators have been hit harder still, suddenly finding all their published work inaccessible by the public.<\/p>\n

\n

Wow… they finally went ahead and deleted everything we’d ever done.
\n7+ Years of work… lost to the sands of time. #RIPMachinima<\/a><\/p>\n

Make sure you’re subbed to our new channel that we started after leaving Machinima last june – https:\/\/t.co\/CdswejOfLJ<\/a> – thanks pic.twitter.com\/H8MEVGHaCq<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 RickyFTW (@rickyftw) January 19, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cWarner, at this point, cannot verify the copyrights to all videos in Machinima\u2019s network, and there are a ton of videos,\u201d said FunhausTeam producer and Inside Gaming’s<\/a> Lawrence Sonntag<\/a> in a recent Twitch clip. \u201cIt\u2019d cost a lot of money to do it, and this is on videos that aren\u2019t getting any views. So, they cut it loose. That\u2019s that. It\u2019s a business. That\u2019s how it goes, man.\u201d<\/p>\n

So now what?<\/h3>\n

Back in December 2018, AT&T<\/a> moved Machinima under their Otter Media brand. Otter Media is a is an American digital branding and media company that owns Crunchyroll<\/a>, VRV<\/a>, Fullscreen<\/a>, Gunpowder & Sky<\/a>, Hello Sunshine<\/a>, and Rooster Teeth. The restructuring also saw layoffs across Otter Media, with creators either let go or sent letters informing them they were being moved to Fullscreen<\/a>, yet another media company founded in 2011, owned by – you guessed it – Otter Media.<\/p>\n

Here’s the letter they sent:<\/p>\n

\n

So @Fullscreen<\/a> has acquired @Machinima<\/a> from WB it seems? pic.twitter.com\/5AOUtJB1hR<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Miguel Lozada (@MLozada) January 16, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So technically Fullscreen has acquired Machinima<\/strong>, and they’re working under the big corporate umbrella of Otter Media<\/strong>. The news is disheartening to many Machinima fans, and it feels like the end of an era; one of the old YouTube giants is gone.<\/p>\n

Were you a Machinima fan? Let us know in the comments below, and if you had a favorite creator on the channel. Until then, we’ll see you online … but it’s a sadder internet for sure.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An early internet video pioneer meets a painful end.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9155,"featured_media":129391,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","wpcf-pageviews":0},"categories":[1015],"tags":[1617,1749,1732,1044],"usertag":[784],"vertical":[],"content-category":[],"class_list":["post-129389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-gaming","tag-machinima","tag-video-games","tag-youtube","usertag-gamer"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9155"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129389"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":326633,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129389\/revisions\/326633"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129389"},{"taxonomy":"usertag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/usertag?post=129389"},{"taxonomy":"vertical","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vertical?post=129389"},{"taxonomy":"content-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/content-category?post=129389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}