Gaming video network Machinima officially closes its doors

81 employees of gaming video network Machinima are laid off and the company closes its doors. Only a small selection of workers will remain. This follows shortly after making all videos on the Machinima channel on YouTube private and not unexpected.

The remaining employees will focus on the rest of the portfolio of parent company Otter Media. These are brands such as anime streaming service Crunchyroll and gaming video channel Rooster Teeth. In addition, VRV, Fullscreen, Hello Sunshine and Gunpowder & Sky are brands of Otter Media. Otter Media is a subsidiary of Warner Bros., which in turn is owned by telco AT&T. Deadline, among others, mentions the layoffs. Machinima’s videos had been on private for just under two weeks.

Machinima means using real-time graphics engines, like in games, to create videos. That was one of the things the Machinima network focused on: videos made in games, intended as entertainment for gamers. Examples include Gamer Poop, Two Best Friends Play, and Freeman’s Mind. Machinima existed since the year 2000 and was acquired by Warner Bros. in 2016. and Otter Media, which have been AT&T subsidiaries again since mid-2018. Machinima has 12 million subscribers on YouTube and was fifth in the ranking of most subscribed YouTube channels in 2012, according to Wikipedia.