YouTube and Games vs Hollywood

This was an interesting article I read in the New York Times (link) about the growing power of two convergent trends – games and web-video:

But who needs the big screen or the flatscreen? YouTube has been increasing its original channels – highly produced videos that it finances – to lure TV viewers and advertisers by catering to niche interests like health, politics and video games. In October, Google, which owns YouTube, announced that it was adding more than 50 original channels to the 100 it introduced in the last year and expanding them to France, Germany and Britain.

“I believe that every interest will, at some point, have a channel serving that interest,” Robert Kyncl, global head of content at YouTube, told The Times. The top 25 original channels average more than a million views a week.

Machinima Prime, a YouTube channel that caters to young men who are part of gaming culture, ranked as YouTube’s number-one destination in November, reported The Times. Its live-action series, “Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn,” has been viewed about 27 million times.

“College kids may not be bringing TVs to their dorm rooms anymore, but Machinima, because it has smartly built itself around YouTube, is right there on their laptops,” Matt Britton of MRY, a New York marketing firm, told The Times.

Halo 4 Films (from 343industries.org)