Machinima has deleted its entire YouTube library
Machinima, one of YouTube’s oldest surviving multi-channel networks, has taken down more than a decade’s worth of video content from its YouTube channel in the wake of its sale to Fullscreen Media.
The sudden deletion of Machinima’s entire archive of YouTube videos came as a surprise to many of its current and former contributors, who noticed the channel had gone dark Friday.
“Wow… they finally went ahead and deleted everything we’d ever done,”
tweeted RickyFTW, who co-hosts the YouTube series Internet Today.
Actress and writer Felicia Day said the Dragon Age: Redemption series she’d written, produced, and performed in are among those lost in the mass deletion.
“I guess my Dragon Age web series is now gone with the Machinima video purge,”
she tweeted. “Grab the DVDs while you can, not sure it will ever be online again. RIP”
As an MCN, Machinima hosted content by popular YouTube creators like Gamerpoop and
Super Best Friends Play, growing to more than 12 million subscribers since its launch on YouTube back in 2006.
Working with multi-channel networks like Machinima once was considered mandatory for success on YouTube, but in the past several years, YouTube’s rules have changed to make it easier for independent content creators to successfully monetize their videos. That’s made MCNs increasingly obsolete, and Machinima has struggled to find a path forward since its sale to Warner Bros. in 2016.
This week, Fullscreen parent company Otter Media announced it had purchased Machinima, and the scrub of Machinima’s YouTube channel seems to have come as a direct result, with affiliated creators getting no advance notice, save for a
letter from Fullscreen GM Beau Bryant that promised a “smooth and efficient transition.”
While it’s possible that some portion of Machinima’s content library has been archived elsewhere, it seems likely that the bulk of it is gone forever – which YouTuber and streamer
Jesse Cox noted was an occupational hazard of working with MCNs.
“My feelings about Machinima and the way they abused good friends of mine aside – it’s still sad to see so much hard work and content lost forever,” he posted to Twitter. “One of the reasons I left MCNs was because they could just flip a switch and remove your videos. My heart goes out to the creators.”