Ahh Machinima, the long forgotten son of YouTube. At its height the channel packed well over 12 million subscribers, however on Friday 18th January it seems that its owners, Otter Media, a subsidiary of AT&T, have finally pulled the plug on the “legacy operated channel”, with all of its content being set to 'private' and no longer available for public viewing.

There’s been no official statement from its parent company on the decision to pull the plug from the legendary YouTube channel, however we’re a little confused.

Even if new video was sparse, it makes little sense as to why all of the monetized content was pulled, its replay value is still effectively quite high.

With the channel garnering near enough 100,000 views plus a day over the last few months, earning an estimated £20-£320 ($26-$410 USD) in ad revenue alone (dependent on adblock level), that’s still a sizable portion of money, for content which is effectively hosted and maintained for free.

Founded in 2000, with its YouTube channel launching in ‘06, Machinima was first bought out by Time Warner back in 2016. In 2018, AT&T acquired Time Warner, and rebranded the company into WarnerMedia, before handing over Machinima to its subsidiary, OtterMedia, an internal media production company that also looks after Crunchyroll, Rooster Teeth, and other brands.

In December Variety reported that Machinima would be undergoing a reorganization, and its staff merging internally with Otter Media, with the brand running as legacy content across Otter Media’s other media channel solutions. The following reorganization in December lead to 10% of the staff being let go. #RIPMachinima