Hey everyone, Arbiter 617 here.
For some of you this article might come as a shock, for the rest… well you’ve either assumed it anyway or unsubscribed by now and moved on.
Eight years ago I was captivated by the story and characters of Halo 2, and fell in love with the universe and game franchise. Halo 3 added Forge and Theater mode which allowed players to build their own maps and record videos from their games. I was immediately drawn to this creative opportunity and used it to tell some of my own stories.
Ever since then, I have learned so much about storytelling, video editing, visual effects, and more. I have met so many great people and made so many close friends. Halo machinima took us from a channel with just a few random shorts and montages up to 100,000 subscribers, and together we created Rise of the Spartans, our largest series ever.
But ever since 343 Industries took over the Halo franchise, the creative opportunities which sparked the interest of myself and others seemed to vanish. We were burdened by broken games, lacking content, awkward functionality, and much more. Even the stories and the universe took a turn away from what most of us were drawn by.
After I finished Rise of the Spartans: The Director’s Cut, there was a period where I had to decide which direction to proceed. I personally did not want to deal with all the problems and drawbacks of future Halo games and have to continuously rely on another company to provide me with features in order for me to make my movies. When I told people I had no plans for future Halo machinimas I was met with a lot of hostility and dealt with a lot of insults. People told me I needed to “adapt” and “stop whining” about the problems. But the way I saw it, is rather than try to adapt to an engine which was littered with problems, I would instead evolve and learn a new form of story-telling which offered more creative opportunities and where I wouldn’t be held back by the decisions of a game development team.
I debated between a lot of directions, all of which would allow more freedom. I also wanted a medium where I felt I was learning new and important skills. As I was getting closer to graduating from college, I realized how doing Halo machinima was not going to do anything to get me a job. I wanted something with more technical expertise that I may be able to put on a resume, or at least teach me skills which would later help me put together a portfolio piece. I considered Halo CG such as what Nitrox and Putte08 had made, Source Filmmaker as I enjoy most Valve games, and Minecraft animation as I’ve also been a long-time Minecraft fan.
It was around this time (March of 2015) where I formed Phase 2 of BPS, and I brought on a few other directors to release Halo content as I moved on to new things. My idea for them was two-fold: first that they would be able to receive more views for their Halo machinimas than they would on their own channel, and second that they would continue to entertain our Halo machinima audience even after I have moved on. It was a win-win situation. I made Project: Underworld as my goodbye to Halo machinima and to kickstart Phase 2.
Over that summer I decided on Minecraft animation, as I would be learning Blender- a 3D animation and modeling software which could someday lead to a job. The beginning of Phase 2 is a story for another time, but to sum it up in this article, we learned a lot of things which worked… and a lot of things which didn’t work. The channel suffered severely at this time. Previously people said they wanted content more frequently, so we had people like Space work on short series’ such as Squabble Squad. But all the views dropped, and our subscriber growth flat-lined.
It looked like it was going to be a slow death for Black Plasma Studios from now on.
But then something incredibly fortunate happened for us. My third Minecraft animation, Skywars, went viral and exploded. Suddenly everything was looking bright again. We went from getting between -10 and 20 subscribers a day to the highest record daily subscribers we have EVER received.
We thought this may have been just a lucky accident, but suddenly all of our Minecraft animations were doing well. Even after it dipped back down after Christmas, it immediately started slowly rising back up again. We were hitting numbers above our pre-Skywars record every weekend.
And in all this success, Halo machinima continued to dwindle… like a forgotten shadow.
I wanted Halo to be able to do well alongside our new projects. That was one of our original plans of Phase 2: to be able to have a variety of content. But the Halo machinima just was not cutting it. Crab Spartans took two weeks what Survival Games did in two days, and Survival Games didn’t flat-line with views.
I’m graduating from college in just over a month. I’m either going to have to find a real job and have no time for BPS, or work as hard as I can to take advantage of this momentum and help continue the upward trend. If we can push the channel just a bit further in its current direction, I may be able to work on YouTube full-time.
So here comes the news that some of you may be dreading.
We are no longer doing Halo machinima as a primary content form on Black Plasma Studios.
I wanted to see where the other Halo machinima directors were with their projects. Why has it been nearly a year and only one full Halo machinima has been released? The general consensus I heard was that the other directors, like I had, were losing interest in the franchise and becoming frustrated with the problems. LittleThomasKid noted that he was still stuck in forging the sets for his series and the game would crash and lose his progress.
About the only project that actually had made steady progress and wasn’t held back by the problems of 343 was Project: Containment, being made in Halo: Reach. We’ve decided for that machinima to be our “goodbye” to Halo machinima, which is still planned to release in another few months. The trailer has actually been created, and looks awesome. 😉 Until then, here is a preview picture.
This does not mean there will never be anything Halo on our channel again.
Halo may still appear as secondary content, such as a future BPS Plays, or an occasional stream or something.
Because of this decision, a few of the Halo machinima directors are stepping down from BPS.
CordlessJet, director of Medusa, has expressed even prior to this decision that he had become unmotivated to direct any further Halo machinimas, and was inspired to work on anime-styled animations of his own similar to Roosterteeth’s “RWBY”
Medusa was left in the hands of his co-director Rictalspace and team member TrollingTurnip, but with Halo being dropped on the channel and the founder moving in his own direction, neither were motivated to continue the series.
Questions?
So now comes the time where I’m sure the handful of you who actually read this have some questions, and I’m going to try and answer the most common two.
Why not just continue Halo machinima side-by-side with Minecraft?
The answer to this is simpler than you might think. With any business, channel, or political campaign: it is important to have a clear focus. Our focus with Phase 2 was too broad, and no one wanted to subscribe for such a variety of content. It has been said and shown a thousand times over that channels with a clear focus of their content perform much better. Halo and Minecraft didn’t mix very well honestly, and there were very few fans who spilled over to the other genre. We had to choose a focus, and it was going to be the genre which was more successful, provided better creative freedom, helped prepare the animators for a potential job, and wasn’t tied to a franchise which would be holding them back.
Secondly, as mentioned earlier, I brought on the machinima directors to get more views for them and help the channel. They weren’t getting much real view boost, and it wasn’t even helping the channel with the aforementioned split in audience.
Halo machinima isn’t dying, it just looks like it in comparison with the Minecraft success!
Halo machinima was dying well before Phase 2 began. It was near the middle of the year after RotS Part 8 was out where I really noticed the views of all Halo machinima to start declining, and directors began moving on. This is an image taken from Google Trends of the term “halo machinima.” I have highlighted dates related to Halo releases for your convenience
As you can see, things were doing well with Halo 3, and began tapering off at the end of Reach. There was a big boost when Halo 4 came out as people were wondering how machinima would be with new developers in charge. Immediately everyone saw what was offered, and everything dropped off. There was almost no spike at all for MCC or Halo 5.
We tried Crab Spartans as somewhat of a test, and a way to get some Halo content out briefly. If anyone typed in “Halo 5 machinima” on YouTube, it was on the very first page, just a few videos down. (I confirmed this through an offline account.) Regardless, it still died after our subscribers saw it.
I believe that covers almost everything. As a final note, I want to encourage the people who supported me with Rise of the Spartans to hold out a bit longer. I understand if you haven’t been enjoying our current Minecraft shorts, but trust me now when I say I am working on something incredible. This is something I had planned for years, and when I decided to make it in Minecraft it opened up a lot more freedom and the story expanded even further. If you enjoyed the complexity and dramatic feel of Rise of the Spartans, the action, the characters, then you should love Songs of War if you give it a chance.
Feel free to discuss this on the forums:
I hope we can still entertain our old fans with our new content, if not, you can always continue watching our old machinimas!
Until next time,
Arbiter 617
I’ve been subscribed since early on in the days of RoTS and even before then, I would watch many of your videos. In part because of how long I’ve enjoyed your content, this post makes me sad yet, at the same time, I’m also happy it’s here to give me hope for future projects. Frankly, even if the medium changes, what matters to me at least is the story that’s given, and the stories that’ve come from BPS and indeed you are among the best out there in terms of community made content in my opinion. Now that I’ve got the fanboy part of me out, I hope the transition into minecraft helps you out in terms of skills and challenge and I shall stick with your channel as it continues to grow and evolve.
I’ve been a pretty long time fan of your work and i do admit its a sad to hear that it is over, but im not mad. Change is an inevitable part of life that we cant escape, over the years theres been numerous different machinima directors. But they have either stopped or are still doing it , and new directors will come. Thats part of life and im glad your getting to the point where you could almost due youtube full time thats great. Keep working towards that, because at the end of the day its about what you want to do, and what makes you happy. And sometimes everyone else will have to adapt to the way you change. Keep it up will still be an avid supporter of the new stuff, gl Arby see yah soon
It’s upsetting to see how far downhill the Halo series went in a few short years. Although I’ll miss the Halo content, I’m sticking for the ride. I hope Songs of War doesn’t disappoint 😀