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How an Online-Only TV Series Stays Successful
ChronoDragon writes "The Wall Street Journal points out that it is possible to make a successful web series without the backing of a studio. With the release of a music video, Do you Wanna Date My Avatar, and the start of Season of 3, the web series The Guild is ready for even more success. The Guild, created by Felicia Day (Doctor Horrible), is a low-budget comedy series about a group of MMORPG gamers and their interactions both online and off. While there are a lot of references that will be instantly recognized by gamers, the show is still very accessible to non-gamers."
My wife and I have both played since before the first expansion pack came out, and we're still happily married (and have two kids). All things in moderation (we limit ourselves to 4 WoW nights a week)
As another comment noted, they were not really that successful until actually receiving distribution. As a cast member in a web series (Break A Leg) we have been struggling not to gain an audience, respect, or critical acclaim since we have all of that. We just need money. Even the brushes we've had with sponsorship and major network distribution tend to fall apart through no fault of our own. It's just the way the business works.
We poke fun at The Guild from time to time, but it's a great show. I don't think though that's it's really a model of how to "stay successful" as an online-only series. You can't replicate what they did or follow their path like a recipe.
It just doesn't seem possible to actually BE successful as a web-only series, if success is defined at all in terms of money, without real money backing you. We even had a marketing firm whoring us around for awhile, and while it led to a few sponsorship deals here and there it never really led to independence for anybody from their day-to-day careers. There's just no real monetizing of the online-only series going on unless you have a patron or distributor who's willing to take a loss on you in order to get some other intangibles out of it.
That said, Break A Leg has a major distribution deal in the works, but it only proves the point. We're never going to be "successful" sticking to the web. The internet was just a way to get our show out there, and the show initially was just a way to showcase our talents (as writers, actors, editors, sound designers, directors, cinematographers). We need someone to get us OUT of the internet in some form in order to really get us see and heard of on a scale massive enough for everyone to quit their jobs.
Oh well, that's just me ranting. I love internet episodics, I hope they never go away. I just also hope some way materializes for people to earn real money doing them without needing a Microsoft distro deal or a major network buy-out.