In this day and age, you have to applaud geeks who take their ideas and make good on them. Take, for example, Felicia Day. Talented, beautiful, and geeky to boot, Felicia recognized that all the drama we know and love as part of MMO culture would make for one hell of a sitcom. She could have quit after networks repeatedly turned her town or told her they didn't get it, but she stuck to her guns. Producing the show herself and releasing it to YouTube, she's become a pretty epic Internet celebrity in her own right. Since then, The Guild has built up enough buzz that when it came time to distribute Season 2, she apparently had several offers to choose from. (No real shocker there!)
Why choose to sign up with Microsoft, then? Well, okay, beyond being able to send your video out on Xbox Live - which is pretty geeky from where I'm at - Microsoft isn't generally known as a heavy player in the sitcom business. According to Felicia in an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Microsoft is not only is willing to distribute The Guild on Xbox Live, for Zune, and on MSN Video in high-definition, but they're also allowing her to keep full creative control and ownership of all of the work. The deal lets Microsoft have it exclusively for four weeks up to the end of the season, but after that period, she's free to post it to YouTube (or wherever she wants, really) so anyone who doesn't own a Zune, isn't on Live, or willing to surf over to MSN Video can still enjoy the second season of The Guild.
I just hope that Felicia and crew will keep us laughing with their geeky hijinks for a long time to come. Short of letting a baby nom on a powerstrip (and if you've seen that in real life, I don't envy you) there's quite a bit of The Guild that rings home with MMO geeks. Much like Jell-O, there's always room for more geeky humor - and more of the awesome cast of The Guild!