Hey people, I have some new updates and a minor promotion to make. As I’ve mentioned before on the blog, I am still for hire if people want to pay me for voice acting, writing, or something else related. Well one group actually approached me about “hiring” me to play a game with them for a commentary series they’re doing.

I have to admit, the concept of charging people for me to play a game with them never even occurred to me and it would seem pretentious if I had come up with the idea myself. I would feel guilty about this if I haven’t been so busy with various projects that I’ve had very little time for gaming myself. Also, I decided I am ABSOLUTELY fine with establishing a precedent that I will play games for money if somebody wants to pay for it. I just don’t want people to think that I feel entitled to some sort of payment for playing a game. On the contrary, I enjoy interacting with fans (even if I’m months behind on my email replies) and will always do so for free, even though there can be delays. The way I see it, what I’m being paid for is for time I would normally spend working on something else and I’m unfortunately very busy these days.

Anyway, part of the deal was some extra publicity for their new series, so here it is:

Rest of the playthrough videos

It’s just myself running around with the creator “Loremaster Nojah” and his friend “Sarahon” trying to get through the old mod “They Hunger” running Sven Co-op. It goes on for a few hours, split into different episodes. If you need to kill time, these guys have you covered.

This video may also gives you an idea of why Freeman’s Mind is not done live. This whole video is extremely casual with a minimum (if any) amount of editing. When doing things impromptu, my ratio of saying something entertaining is more like once every 3 minutes rather than once every 10 seconds the way it is with FM. Also my microphone quality is pretty poor in this video as I normally use a handheld mic to record videos, but I just used a webcam mic I had for this so I could play hands-free. On that note, if anyone has recommendations for a gaming headset with good mic quality for hands-free recording (especially with low mic puff) in the future, please feel free to email me at [email protected].

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In other news, I’ve made a lot of updates to the website to the different sections, with updated information the FAQ, donations, subtitles, etc. I’ve also added an entire “Ross For Hire” section where you can now see some of the jobs I’ve taken so far freelancing. Not all of the mods / videos are out yet however, but feel free to browse.

Finally, I’m aiming to have the next Freeman’s Mind out sometime Tuesday. While I am making no promises, it’s my aim to have a new FM out approximately every weeks after that (with more stuff coming out in between later on).

 

ADHD version: Ross plays games with some dudes! Website has more words on it! Next FM episode will probably be Tuesday!

Hey everyone, while I’m guessing most of the people who watch these videos aren’t lawyers, I wanted to at least see if there were any out there who would be interested in giving me a hand. I’ve been trying to contact Machinima.com for about a week and a half regarding some important matters and have not only been unable to get a reply from their legal department (which this concerns), but I can’t even get a DATE when I can expect to hear from them. The last time I showed patience with Machinima.com it didn’t work out very well, so now I’m trying to expedite the process.

I’m not even sure what I can reveal about this situation publicly, but I’m looking for some legal advice regarding my video rights and Machinima.com engaging in what I would call “less than legal” activity that’s affected me personally. I am not looking to go to court over anything, in fact I wish to avoid that if possible, however it’s looking like I might need some sort of legal notice sent to them otherwise it could be months (again) before anything gets done.

Unfortunately I do not have a lot of money, so I would either need some pro bono help or at some sort of discount. Someone who has experience in contract law would probably be best. Anyway, if you think you might be able to help, please contact me at [email protected].

Everyone else: I’m still working on more videos!

Blip.tv

Youtube

(Downloadable copy will come out later)

Welcome to the longest delayed episode of Freeman’s Mind ever made! This video was actually completed last year, but is only just now finally free to go up. If you’re wondering why this took so long or if the series had died, you can read more about it here. Future Freeman’s Mind episodes will no longer be appearing on Machinima.com. They will go up on my own long-neglected Youtube channel, my new blip.tv channel, and also on thatguywiththeglasses.com. At some point in the future I may delay the newest episodes going up on Youtube, but nothing’s decided yet, I’ll have to see how this all plays out. In the meantime, please feel free to spread the word of where the new videos will be since I imagine a lot of people will still be looking on Machinima.com.

If some of you are watching this series for the first time, be sure to check out the episode page on the site here to see all the previous videos. It’s still a work in progress and will look better in the future, but all the links SHOULD be functional by the end of the day.

As for the episode itself, I’ll warn everyone right now that this one contains some singing. It’s not that I especially like singing actually, it’s more that the song sung in this video is considered notoriously hard to do so I thought it would be a good challenge for Freeman, plus it semi-fits the circumstances in the video. In any event, I have NO plans for future videos with singing in them, so you can rest easy.

Even though most of the situation was out of my control, you have my apologies for such a long delay on this episode, I plan for something like this to never happen again. Also while I won’t promise release dates in general, it’s my goal for the foreseeable future to have at least two FM episodes coming out a month from now on. I’m also gearing up to be producing even more videos and other content in addition to that. I’ll have all updates here on the site.

Note: Apparently some people received an email update about an old episode, I’m not sure what’s happening with that, hopefully we’ll get it fixed.

LINK TO FORUM COMMENTS

 

I was hoping to have the next video up by now, but since that’s taking a little longer than I planned, here’s some more news of what’s going on instead. One of the reasons I was hesitant about leaving Machinima.com before was because I wasn’t sure where else to go, since the larger problem behind all the changes was Youtube itself. Thanks directly to people in the forums recommending other sites for me to check out, I’ve decided to join the “That Guy With The Glasses” network. Thatguywiththeglasses.com is the spawn of Doug Walker (pictured above), more famously known as “The Nostalgia Critic” where he is known for analyzing bad movies and ripping them apart piece by piece. I had seen some of his videos before, but never realized he had his own network. It turns out my videos qualify for this group, because Freeman also wears glasses, so we’re all good. So far my contact with TGWTG has been quite positive. They’re run by a small group of people (I’m told 7) that all have all known each other a long time. There’s no sinister contract for me to sign, and they’re not even taking a cut of my income (I’m assuming they make up the difference on their site). Most of all, they don’t give me a heavy feeling in my stomach the way reading the new contract from Machinima.com did, which counts for a lot. I don’t need ulcers.

The next episode of Freeman’s Mind will be appearing on their network, which is essentially wherever I want to post the videos. It will be be appearing first on blip.tv, a competing network to Youtube (and about 1/1000th the size). This allows me to form an escape plan from some of the madness going on with Youtube. New episodes will also be appearing on my Youtube channel (I’ll make a new post here as soon it’s up), but in the long term, I may try and focus newer videos towards blip.tv. Right now the next episode has been uploaded to blip.tv and I am currently waiting to hear back when it will go up. I’ll make an update here as soon as I know. More videos are coming!

 

ADHD version: Freeman’s Mind is still coming, but will appear in new places! Check back here later for links to the next episode!

 

LINK TO FORUM COMMENTS

I have a lot to say and am finally at liberty to say most it, so here it is. First off, I have officially left Machinima.com for future videos. There are many reasons for this which I’ll cover and I’ll let you know what’s happening in the future. This is a post I’ve been wanting to make for months, but didn’t have all the info or legal grounds to do until now.

 

YOUTUBE TAKETH AWAY

Here’s a chart some of you may find interesting. It’s a record of the total views of all my videos (some 60+ or so) and the monetized views (views that advertisers on Youtube will pay for) for the past couple years (with my own commentary added):

As you can see, there’s been quite a fall from grace. My views have been cut in half multiple times, despite adding more videos this whole time. While you could maybe blame this on the age of the show or not having more frequent updates, that would only account for a gradual decline looking like a wheelchair ramp, not the dive bomber maneuver that is this chart. So what’s causing this? The short answer is Youtube. Their algorithm “tweak” in 2011 caused me to lose half my views. Not just in popular recent videos, in EVERYTHING from years back. I’ve read about many people losing up to 90% of their audience during this time. So are my old views going towards other machinima makers, giving lesser known people more exposure and a better chance of being seen? No, they’re going towards videos like this; ones that already have tens of millions of views and get recommended to you even if it has nothing to do with what you’re looking for. Why? Because Google can profit more by steering you towards videos already getting a crapload of views and by companies paying money to advertise their videos on Youtube more than they can by sending you only the more relevant results. Youtube’s “tweak” is making your search results worse than they used to be and it’s making already huge videos bigger and everyone else smaller because they’re less profitable. It’s essentially killing the “long tail.” The viewers lose because they won’t find as many custom-tailored results. Most content creators lose because it means a large drop in views. Best I can tell, the only people benefiting from these changes are companies that were already very large to begin with. Google’s motto has long been “don’t be evil”, well in my opinion, what they’re doing now seems kind of evil. Maybe they’re taking lessons from the music industry.

 

MONEY HUNGER

I can’t reveal how much money I make or have made from Machinima due to contract reasons, however I can say at one point it was enough for me to live off of, so I did. In retrospect, this was maybe a bit foolish of me, but when you’ve worked as many minimum wage hell jobs as I have before, being paid to work full-time on something creative is like manna from heaven. Believe me, I realize how incredibly lucky I’ve been to be able to make a living just from creating videos from videogame engines. I certainly don’t feel ENTITLED to live this way, but damn if I’m not going to try everything I can to try and make it work. To get geeky on you, I feel like Malcom McDowell from the movie “Star Trek: Generations”; a man who had a taste of a better existence only to be ripped out of it, leaving him obsessed on getting it back. In the movie he blows up some planets in the process, I’m not at that phase yet.

I actually don’t really care how popular or profitable my videos are. I just try to make them as good as I can from my perspective. Some are more for fans, some are ideas I personally really like, but I want to keep making videos no matter what. However, I do care about being able to pay rent and buy groceries. Also, when I’ve had some excess, I’ve offered money to most “long haul” volunteers with the videos also. Looking at that chart, this isn’t going to be possible staying with Machinima’s channel on Youtube, so that’s definitely a part of why I’m leaving.

 

PLEASE SIGN IN BLOOD

Around the time the views started dropping in 2012, (but before I was notified of it), Machinima.com tried to change its contract terms with me just as I was getting ready to release the next Freeman’s Mind episode. Now I can’t reveal anything that’s in this contract (or my old one), but I will say that in my opinion this was NOT a good contract in terms of rights regarding my videos. It would have turned over so much control to Machinima.com that I don’t think I could sign it even if I was just starting off today. Machinima.com’s standard contract has changed a LOT since I first signed with them and I advise anyone considering signing up with them to read it thoroughly AND get some sort of legal advice. You might be amazed with what it says they can do. I’ve seen some leaked versions of their recent contract before online, and I can say there was a lot more added than what I’ve heard of anywhere else. Prior to this, I almost agreed on a new deal with Machinima.com, but after seeing their new contract, it made me rethink everything I was doing and was a big factor in my decision to leave.

 

NEGOTIATING MACHINIMA-STYLE

Perhaps the biggest reason I’ve decided to leave is how this mess all went down. There were so many things that went badly. I was only told of the new contract changes by ACCIDENT (I found out later I was supposed to have been informed in November). I didn’t find out about much bigger changes to Youtube and monetization until January (which was also supposed to have been told to me in November). I had a deadline when I had to make a decision by on the videos, but couldn’t get important replies from people prior to that. I had two meetings cut short and one almost cancelled where I needed to get critical information before the deadline. I got relayed to four different people during the process, having to update each new one on what was going on. I needed criticial information from Machinima, but it took MONTHS for them to get back to me on it, with me emailing them every few days. I was told contradicting information with weeks before I could verify anything. When I did receive an initial contract offer, it covered almost nothing of what was agreed upon with the representatives (or refuted it entirely).

Until this was finally resolved yesterday, this whole situation has been an ongoing nightmare for me. My income has crashed, I was stuck in limbo waiting on vital information from Machinima and it felt like everything was moving in slow motion. Meanwhile, fans have been pissed because there are no new videos and I’ve been gradually running out of money. I couldn’t release new videos because the terms had changed and I didn’t have a new offer yet. I couldn’t leave and put videos elsewhere because I needed to hear what their offer was and if there wasn’t proper communication with Machinima.com, they could come shut me down, thinking I was violating my contract, even though I was waiting on them! I don’t think Machinima realized just how much duress this caused me. This should have been resolved in December, January at the latest. It’s outrageous that it ended up going on this long and I think that in itself showed how lightly they took this whole situation. So what was obviously not a high priority for them has been one of the most extended stressful times in my life that I’ve had in years. To be fair, they did propose a decent offer towards the very end, but aside from it not being sustainable, this whole period has left a permanent negative impression on me that I can’t forget. It’s really undermined my trust in the whole organization if I know devastating changes like this can happen at the drop of a hat and I’m powerless to do anything about it for months on end.

 

LEAVING IN PEACE

While these past few months have left a big impression on me, I don’t want to sound too ungrateful since Machinima.com has really helped me achieve as much popularity as I’ve had over the years. I’ve also personally met a lot of people who work there and most of them seem like good people, some have helped me out a lot. When I was there, only 2-3 people max struck me as possible sociopaths, which is really a low ratio for Los Angeles. I think a lot of what has happened is normal once corporations reach a certain size and I don’t blame any individual that I know of for how this whole thing was handled. I’m really not a revenge-oriented person. Gandhi said he wanted to see the British Empire off as friends after they had been ruling India for decades. That’s kind of the attitude I’m taking towards all this.

 

WHAT’S COOKING

So what’s happening now? For the moment, existing videos will still remain on Machinima’s channel. If they get taken down later, I’ll be sure to put them back up somewhere else. I currently have a good lead on a new network to post future videos on, particularly Freeman’s Mind. It depends on how fast everything moves, but it’s my plan to have a new episode up next week. While I have a couple episodes done on Freeman’s Mind, I’m ashamed to say I don’t have a BUNCH ready, I hope you guys forgive me. Once I realized things were going to take a long time with Machinima.com, I started panicking, trying to earn money any way I could to make ends meet (and still am!). I’ve been spending most of my time lately job hunting and working on some side projects to help earn more money that you’ll hear about in the near future. I AM STILL FOR HIRE if you need voice acting, writing, or something else I can do from online. I do hope to be resuming Freeman’s Mind quite soon however and get more videos up as soon as I can. I still plan to make good on my promise of delivering a Freeman’s Mind spree at some point. Sorry for such a long rant, but I’d lose it if I had to keep this all to myself.

More videos are coming soon!

 

ADHD VERSION:

Ross has left Machinima.com! Youtube is turning evil! Machinima.com knows not what it does! New Freeman’s Mind will be coming soon!

LINK TO FORUM COMMENTS