The folks over at DefendtheHouse (behind the awesome Mythbusters series) never cease to find LOLworthy glitches and tricks in games. Bravo, gentleman.

Yes yes. It’s been a few since Pyro or I posted an update on here, so I thought I would give you, the loyal 10 fans, a clue on what’s happening behind the scenes here at Pyrosmile, and in the Machinima community in general.

We gotta pay the bills, yo!
After season 1 of MCT3K, we started getting kinda boned by Machinima.com. In fact, most all of the directors (except for DigitalPh33r) started having trouble around the same time. This was due to the ridiculous onslaught of paid programming that came down the pipes of Machinima’s YouTube page. YouTube only shows the most recent couple of videos on a subscriber’s home page from certain subscribed channels. So if a new ad or gameplay video is being posted every hour, it means actual shows get shoved to the side. Another thing Machinima stopped doing is featuring shows on the main page. This slot remained basically for paid sponsors only, and as a result, featured content no one really cared about. There are only so many videos you can post about Modern Warfare 2 gameplay, when the game has been released for a week, before things get kind of ridiculous.

Interestingly, DigitalPh33r’s Arby and the Chief series was still featured on the main channel for every episode. Not sure if maybe there’s a stronger contract involved with him, considering how much money he makes from his videos (a lot), but that really isn’t fair to other directors with quality shows that aren’t seeing the light of day. Don’t get me wrong, DP really set the stage with the biggest machinima series since Red vs Blue, and he brings a lot of talent to the table. However, if you continue to whore out one director, new and fresh ideas aren’t going to ever rise to the top. Machinima is badly in need of some new and fresh ideas. Personally, I’ve found the recent Arby and the Chief episodes to seem more directed at pubescent junior highers, who like to feel grown up by cussing up a storm and making gross-out sex jokes. Maybe that’s just me. Probably is.

Now you see it, now you don’t.
Another thing that killed quality programming on Machinima, is the same thing that killed awesome TV shows like Firefly. That is, failing at sticking to a consistent release schedule. This started happening to MCT3K about midway through season 2. Uncoincidentally, this is when our views dropped dramatically. If you plan on something coming out every Friday, but instead it’s released on other days, you’ll end up forgetting about it after not seeing a few episodes – especially if a hundred other videos are being released on top of it.

“Dear Directors, Our bad.”
In a recent conversation with Machinima.com, they mentioned that they plan to rectify the current video clusterfuck on their channel by creating a separate channel for gaming shows specifically. They will start keeping gameplay videos separate from the actual shows. Ironically, this is something that I emailed them about almost a year ago. I sent them an email similar to what you are reading now. I won’t take credit for any changes, as the biggest response I got to the email was, “Hey thanks!”

Even if it’s taken a bit too long, my hat goes off to Machinima.com for finally acknowledging the issue, and responding to it appropriately. From what I’ve been told, they’re also going to go back to a consistent schedule for releasing shows. Hell, I would love to see a “TV guide” type schedule for each week, and what’s being released when.

The future of Pyrosmile
We’ve been receiving more and more YouTube messages and emails asking if we’re going to continue MCT3K, or if we’re going be releasing any new videos in the future. I’ll be honest, we’ve had stuff ready to produce in the pipelines, but have been stalling to wait until Machinima could get their acts together. Don’t get me wrong, getting paid to produce great gaming content is a privilege that I don’t want to take for granted! But when you start a contract with the process working one way, and then half way through it’s flipped upside down, that doesn’t exactly ooze of professionalism. After the recent chat with our hard working Machinima.com pals, we have decided to jump back on the production train to bring you guys some fresh shows!

We are going to start with the launch of Season 4 of Master Chief Theater 3000 in January. As expected (and requested by an insane amount of people) we will be throwing Halo: ODST under the limelight and riffing to our hearts content. It’s almost too easy. I will be posting a teaser for season 4 on our YouTube channel soon, so be sure to subscribe if you haven’t yet!

Once we get the ball rolling with MCT3K, we are going to start work on a pilot for a brand new Halo 3 machinima series. I can’t say much about it, but the current working title is “Camp Balls”. “But there are TONS of stupid Halo 3 machinimas already!” you might be thinking. You are correct. Here are some things to consider about our upcoming series:

- It’s written by people who know how to write, you know, COMEDY. As in, comedy for those who actually have half a brain.

- It’s voiced by people who actually have voice acting/professional audio experience. It won’t be one guy changing the pitch of his voice to be different characters. It won’t be a bunch of teenagers recording online via Xbox live headsets. And for godsakes, if we have a female in the show, WE’RE GONNA GET A CHICK TO PROVIDE THE VOICE.

- It will be filmed 100% in HD. Because we like pretty video, and so does YouTube.

- The series will only be a pilot, meaning we will produce a couple episodes, and if it doesn’t go over well, we will dry our eyes and move on to greener pastures.

So that’s what’s going on. Busy busy busy. 2010 will be a good year for solid Pyrosmile goodness. At least we hope so.

P.S. Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter!

Another fun one for you kiddies. I enjoy watching and posting weird videos. I hope you enjoy them too.

I friggin love Egorapter. If you haven’t seen his Metal Gear Awesome series, crawl out from your rock and check it out. It’s good to see him doing other things that are just as awesome, though.

Finally, a funny Halo machinima (not from us). I suppose you’ll either love it or hate it.

I LOLed.

We’ve gained a lot of new subscribers and fans in the last few months. Time to set the record straight.

Hey all, just wanted to leave a quick note to let you guys know that we’re still alive! We’ve started work on MCT3K episode 303 this week, so that should be out this weekend… ish. I’ve been quite busy with work and some other side projects, so I have excuses.

Also, my wife Delaney had episode 3 of her Dinnylan series, but like a noob, forgot to save it and lost everything. Noob. I’ll bug her to get it finished again.

Also, I was in San Francisco for GDC (Game Developers Conference) most of last week, and wrote up a ton of stuff for an iPhone gaming site I write for: www.iPhoneGamesNetwork.com. So if you have an iPhone or iPod Touch and wanna see what’s going on, check it out.

Also, I like cheese.

2 tough skulls. 1 epic skull.

all mythic.

Coming Soon…

It’s nice to see a new machinima artists that can pull together something that is fresh, satirical, and funny with Halo. Definitely worth a watch. Check it:

Go subscribe to these guys. Oh and watch their videos. They are some of the funniest, most unique, and BIZARRE vids I ever seen on YouTube. You’re welcome.