Geek & Sundry is a commercial
YouTube
YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...
and
Twitch
Twitch may refer to:
Biology
* Muscle contraction
** Convulsion, rapid and repeated muscle contraction and relaxation
** Fasciculation, a small, local, involuntary muscle contraction
** Myoclonic twitch, a jerk usually caused by sudden muscle con ...
channel and multimedia production company.
It was launched on April 2, 2012 by actress
Felicia Day
Kathryn Felicia Day (born June 28, 1979) is an American actress, writer, and web series creator. She is the creator and star of the web series '' The Guild'' (2007–2013), a show loosely based on her life as a gamer. She also wrote and starred ...
with Kim Evey and Sheri Bryant
as part of YouTube's
100 million dollar original channel initiative. In June 2012, ''
Forbes
''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also re ...
'' suggested that "if successful, it could help blaze a trail for the future of network television."
In 2014, Geek & Sundry was acquired by
Legendary Entertainment
Legendary Pictures Productions, LLC (doing business as Legendary Entertainment or simply Legendary) is an American film production and mass media company based in Burbank, California, founded by Thomas Tull in 2000. The company has collaborated ...
.
The company is primarily known for their launch of the D&D show ''
Critical Role
''Critical Role'' is an American web series in which a group of professional voice actors play ''Dungeons & Dragons''. The show started streaming partway through the cast's first campaign in March 2015. Campaign one ended in October 2017 after ...
'', which aired on their channels from 2015–19.
Geek & Sundry produced many shows exclusively for Legendary's streaming service,
Alpha
Alpha (uppercase , lowercase ; grc, ἄλφα, ''álpha'', or ell, άλφα, álfa) is the first letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of one. Alpha is derived from the Phoenician letter aleph , whic ...
, from its launch in 2017. In early 2019,
Critical Role Productions
Critical Role Productions, LLC is a multimedia production company incorporated in 2015 by the members of the creator-owned streaming show ''Critical Role''. The first two shows from the company, ''Critical Role'' and ''Talks Machina'', originally ...
separated from Legendary, as well as Geek & Sundry, to distribute their content independently. In the wake of their departure, Alpha was shut down and Geek & Sundry went into decline.
The company "hasn't exactly been operational" since late 2019.
History
Origins (2012–14)
The channel was originally based around three unscripted programs produced by Day: ''The Flog'' (hosted by Day), ''Sword & Laser'' (hosted by
Veronica Belmont
Veronica Ann Belmont (born July 21, 1982) is an American online media personality. She was formerly the co-host of the Revision3 show ''Tekzilla'' alongside Patrick Norton. Belmont was the co-host of the former TWiT.tv gaming show ''Game On!'' al ...
and
Tom Merritt
Thomas Andrew Merritt (born June 28, 1970) is an American technology journalist, writer, and broadcaster best known as the host of several podcasts. He is a former co-host of ''Tech News Today'' on the TWiT.tv Network, and was previously an exe ...
) and ''
Tabletop
Tabletop may refer to:
Mountains
* Table Top Mountain in Rangeville, Queensland, Australia
* Table Top Mountain (New York)
* Table Mountain in Cape Town, South Africa
* Tepui, flat top mountains in South America
Places
* Tabletop, New South Wal ...
'' (hosted by actor
Wil Wheaton
Richard William Wheaton III (born July 29, 1972) is an American actor. He portrayed Wesley Crusher on the television series ''Star Trek: The Next Generation'', Gordie Lachance in the film ''Stand by Me (film), Stand by Me'', Joey Trotta in '' ...
).
Before the channel launch, YouTube gave an
advance payment An advance payment, or simply an advance, is the part of a contractually due sum that is paid or received in advance for goods or services, while the balance included in the invoice will only follow the delivery. Advance payments are recorded as a p ...
"against future advertising revenue to jumpstart production."
The channel's founders and show hosts attended a number of
fan conventions
Fan convention (also known as con or fan meeting), a term that predates 1942, is an event in which fans of a particular topic gather to participate and hold programs and other events, and to meet experts, famous personalities, and each other. Some ...
over the following years including
ComicCon
A comic book convention or comic-con is an event with a primary focus on comic books and comic book culture, in which comic book fans gather to meet creators, experts, and each other. Commonly, comic conventions are multi-day events hosted at con ...
,
Dragon*Con
Dragon Con (previously Dragon*Con and sometimes DragonCon) is a North American List of multigenre conventions, multigenre convention, founded in 1987, which takes place annually over the Labor Day weekend in Atlanta, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia ...
,
VidCon
VidCon is an annual convention for fans, creators, executives, and online brands. The event primarily features prominent video stars from across the internet. In October 2020, VidCon Now relaunched as an ongoing, free digital offering. Vetera ...
,
and
WonderCon
WonderCon is an annual comic book, science fiction, and film convention held in the San Francisco Bay Area (1987–2011), then—under the name WonderCon Anaheim—in Anaheim, California (2012–2015, 2017–present), and WonderCon Los Angel ...
.
In March 2013, the channel announced three new series: ''Felicia's Ark'' (featuring Felicia Day), ''Fetch Quest'' (created by
Jordan Allen-Dutton
Jordan Allen-Dutton (born April 16, 1977) is an American writer, producer, and director. He is best known for co-creating the play, ''The Bomb-itty of Errors,'' and for his writing on the stop motion television series, '' Robot Chicken''.
Biograp ...
) and ''The Player One
'. Two programs, ''Tabletop'' and ''Space Janitors'', were renewed for season 2 of the channel starting April 1, 2013.
in August 2014, Geek & Sundry was acquired by
Legendary Entertainment
Legendary Pictures Productions, LLC (doing business as Legendary Entertainment or simply Legendary) is an American film production and mass media company based in Burbank, California, founded by Thomas Tull in 2000. The company has collaborated ...
for an undisclosed sum.
In December 2014, Geek & Sundry was listed on
New Media Rockstars
''NewMediaRockstars'' (''NMR'') is an online magazine which was launched in December 2011 and primarily covers YouTube performers, entrepreneurs, and artists with videos and interviews. In 2013, ''NewMediaRockstars'' closed because of lack of fund ...
Top 100 Channels, ranked at #68.
Twitch, Alpha and peak (2015–18)
![Marisha Ray (33005474174)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/41/Marisha_Ray_%2833005474174%29.jpg)
In March 2015, Geek & Sundry launched their Twitch channel with a 48-hour stream in support of The Lupus Foundation. After Day heard about a private ''
Dungeons & Dragons
''Dungeons & Dragons'' (commonly abbreviated as ''D&D'' or ''DnD'') is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game (RPG) originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. The game was first published in 1974 by TSR (company)#Tactical Studies Rules ...
'' home game from
Ashley Johnson, she approached the group about playing it in a live-streamed format for Geek & Sundry;
''
Critical Role
''Critical Role'' is an American web series in which a group of professional voice actors play ''Dungeons & Dragons''. The show started streaming partway through the cast's first campaign in March 2015. Campaign one ended in October 2017 after ...
'' began airing on March 12, 2015,
however, the show remained creator-owned.
On January 11, 2016,
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...
conglomerate Wanda Group
Wanda Group (), or the Dalian Wanda Group (), is a Chinese multinational conglomerate founded in Dalian, Liaoning and headquartered in Beijing. It is a private property developer and owner of Wanda Cinemas and the Hoyts Group.
With inve ...
announced that it concluded an agreement with shareholders to acquire Legendary Entertainment for $3.5 billion. In April 2016, "Geek & Sundry's website had 290,000 uniques
.. per
comScore. On YouTube, where it got its start, it has 1.4 million subscribers".
In June 2016,
Legendary Digital Networks
Legendary Pictures Productions, LLC (doing business as Legendary Entertainment or simply Legendary) is an American film production and mass media company based in Burbank, California, founded by Thomas Tull in 2000. The company has collaborated ...
(LDN) announced a new subscription streaming service, Alpha, which would include programming from both
Nerdist
Nerdist Industries, LLC is part of the digital division of Legendary Entertainment. Nerdist Industries was founded as a sole podcast (The Nerdist Podcast) created by Chris Hardwick but later spread to include a network of podcasts, a premium conte ...
and Geek & Sundry.
In 2016, ''Critical Role''
's spinoff show ''Talks Machina'' premiered on Geek & Sundry's Twitch channel; in January 2017, ''Talks Machina: After Dark'' premiered on Alpha and included 15–20 minutes of extra cast questions pulled from Alpha viewers.
In 2016, Felicia Day left Geek & Sundry after growing "fatigued in a less creative, more managerial role in the company".
Day said "I gave it my heart and my soul. When I realized I had given as much as I could, I needed to move on".
In January 2017, it was announced that
Thomas Tull
Thomas Tull (born June 9, 1970) is an American billionaire businessman, entrepreneur, and film producer. He is the former chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of Legendary Entertainment. Tull is the founder of Tulco LLC, an investment hold ...
, Legendary's founder, had exited as Legendary Entertainment CEO and that Eric Campbell, a writer on Geek & Sundry shows such as ''The Flog'', ''Felicia's Ark'' and ''Signal Boost!'', would become the Director of Development for Geek & Sundry. In July,
Marisha Ray
Marisha Ray Huber (born May 10, 1989), better known as Marisha Ray, is an American voice actress, host, producer, and creative director. She is best known for her roles as herself and her characters Keyleth, Beauregard, and Laudna on the ''Dunge ...
became the
Creative Director
A creative director (or creative supervisor) is a person who makes high-level creative decisions and, with those decisions, oversees the creation of creative assets such as advertisements, products, events, or logos. Creative director positions ar ...
.
From 2017 onwards, the network increasingly focused on tabletop gaming shows. This included actual play shows such as ''Sagas of Sundry'', miniature painting with ''Painter's Guild'' and game master chat shows such as ''Roundtable''. Season 4 of Wheaton's ''Tabletop'' was exclusive to Alpha in 2016 before premiering on YouTube in 2017. The Twitch channel reached its peak subscriber count at 55,349 in February 2018.
Critical Role split (2018–19)
Legendary started to scale back their digital division after "Joshua Grode took over as the company's CEO in 2018".
In June,
Critical Role Productions
Critical Role Productions, LLC is a multimedia production company incorporated in 2015 by the members of the creator-owned streaming show ''Critical Role''. The first two shows from the company, ''Critical Role'' and ''Talks Machina'', originally ...
started to self-produce new shows and content which did not air on Geek & Sundry's channels.
Ray stepped down from her position at Geek & Sundry to become the Creative Director for Critical Role Productions; Matt Key replaced her as Creative Director, and would remain until the post was eliminated the following year.
In July 2018, the
Star Trek
''Star Trek'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Gene Roddenberry, which began with the eponymous 1960s television series and quickly became a worldwide pop-culture phenomenon. The franchise has expanded into vari ...
role-playing game
A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game, RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of player character, characters in a fictional Setting (narrative), setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within ...
(RPG) show ''Shield of Tomorrow'' ended and was replaced by the superhero RPG show ''Callisto 6''; the cast, with Campbell as the
game master
A gamemaster (GM; also known as game master, game manager, game moderator, referee, or storyteller) is a person who acts as an organizer, officiant for regarding rules, arbitrator, and moderator for a multiplayer role-playing game. They are ...
, were carried over to the new show. ''
L.A. by Night
''L.A. by Night'' is an American actual play web series where the cast plays as vampires using the fifth edition ''Vampire: The Masquerade'' ruleset. It is set Canon (fiction), canonically in the ''World of Darkness'' series after the events of ...
'' (based on ''
Vampire: The Masquerade'') premiered in September as a weekly show;
Jason Carl, Brand Marketing Manager for ''
World of Darkness
''World of Darkness'' is a series of tabletop role-playing games, originally created by Mark Rein-Hagen for White Wolf Publishing. It began as an annual line of five games in 1991–1995, with '' Vampire: The Masquerade'', '' Werewolf: The Apoca ...
'', acted as the Storyteller.
In February 2019, Critical Role's split from Geek & Sundry and LDN was completed, with their flagship show having been recorded at a new studio since July 2018. ''Critical Role'' and ''Talks Machina'' aired exclusively on Critical Role's channels from this point onwards, and were no longer distributed via the Alpha streaming service.
Prior to the split, ''Critical Role'' and ''Talks Machina'' had been Geek & Sundry's most popular shows by far.
The move also suspended the Alpha exclusive show ''Talks Machina: After Dark'', which would never be reinstated on the new channels. The Alpha service was shut down in March – only weeks after ''Critical Role'' left the network – with Geek & Sundry content migrating to their YouTube and Twitch channels.
A short-lived D&D show ''Relics and Rarities'' premiered on Alpha shortly before the closure of the service;
Deborah Ann Woll
Deborah Ann Woll (born February 7, 1985) is an American actress and model. Woll played Jessica Hamby in the HBO drama series ''True Blood'' (2008–2014), which earned her a nomination for a Screen Actors Guild Award. She subsequently starred as ...
was the show's DM and the campaign had a celebrity guest each episode. It ran for only six episodes, each presented in two parts.
Older episodes of ''Critical Role'' and ''Talks Machina'' were later deleted and re-uploaded to the new Critical Role channels.
Further splits and decline (2019–present)
In April 2019, Wheaton announced that he was suing Geek & Sundry for breach of contract over distribution deals for ''Titansgrave: The Ashes of Valkana'' which he was not consulted on.
Campbell left Geek & Sundry in the same month, and ''Relics and Rarities'' was not picked up for a second season.
Some further tabletop shows did however run during 2019, including Jason Bulmahn's ''
Pathfinder
Pathfinder may refer to:
Businesses
* Pathfinder Energy Services, a division of Smith International
* Pathfinder Press, a publisher of socialist literature
Computing and information science
* Path Finder, a Macintosh file browser
* Pathfinder ( ...
: Knights of Everflame'' and Woll's ''Lost Odyssey: The Book of Knowledge''.
The latter was followed by a short series of cast interview videos.
In late 2019,
Paradox Interactive
Paradox Interactive AB is a video game publisher based in Stockholm, Sweden. The company started out as the video game division of Target Games and then Paradox Entertainment (now Cabinet Entertainment) before being spun out into an independen ...
's
World of Darkness
''World of Darkness'' is a series of tabletop role-playing games, originally created by Mark Rein-Hagen for White Wolf Publishing. It began as an annual line of five games in 1991–1995, with '' Vampire: The Masquerade'', '' Werewolf: The Apoca ...
team took over production of ''L.A. By Night''; seasons 1-3 remain archived on the Geek & Sundry YouTube channel while season 4 premiered exclusively on the World of Darkness Twitch channel in 2020.
In January 2020, Campbell and the cast of ''Shield of Tomorrow''/''Callisto 6'' launched a new Star Trek show, ''Clear Skies'', on the QueueTimes Twitch channel.
Campbell stated that ''Clear Skies'' is not a sequel and that "Shield of Tomorrow is Geek & Sundry‘s (and rightfully so). I had hoped to come back to Shield again, but honestly? We wrapped that story up so well, I love that it will exist forever as a completed campaign."
Twitch subscription numbers for the channel declined rapidly from a 50,000 high in January 2018 to 300 in January 2020. ''Game the Game'' ceased broadcast in April, and the Geek & Sundry website stopped updating in June with a final episode of ''How to Play''.
In July 2020, Legendary laid off 30% of the LDN staff.
''
Variety
Variety may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats
* Variety (radio)
* Variety show, in theater and television
Films
* ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont
* ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
'' reported that "there was a sense that the operations were a money drain on the company's profitable film and television operations. Those cuts were accelerated by the onset of
COVID-19
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...
, which has resulted in layoffs and furloughs across the entertainment industry".
''
The Hollywood Reporter
''The Hollywood Reporter'' (''THR'') is an American digital and print magazine which focuses on the Cinema of the United States, Hollywood film industry, film, television, and entertainment industries. It was founded in 1930 as a daily trade pap ...
'' reported that "the digital brands have become less important to the strategic direction of Legendary in recent years as the online content business has shifted away from the networks that grew big during the early heyday of YouTube stardom. Legendary Digital is not a moneymaker for the business the way its core film and TV divisions are".
Twitch Tracker stopped logging subscriptions in October 2020 for the channel, at which point there were 52 remaining.
Nerdist shows such as ''Save Point'' and ''CelebriD&D'' continued to simultaneously stream on the G&S channels sporadically.
After an eight month hiatus, additional episodes of Becca Scott's ''How to Play'' began to release on YouTube in February 2021, the first original content on the channel since the layoffs the previous summer. The show released a new episode approximately once every two months throughout 2021, in a format similar to Scott's ''How to Game'' which has been running on the Good Time Society YouTube channel since early 2020. In April 2021,
''CBR'' reported that "Geek & Sundry as an original content producer hasn't exactly been operational for a couple of years".
Beginning in August, the YouTube channel would also re-release older LDN content that had originally been exclusive to Alpha, and therefore unavailable since the shut down in 2019. This began with older episodes of ''CelebriD&D''.
In January 2022, Wheaton and LDN settled their lawsuit outside of court. The Geek & Sundry website began redirecting to the Nerdist website, and direct links to specific pages using the geekandsundry.com domain began to return 404 links.
Legacy
International Tabletop Day originated as an event hosted on Geek & Sundry in 2013, and became a recurring annual event globally. While disrupted by the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the event is still celebrated worldwide. Founder Felicia Day, who left the company in 2016, spoke positively of the influence of the company and its inclusion of geek voices. "I'm just happy I got to give people opportunities they wouldn't have otherwise and take a leap."
Em Friedman, for ''
Polygon
In geometry, a polygon () is a plane figure that is described by a finite number of straight line segments connected to form a closed ''polygonal chain'' (or ''polygonal circuit''). The bounded plane region, the bounding circuit, or the two toge ...
'', commented on the impact of Geek & Sundry's experiments in
actual play
Actual play, also called live play, is a genre of podcast or web show in which people play tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs) for an audience. Actual play often encompasses in-character interactions between players, storytelling from the game ...
cinematographic style; the simultaneous display layout, pioneered with ''Critical Role'', would come "to dominate actual play".
Friedman highlighted that ''Critical Role''
's "layout eliminated the awkward elements of the wide-angle lenses and multipurpose tables, cables, and other clutter. By cropping and arranging, it showed all angles of a table, simultaneously, live"; a simultaneous display led to player reactions becoming "a significant part of the audience experience".
However, this "look wasn't a foregone conclusion. There was no standard look early on. Even in 2015, as ''Critical Role'' began to stream, Geek & Sundry was producing fullscreen, edited multi-camera shows like Wil Wheaton's ''Titansgrave''. The channel continued to refine both styles, producing fullscreen shows like ''Sagas of Sundry'' and ''We're Alive: Frontier'' alongside simultaneous-display shows like ''Shield of Tomorrow'', ''ForeverVerse'', ''Callisto 6'', and ''LA by Night''".
A number of former Geek & Sundry shows continued airing in other formats after leaving the network, some continuing beyond when G&S had largely ceased operating in the late 2010s. Additionally, several senior Legendary Digital Networks staff joined
Critical Role Productions
Critical Role Productions, LLC is a multimedia production company incorporated in 2015 by the members of the creator-owned streaming show ''Critical Role''. The first two shows from the company, ''Critical Role'' and ''Talks Machina'', originally ...
after it split in 2019, such as Ed Lopez, Rachel Romero, and Ivan van Norman who became head of their tabletop game publishing division Darrington Press. In addition to ''Critical Role'' itself, which remains ongoing, the new company continued airing episodes of ''Talks Machina'' until the show was retired in 2021. ''Talks role as an aftershow was replaced by ''4-Sided Dive'' in 2022. By 2021, ''Critical Role'' was the highest earning channel on Twitch. The
first campaign, which aired in its entirety during the G&S era, would receive an
animated adaptation which began airing on
Amazon Prime Video
Amazon Prime Video, also known simply as Prime Video, is an American Video on demand#Subscription models, subscription video on-demand Over-the-top media service, over-the-top Streaming media, streaming and Renting, rental service of Amazon (c ...
in 2022. ''Critical Role'' has also been credited with the renaissance of ''
Dungeons & Dragons
''Dungeons & Dragons'' (commonly abbreviated as ''D&D'' or ''DnD'') is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game (RPG) originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. The game was first published in 1974 by TSR (company)#Tactical Studies Rules ...
'' in the late 2010s, along with similar shows such as ''
The Adventure Zone
''The Adventure Zone'' is a weekly comedy and adventure actual play podcast based loosely upon the ''Dungeons & Dragons'' game series, along with other role-playing games. The show is distributed by the Maximum Fun network and hosted by brother ...
''.
''Vampire the Masquerade: LA by Night'' was moved to the World of Darkness channel and received a fourth and fifth season before its conclusion in October 2021. ''LA by Night'' is also considered canon to the broader ongoing ''Vampire'' metaplot. Em Friedman, for ''Polygon'', stated that ''L.A. by Night'' "survived Geek & Sundry's decline
..in no small part to the masterful work of storyteller and series creator Jason Carl". A successor series, ''New York by Night'', began in 2022.
Programming
Geek & Sundry Vlogs
Geek & Sundry
Vlog
A video blog or video log, sometimes shortened to vlog (), is a form of blog for which the medium is video. Vlog entries often combine embedded video (or a video link) with supporting text, images, and other metadata. Entries can be recorded in ...
s launched on May 19, 2013 as a distinct channel. All vloggers were mentored by
Felicia Day
Kathryn Felicia Day (born June 28, 1979) is an American actress, writer, and web series creator. She is the creator and star of the web series '' The Guild'' (2007–2013), a show loosely based on her life as a gamer. She also wrote and starred ...
and Jenni Powell, producer of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries.
Two rounds of expansion followed throughout 2013, with submissions to join the channel open to the public for official review from Geek & Sundry and the community.
On February 18, 2015, it was announced that the Vlogs channel would be "coming to an end" after almost two years of operation. The final vlog was added to the channel on February 27.
Vloggers
* Wordplay Season 2 with Nika "Nikasaur" Harper (Formerly Story Mode)
* Geeking OUT with Becca Canote (Formerly also with Neil McNeil)
* Read This! with James “Tigermonkey” Isaacs (Formerly about his quest to the World Thumbwrestling Championships)
* Sachie
* Talkin' Comics with Amy Dallen (Formerly a weekly show on the main channel)
* Jeff Lewis
* Katie Satow
* Paul Mason the DIY Guy
* Critical Hit Cocktails with Mitch Hutts
* 2 Broke Geeks with Mia Resella and Omar Najam
* Cristina Viseu
* Songs of Adventure with Vaughan de Villiers and Caitlin Papier
* Dael Kingsmill
* Kiriosity with Kiri Callaghan
* Wargaming with Teri Litorco
* Old School Pixel Party with Scott Tumilty
* Akeem Lawanson
* Holland Talks Movies with Holland Farkas
* Two guest vloggers every other Tuesday
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Geek and Sundry
Webcasters
YouTube channels
Dalian Wanda Group
2012 establishments in California
YouTube channels launched in 2012