Collective Digital Studio, the online content arm of management company The Collective, has partnered with YouTube dynamos Freddie Wong and Brandon Laatsch on the launch of a new video game-focused YouTube channel, NODE Studios.
The channel will offer gaming-themed original series from the likes of Wong and Laatsch, who operate the hugely popular FreddieW channel, as well as Toby Turner and Ethan Newberry. Turner draws more than three million subscribers across his YouTube channels and also stars in Cartoon Network’s “The Annoying Orange” TV series, based on the hit YouTube character.
The channel will launch with four signatures series.
One, “LAN Party,” comes from Wong, Laatsch and Niko and Sam from Corridor Digital. They will take viewers inside the latest games, playing them and cracking jokes all the while.
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"We aim to reinvent the online gaming channel with LAN Party on Node. Just like in the Halo and Goldeneye days, we get together with our friends to game together," Laatsch said in a statement. "Get ready for an onslaught of multiplayer gaming played the way it was meant to be: together!"
Wong and Laatsch have already had a big summer thanks to "Video Game High School," a film released in parts so as to resemble a web series. It has already scored more than 30 million views.
As for the other shows, Turner and Newberry will showcase gaming-related videos on “Tagged,” named as such because they will hail each video tagged (awesome), fragged (bad ass) or lagged (hilarious).
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The other two shows are “VG Medley,” a music video program featuring songs and scenes from different games, and “Trailer Mash-Up,” which will air trailers from upcoming games mashed up with movies. The first two combine “Mass Effect” with Sony’s “Total Recall” reboot and “The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim” with Disney/Pixar’s “Brave.”
The Collective has made distribution deals for its clients with portals including YouTube, Yahoo and others in the space of online video. Its client list includes the FreddieW team, Annoying Orange and iJustine.