Newsbrief: Today, The Walt Disney Company announced it has dropped $500 million to acquire Maker Studios, a network of YouTube video producers founded in 2009. Further performance-based earn-outs of $450 million could make the deal worth $950 million all told. Notably to the Gamasutra audience, Maker Studios distributes popular video game-related content in the form of PewDiePie, TotalBiscuit, Game Grumps, and Yogscast. That's just the tip of the iceberg of the content the company offers, however. Disney said it acquired Maker to get access not just to its audience -- 5.5 billion YouTube views per month and 380 million subscribers across 55,000 channels, according to the press release -- but also its technology and analytics capabilities. The space is heating up among major media companies: Warner Bros. recently invested millions in game-only YouTube network Machinima.
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