History
At the same time as the sale of 1UP.com from Ziff Davis Media to UGO Networks (owned by the Hearst Corporation), publications such as Electronic Gaming Monthly and The 1UP Show were closed down and the contributing staff laid off. In response to the layoffs the team behind The 1UP Show formed their own production company, naming it Area 5 Media after the final stage in the game Rez. The new company started accepting donations in order to fund a new show, releasing the first episode of Co-Op on January 21, 2009. A strong response by fans resulted in $18,000 of donations through PayPal and over 60,000 viewers.
On March 10, 2009, Revision3 announced that a distribution deal had been signed with Area 5 Media to bring Co-Op to the Revision3 network. At the same time, a new intro sequence by animator Eden Soto and theme song were introduced. Revision3 stated that this represents a "strategic shift" to providing niche content. They also hope that the show will lend itself to further advertising agreements, building on ones established with Electronic Arts and SquareSpace.
Starting on 2/9/2010, Co-Op was streamed live.
The final episode of Co-Op Live aired on April 13, 2010, after only six episodes.
Season 4 Episode 1 was posted to YouTube on October 6, 2010. This introduced a service in which viewers would pay to download new episodes in an attempt to get more revenue from Co-Op. No more Season 4 episodes were produced.
Co-Op-like segments are now a part of the monthly iPad videogame magazine Atomix, which costs a dollar an issue and is available through an app on the iPad app store.
Read more about this topic: CO-OP (video Podcast)
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