The last few years have seen web series start off as a fairly ignored source of professionally scripted entertainment to a replenishing well of material and a valuable medium for anyone looking to create and distribute without the looming eye of a studio. One such success story can be found in The Guild, the tale of a group of online gamers who have only made contact with one another through their headsets and decide to meet face to face for the first time. In actuality, there is a lot more to it, but those live encounters set the first two seasons in motion.

As someone who is neither a gamer nor the ultimate authority on this new form of online entertainment, I became immediately hooked on The Guild, and after exploring more details about the production and how it made it to season three (which premieres today, August 25th on Xbox Live), it is easy to see why it is growing in popularity and continuing to be well received.

The series is the brainchild of Felicia Day, whose work as an actress made her a familiar face to Joss Whedon fans in Buffy The Vampire Slayer, and a pioneer in the realm of web production, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. She and the remaining members of the hilarious cast create an ensemble of realistically twisted characters that sucks the audience into their gaming and live action antics.

Viewers, especially gamers and geeks of all sorts, can easily see themselves or their friends in at least one of these varied and diverse characters. It would be easy to categorize gamers into certain stereotypes, but this guild is made up of players with dissimilar home/social lives and a wide range of personalities, all with the same online addiction.

As the writer for her show, Day has a knack for weaving storylines that jam-pack the six to eight minute episodes with gags, jokes, plot twists, and awkward pauses. Watching the show, I simultaneously feel like I was viewing a half hour comedy and immediately jump with anticipation for the next installment as the credits rolled.

The episodes each stand alone successfully, leaving the audience satisfied, but because they are significantly shorter than what TV watchers are used to, there needs to be a compelling cliffhanger to keep people coming back. The Guild delivers on that, a balance which is, I can only imagine, a difficult feat considering how fickle Internet surfers can be and how novel the web series venture still is in the pop culture arena.

The separate strands of drama from each character never trip over each other in a frenzied rush to the eight minute mark. There seems to be ample time to expose the tension between Zaboo and Vork as new roommates as well as Codex's attempts to woo her attractive next door neighbor.

Besides the intended awkwardness that transpires among members of the guild or outsiders that just don't understand, there is nothing that seems random or out of place in the chronicling of these events.

Originally, The Guild was written as a TV sitcom pilot but moved to the web because it appeared to be a bit too ‘niche' for television. When that happens, there are two obvious routes that a project can take. Luckily for this project, its niche audience is no stranger to extensive time on the Internet. The venue, the fans, and the material are a perfectly synced ecosystem that kept the show thriving (it was this symbiotic relationship, in fact, that very recently helped launch the show's music video, Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? to a million hits on YouTube within three days of its debut and made it the number one video download on iTunes in the United States right out of the gate).

A serious downside of not having a studio behind you, on the other hand, is the supreme lack of monetary support. But as The Guild picked up viewership, the money started flowing through PayPal from devoted fans to the point where full episodes were being funded by donations. I'm sure that, along with numerous Internet awards, caught Microsoft's attention. So much so that they struck a distribution deal, with sponsors, an official website, the whole shebang.

This information might sound repetitive and hyperbolic to someone better versed on the subject of Internet sitcoms, but this is something that is genuinely intriguing to me. The Guild and shows like it demonstrate a shift in the entertainment industry that may be more than just a passing fad. I guess the point here is if you are curious about this new creative outlet for writers, directors, and entertainers, and you're not sure where to start, The Guild (at watchtheguild.com) would be a highly recommended first step.

Check out more of Nina at perksofquirk.