Microsoft goes for The Guild

The Guild, the popular web series, premieres its second season today with a Microsoft twist — the episodes will be distributed through Microsoft’s platforms of XBox 360 Live, MSN and Zune. The deal between series creator/producer Felicia Day and Microsoft was announced on Monday.

The comedy series, about a motley crew addicted to the online game World of Warcraft, was a breakout hit on YouTube in 2007 and 2008, gaining over 9 million views. Felicia Day is also known for being one of the stars of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog (along with Neil Patrick Harris, a.k.a. Doogie Howser), a web musical created by Joss Whedon.

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The Guild’s move to the Xbox Independent Video channel, as well as MSN video, may help the show make money — Sprint’s sponsorship of the 12-episode second season marks the beginning of ad-supported content and product placement — but it also makes The Guild less convenient to watch. I mean, how many people are going to watch this show on their Zunes?

The episodes will be available on The Guild’s official website, Watchtheguild.com, four weeks after each one airs, but there’s something weird about not being able to watch a web-based show on its own site, at least not right away.

It’s great that The Guild, with more financial support, will have a chance to shoot in high-definition (and hopefully get a logo that’s less ugly). It’s also fantastic that Day will retain ownership of the show. But will this partnership change expectations from the show’s viewers, now that it has gone from a PayPal-funded, grassroots phenomenon to a series branded with Sprint?

And now, without further ado, the season premiere, in its MSN video player embedded glory:

Season 2 - Episode 1: Link the Loot

Oh, just kidding. By “embed” I really mean a link with an image, since that’s what MSN Video seems to think an embed is.