Halo
 | |
 Halo's headquarters on 53 Bulletin Lane in Matthews. | |
| Halo | |
| Type | Public |
| CSX: HLO | |
| ISIN | CSX: CN6H2BEYEHE |
| Industry | Film and media |
| Founded | 2006 |
| Founder | Gigi Hamed, Sapphira Leslie, Veronica North |
| Headquarters | 54 Bulletin Lane, , |
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people | CEO: Veronica North, Chairman: Gigi Hadid, Chief Information Officer: Sapphira Leslie |
| Products | Films, series |
| Brands | Halo Dream Studios |
| Services | Online streaming, media production |
| Revenue | 3 billion |
| Owner | Multiple |
| Rating | Preston & Cole: AAA |
| Website | halo.caek |
Halo is a subscription-based film and series online streaming platform and media production corporation based out of the United Confederation of Concordian States. It was founded in 2006 by a group of PhD students studying fields ranging from Computer Science to Electrical Engineering from the University of Matthews. With the advent of the computer, they developed a website that enabled them to stream videos of series and films that were aired and broadcast on traditional television media.
Halo began working with other studios and production companies to create content in 2014, with its first project being the psychological thriller, Where's Rick?, produced by Neville Fox. The company removed the free tier and advertising from its platform in 2016, causing much uproar. Nevertheless, people flocked to this model and the company gained substantial market share and increased it's revenue especially during the Vanoi fever pandemic when people were afraid to go outside as often. With the rise of work from home and increased Internet speeds, the company was able to stream its shows in some of the highest resolution outside of scientific and military applications.
The company established the Halo Dream Studios in 2019 to produce solo content, their first being the film: Desert Landing, a film about the resistance of South East Yasterian countries from Packilvanian domination during the Great War. The film received widespread acclaim and won several awards such the Igor Award from the Film and Media Association of South Hills. The company went on to produce more original content. As the company proliferated, it faced pressure from regulators to include more local content and law suits for anti-trust and monopolistic behaviour. It has also faced censorship in autocratic and totalitarian regimes which have forced it to modify or shelve controversial content.
Today the company is one of the most successful media and content creation and distribution companies. It is currently valued at 100 billion SHD. It employs approximately 20,000 people and it has 1 billion registered accounts. It operates in most countries in the world.
Founding
Veronica North, Gigi Hamed and Sapphira Leslie were studying at the University of Matthews, one of the most prestigious institutions of higher learning and education in the world. Gigi Hamed and Veronica North were studying their PhD in computer engineering while Sapphira Leslie was studying her PhD in electronic engineering. The three met through a dinner party hosted by Sapphira Leslie's supervisor, Prof Whitley Gomez. The three became friends and began collaborating on research.
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Gigi Hamed, originally from Packilvania, said that she found comfort in North and Leslie, who despite being Concordians welcomed her as one of their own. The three competed in the Cafe Vibes International Hackathon hosted in Matthews. They presented a website for streaming pre-recorded videos. The idea won 300,000 kiribs in seed funding. The idea was further fleshed out and attracted 8 million Kiribs of venture capital funding with the help of the University of Matthews Investment Office which helped the three women to patent and develop their ideas and establish their first business. The three ladies mostly worked out of Leslie's parent's garage.
The product was launched to the public in 2007. It attracted 1.45 million users in its first month and featured reruns of old movies. The University of Matthews Investment Office sold its stake back to the three women. The Investment Banking Division of SNB gave the women 100 million Kiribs in funding. The business quickly rose up the ranks of the corporate world through purchases of not only shows and movies that had already been aired on cable and satellite television, but future seasons and remakes of existing shows, as well as sole licenses to entirely new shows.
The service was launched across the world, securing access to most regions of the planet. The business partnered with local content creators and production companies to support the creation of shows and films that appealed to local audiences. The company had a massive break through over 6 years after its founding after developing an algorithm that was able to cater its recommendations to users based on their viewing history and personal taste. The site ballooned in popularity and became one of the main streaming sites. It acquired startups and began to vertically integrated through the acquisition of licensing and publishing businesses and investments into production studios.
Films and series
The business began to consolidate its disparate ventures and began producing shows under its own name in 2014. The shows were characterised by their high quality of writing, and cinematography in the context of mobile and online video streaming services. The company was a pioneer in developing protocols and software that allowed shows to be streamed in extremely high quality. Through the release of Where's Rick? to critical and commercial success, the company legitimized its place as a major business. It soon recognised that its strengths lay in series instead of movies after the sci-fi horror Vacuum Seal tanked at the box office and was lambasted by movie critics.
Halo went on to produce series such as Rosamund's Reckoning, a romantic period piece set in enlightenment-era Great Morstaybishlia telling the life of Queen Rosamund the Great. The success of series was surpassed by the blockbuster performance of A Crown of Gold, a series on the life, reign and overthrow of Zerah Demir IV, last human Sultana Regnant of Packilvania and only formerly Paxist Queen of Great Morstaybishlia. The company established Halo Dream Studio to produce series for the company. Its first work was Desert Landing, a series about the invasion of Southeast Yasteria by the Imperial Powers during the Great War and its liberation told through the eyes of Colonel Yukai Uxemun and his wife Riola. The series was followed by the success of Nowhere to Run, a cerebral show examining the life of a fictional psychiatrist who performed experiments on Kemonomimi and Akuanists during the Akuan Atrocities.
The number of projects under the studio's belt increased significantly. Standout projects include Third King, a period piece set in the Elishan Empire, His Name in my Heart, a romantic tragedy about two queer lovers, Ether, based on the eponymous book by Volscine author Luigi Castanello about a space adventure that radically changes two brothers, and Solinoid, an action adventure series featuring the machismo characteristic of Concordian film in the 1960s but retold for the modern audience. The company also produced foreign language series such as the Norgsveltian Si navnet mitt about a father suffering from cognodegenerative disease and his relationship with his daughter, Das Königreich unseres Vaters, an Ethalrian series about three brother's battle for control over their father's fortune, Trovare casa, a Norvian mixed medium series about the loss of a parent, Indóvir Érfiri, a Cukish comedy about four pilots who go on misadventures, and weluLayla luBarad, a Packilvanian film about General Khumandeer Bansayam, a Paxist martyr during the rule of the Packilvanian Communist Party. Halo's series have won 4 Grand Prizes and 1 Excellence Prize at the Valkyr Media Arts Festival.
Gaming and merchandising
The company began to licensed its intellectual property to gaming companies. It gradually began to invest in these companies and founded a game-development arm in collaboration with Polyplay, a game console and video game development company from the Oan Isles. The company produced successful video games such as Desert Landing I: the Battle Code, Desert Landing II: Breakneck Bay, Third King I, II and III, and Where's Rick: Undead Menace. The company developed extensive merchandising of its shows including creating a clothing brand called Off Screen inspired by fashion from its series.
Controversies
In 2018, law firm Guerrero, dos Santos and Pomeid lodged a class action lawsuit in the Southwest New Tilden Confederate District Court on behalf of independent filmmakers against Halo for using its algorithm to promote its own content instead of the shows it had licensed from them. They accused Halo of obtaining exclusive licenses to their shows so that they could undermine and subvert content produced by independent filmmakers. A grand jury found Halo not guilty and acquitted it of all charges. The case went all the way to the Concordian Supreme Court which ruled in Guerrero, dos Santos and Others v Halo Incorporated that use of algorithms to promote self-produced content by the production company did not constitute a breach of trust or monopolistic behaviour.
The company was placed under investigation by the Concordian Securities and Exchange Commission for monopolistic behaviour following the rapid succession of acquisitions of smaller production studios and technology startups involving video production, streaming and distribution. The company was then sued in the East Matthews Confederate District Court and settled a fine of 200 million SHD. The company continued to claim that the accusations levied against it were a gross violation of freedom of commerce. Despite threats to take the case all the way to the Concordian Supreme Court, no appeals were made.
The company was accused by Freedom International, a non-profit think tank promoting human rights and liberal democracy, for compromising freedom of expression through exercising self censorship to avoid displeasing governments of countries which had restrictive policies and attitudes toward the media. Freedom International published a report entitled Halo Incorporated: Censorship and Political Interference. Halo attempted to get an injunction at the East Matthews Confederate District Court to stop the publication of the report, but the application failed. The company subsequently sued Freedom International for defamation of character and proliferation of misinformation, forcing the company to rescind some of the claims made in their report especially with respect to unverified claims about links to the intelligence agencies of Packilvania. Newspaper, the Zalington Daily called the report racist and based on Hamed's heritage.