Marvel at Machinima Part I_b

Machinima based on player performance, also called “historical archives,” a term coined by Henry Lowood, (2008, p. 418) might be incomprehensible for someone who has never played a video game. Nevertheless, they give an account of tactical approaches to tasks and quests within the game and thus might also be considered a valuable introduction to the game content for those who do not have explicit knowledge of the game. Machinima that focus on the extension of existing texts provided by the game developer, on the other hand, are not only appealing to a broader public, but might also be praised for their aesthetic value. Those 3D animations often require a script, avatars that are used as actors, voice-over narration and even editing that compares to the production of “real films.” The filmic possibilities vary between games and supporting tools. While “some games and demo programs like SimLife, The Movies, Unreal Tournament and now Machinimator allow for the construction of nearly any environment and avatar imaginable,” (Horwatt, 2008, p. 9) others force the creator to stay within the parameter of the video game. In many cases, however, players and creators often have the ability to access the code of the game in order to re-program game context and expand the possibilities offered by the game developers. Creators engaging in “modding,” a term coined to describe the modifying of hard or software in order to perform a function beyond the intention of the game designer, might cross the boundaries of legality.

Machinima that stay within the legal restrictions of the game content are embraced by the game developer, since they can be used as a marketing tool. Henry Lowood points to “Edge of Remorse,” a machinima created within World of Warcraft that adheres to the rules of Blizzard Entertainment, the creator of this online role-playing game. Even though the movie does not provide sub-titles, voice-overs or spoken dialogue, the cinematic devices of story-telling used, such as montage, flashbacks, and sound effects, make the story easily comprehensible. “Edge of Remorse” tells the story of two brothers who are in love with the same childhood friend. The love destroys the inseparable trio and brings death to all three. The eight minute film consists of about 120 cuts and fades and won the 2006 Machinima Festival Award (Kotaku, 2006). The message of the story can be easily grasped by any viewer, independent of familiarity with the specifics of the game.

Marvel at Machinima Part I_a

What is machinima? First, of all, machinima is misspelled. While this seems to be a minute detail, the correct spelling machinema that fell victim to a typo, might give an early indication of what machinima is meant to be: an amalgamation of machine and cinema. Machinima is most often cited as the “art of making animated movies in a 3D virtual environment in real time” (Marino, 2004, p. 2). In other words, a player finds herself recording her performance while playing a 3D game, and then transfers the footage into a film editing program to create a video film about her performance. This very simple description of course only scratches the surface of a process that proves to be much more intricate than the final product might suggest.

It might be interesting to explore in more detail how machinima came into being. Henry Lowood points to the fact that machinima were first created in the context of competitive multiplayer games from the mid 1990s, like Doom or Quake, both first person shooter games developed by id Software (Lowood, 2008, p. 1) Players then carried the production of game videos on to massively multiplayer titles like Warhammer or World of Warcraft. Those early productions focused mainly on the performance aspect of the game. After the introduction of this game genre, players had advanced skills in mastering not only the gameplay and performances practices, but also developed an understanding of the game engine behind the game. The next step after the mastery of those elements was to appropriate existing game text and re-work it into filmic performance documents.

Earlier examples of machinima evoke memories of the silent era in film because of their “choppy” appearance, simple camera movements and limitations with regard to voice and sound. Those early works focused mainly on performance aspects, giving practical advice to other players. Topics included the advancement of the characters’ level, or strategies and tactics most appropriate for certain tasks within the game. Stanford University’s How They Got Game Project, The Internet Archive, The Academy of Machinima Arts and Sciences, and Machinima.com founded “The Machinima Archive” in 2003 as a source of more than 500 machinima projects as of 2008. The number of existing machinima projects as of today is unknown but game videos can be found on numerous online sources. Lowood and his team at Stanford University created an excellent archival movie about the history of machinima that gives a impression of the development in the production of game videos. Please watch.

Welcome to The Machinima Project

With this blog I would like to cover different aspects of machinima that strike me as important and interesting. First, I will elaborate on the history of this form of game video art before I give the reader an idea about the different types of machinima, and thus focus on their role within the game community. Throughout the essay, I will make use of machinima examples that are posted online in order to visualize my points.

Second, I will address a question that is directly related to the creation of machinima: Is the appropriation of existing game content for the purpose of re-mixing, re-assembling and extending it a violation of authorship and copyright? Throughout the text, I will use the Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) World of Warcraft as an example because the game is well known beyond the gamer community. Since I have written my master’s thesis on “Collaboration in MMORPGs,’” I will use this game as an example. I have chosen the format of a blog in order to create an academic multimodal essay.

Third, in a parallel stream of writing, I will give an account of the creation of machinima in order to demonstrate the difficulties and challenges that come with the production process of this medium, in order to stimulate the discussion regarding if machinima can indeed be seen as a “low-cost alternative to full production film making” (Elson, Riedl, 2007, p. 8).

With the blog, I also hope to stimulate discussions that go beyond the topic of machinima and turn to wider contexts of “remix culture,” (Manovich, 2007, p.1.) or “participatory culture” (Jenkins, 2006) as new forms of user created media in fields like art, design, or music.