Machinima Favorites

For anyone who's ever played Portal before, here is a machinima you might enjoy:
[WARNING: May contain violence, suggestive content, and crude language]



Machinima for the People!!!
In Henry Lowood's article "Storyline, Dance/Music, or Pvp?" the author analyzes the existence of gamers who play for other players, " [using] computer games to create their own narratives, culture, and performance" (p.363). More specifically, Lowood is referring to machinima, or rather, the machinima created by game consumers. Machinima refers to player generated films and videos, created through the use of a game engine that is typically not intended for the purpose. With roots tracing back to the earliest real-time strategy (RTS) games and first person shooters (FPS) that offered the option to save gameplay footage as replay material, machinima has grown wildly over the years. Whether posting replays of amazing feats or horrible defeats, the game community responded by embracing the ability to build a community around user generated videos and content that offered tips for overcoming in-game obstacles, showcasing exploits or glitches, and finally, for pure enjoyment.

In Tristan Pope's machinima "Not Just Another Love Story," Pope exploited the potential that could be found in the World of Warcraft as a means of producing video. By putting together a group of willing, in-game actors, Pope was able to display the capability of the game engine and the play that could exist within its limitations. More importantly, he demonstrated that the gaming community had the ability to not only interpret a game according to their needs, but to do so beyond what the developers could have imagined possible. Rather than playing the game as it was meant to be played, the players who collaborated with Pope's efforts played within the constraints of the game to create an "original" narrative and an experience that opened the eyes of fellow gamers. Depending on your views of the game industry, this creativity was unsurprisingly shut down and discouraged by Blizzard who claimed that the content violated the World of Warcraft user agreement. In the end, the controversy surrounding Pope's machinima "demonstrated that game movies could function as a medium for public discussion and negotiation of issues important to the player community" (p. 380). In other words, machinima has become a means of reaching the community in a similar manner to film and music and the impact it may have on our game-immersed society is something to be seriously considered.

Do you think that the growing awareness of machinima as a communication medium will yield positive results? Do you see it as a tool with the potential to empower users or simply as a means of producing entertainment media?