Movie in a Game

Machinima, a subset of video entertainment created by recording in-video-game actions, is a thing that has become increasingly common in the World of Warcraft community. This is not surprising in a game which places so much emphasis on its social element - players are constantly looking for new ways to interact with each other. Players are always looking for a chance to tell the story about the time they tackled that one hard quest, but it's even better if they can show it.

The movement started with JuniorX, who posted videos detailing aspects of gameplay while the game was still in beta mode, giving newcomers or non-testers an opportunity to observe the game and understand its mechanics before actually playing. This is similar in style to the speed runs or instructional demos that have long been a staple of machinima.

After a time, the player Daddar posted a video of a "bank raid" - basically his character performing the difficult task of single-handedly taking down the bank's guards and looting the place. This video spawned a large number of imitators and commentators who were inspired by his feat, all the more impressive because of its video presentation. The posting of gameplay videos became ever more common as people began to record their great accomplishments or spectacular failures. This is exemplified in the popular Leeroy Jenkins video, in which the title character throws all caution to the wind and charges headlong into a difficult dungeon, effectively killing his entire team. Beyond simply showing off a great victory, this video appealed to players' emotions of frustration at something similar happening to them - the death of a party from one player's stupidity is a common occurrence. Jenkins does this with great flair and reckless abandon, becoming an epitome of this kind of tragic failure.

In Tristan Pope's "Not Just Another Love Story," he used WoW's engine to tell a continuous plot, performed by many character actors playing out roles through their in-game avatars, their actions recorded and edited into a Hollywood-style movie. Using familiar game elements, including aspects of the game's actual story and player culture, he was able to make the film appeal to a large number of WoW players. He was also able to overcome the problem of the inability to access the game's graphics files by way of creative staging and movement - though the way he did so in some instances led to a bit of controversy over the appropriateness of his videos' content.

Do you think that the WoW machinima movement will continue to move forward and change in the way it has up to this point, and continue to gain more variety? Or has it reached a plateau at which video makers will continue to create videos of these same established types?