The first time I ever saw World of Warcraft was in a movie created within the game. A handful of players stood outside of a door in a dusky looking room getting ready to barge in. Their leader rattled off some orders, asked for some feedback, then, all of a sudden, a human paladin yells out, “LEROY JENKINS!” and runs into the room. Chaos ensues when little dragon whelps spawn from the eggs and end up and killing everyone (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkCNJRfSZBU). I had no clue if it was a real video, since I hadn't played the game ever. Looking back now, it's obviously a complete joke, though is still hilarious.
Creating movies using games, machinima, opens new avenues for all players to share their adventures and creativity. No matter your motivations for playing, being able to record whatever you want engrosses you further into any game. Watching these videos let players from all over the spectrum see what others like them do for fun. Creating them is an exercise in both pride and entertainment.
A Brief History
For over the last hundred years, people have made movies. The addition of sound and color made the industry more appealing to crowds. Amateur film wasn't popular until the mid-1970s when Beta and VHS formats made it much cheaper for families to record their lives. Now, with digital video cameras, self-made movies are finding their way onto the Internet on a daily basis. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machinima).
First person shooters offered the first glimpse into videos created with video games. Doom and Quake were some of the first games that allowed players to save a playback of their game. This created online communities devoted to tracking the fastest times under various circumstances. In Quake, for example, there are videos for The Rabbit Run (easy level, as fast as possible), Quake done Chopped (easy level, 100% kills and secrets using only the axe), Quake done 100% (Nightmare level, 100% kills and secrets), and Quake done Quick (Nightmare level, as fast as possible) (http://speeddemosarchive.com/quake/qdq/).
How to Machinima
Many games since have included their own in-game movie recording programs, but one innovation in machinima was programs that record whatever is displayed on the computer screen (Fraps: http://www.fraps.com/). Console games can be similarly edited. One popular series, Red vs. Blue, uses Halo and Halo 2 from the X Box console. The action is “filmed” from one player's perspective while the “actors” move around and bob their heads to simulate speech. The various clips are uploaded to a computer, edited in Adobe, and put together for a final episode (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_vs._Blue).
Why you do These Things?
Beyond the enjoyment of using a game to make movies, machinima has some significant benefits over a movie production process. To begin with, using an already existing engine gives useful and familiar functions to the creator. Since players will most likely use games they are comfortable with, they know the extent of its capabilities and limits. These limits, however, are also its biggest drawback. Games can't possibly program every single useful function for movie making (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machinima).
The Internet also allows for very easy distribution of player-made content. In this paper, I have linked eleven different videos solely hosted on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com). This is, as far as I know, a free hosting service where people can post nearly any video they want. This provides a compact, easy medium to search and find videos for nearly any occasion.
What Players Record
The first movies made on Doom and Quake were little more than people flexing their game play abilities. Somewhat similar to “bragging rights” videos are ones designed to teach a particular strategy. In these, the focus is much less on the accomplishment and more on how that goal is obtained. Also along these lines are promotional videos where companies use the game engines to demonstrate game play. The last genre involves people using a game engine purely as entertainment.
“Look at my Awesome”
Movies by players who thought they were the best were how machinima began. Before these, people could always claim they got through the last level three minutes faster than their friend, but there was never any way to prove it. With a quick search, you can find one of the fastest runs on Quake in history (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpUbyirG2xU). For most multiplayer games, even videos can still make it difficult to prove one’s skill. Many people create compilations of short clips and put them together to show their own highlights. This is one example from America's Army: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMyZwb5ZJDQ.
One common thread through these movies is that the focus is on the individual. While the Quake video is a single player game with one perspective, America's Army, as demonstrated in our class, is far less about individual skill and much more related to how well a team works together. Some of the kills look pretty impressive, but I often find myself questioning the intelligence of his opponents. Another item frequently omitted is a player's own deaths. Right before the end on many of those clips, you can see an opponent approaching. It may be impossible to know for sure if the player died, but you can be assured that a bonus kill would definitely have made the final cut on the video.
These videos can offer a wide spectrum of information. The Quake video, for instance, shows exactly what this player did from start to finish. Someone, with enough time and practice, could probably try it for themselves. The America's Army video, by contrast, is simply a collection of short clips. While the purpose of this video is solely to demonstrate the “skills” of the player, he doesn't show how or if his team ever won a match. Certainly, I could spend a few hours and would easily get a handful of kills that I could slap together in a video without being useful to my team at all.
“Video Games for Dummies”
The target for these kinds of movies are those who aspire to greatness, but aren't there yet. Sometimes, a strategy video is hard to differentiate from a bragging rights video. For instance, the Quake video above could be considered a strategic video for players shooting for the same goal.
One big difference between strategic videos and bragging videos is the content. For instance, compare this video to the America's Army movie from earlier: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHLJ_hZt2ds. This is a basic “how to” demonstration of the firing range training. For me, this was one of the frustrating parts of qualification because the expectations at the explosive station weren’t well defined and I ended up missing many times. This video made me feel significantly better about my difficulties with that station because the player misses his final shot of the training.
Next, compare these two World of Warcraft videos:
Fury Warrior vs Nightbane: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_vLHXSSJeQ
How To: Nightbane: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gp7tPUwvJoM
Now, only judging by their titles, it's pretty obvious to see which was intended to be a strategy movie. The first features a well geared warrior using many consumables (potions and such) to increase his damage. The focus of the movie is the large white and yellow numbers appearing on his screen. There is little information about strategy and no explanation about what is going on. The author expects his audience to already know these things and wants them to soak up his large amount of damage.
The second movie explains the boss's abilities and suggests ways of dealing with them. While the creator is, obviously, proud of killing the large bone dragon, the focus of the movie not on how good of a job he is doing. Instead, he examines what his entire group is doing. This can help other groups emulate his success.
“Buy Me! Buy Me!”
Companies also use their game engines in their advertisements. America's Army has a portion of its site devoted to promotional videos (http://www.americasarmy.com/gallery/videos.php). These help generate excitement and publicity for their creations.
One game, Rome: Total War, is being used to demonstrate ancient battles both by users and some television companies. The History Channel's series Decisive Battle and a BBC show called Time Commanders both use the Total War engine for its battle scenes. Here is a clip from Time Commanders: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O10jA_tJZxI. The History Channel has also partnered with several video game software companies to create The History Channel: Civil War as well as The History Channel: Great Battles of Rome.
“The Internet is For...”
Entertainment. While goals can vary widely from game to game, the most basic part of any game is for its players to enjoy it. As such, one of the most popular areas of machinima is movies that are made with no other purpose than viewer entertainment.
These “just-for-fun” movies have many different genres. Many of them make fun of some aspect of their platform game. Take, for example, this America's Army video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YYEblPG-7I. In this, the five players make fun of many of the tenants of the game, primarily teamwork and tactical maneuvers, and take them to a comical extreme.
Red vs. Blue (http://rvb.roosterteeth.com/), a series mentioned earlier, has blossomed into nearly 100 episodes (95 as of this writing). This series makes light of the pointlessness of many first person shooter experiences and heavily parodies the military in general. Since its first episode several years ago, it has become immensely popular. This is a link to the first episode of Red vs. Blue: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9a3WG7vKzAU (Warning: this contains some strong language).
The biggest reason movies like these are popular is because it lets players laugh at themselves. They showcase a game’s absurdities. The map used in Red vs. Blue, Blood Gulch, features two bases inside of a canyon. For play purposes, it is a nearly perfect map for capture the flag. Practically, though, there would be little strategic value in either base.
Many other movies use the game medium because it makes it easier to create content, even if it has nothing directly to do with the subject. The most common types of these movies are music videos. Here are two examples, first from World of Warcraft is Hardware Store by Weird Al: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYzo6NJBKco and the second is from Second Life with Michael Jackson's Thriller: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPrneIvAmIs. These differ greatly from other entertainment videos because their appeal is to a broader audience. Wide applications are what can make a game far more marketable to the general population rather than a narrow game market.
Fin
One small example to consider how wide-reaching the movie-making process can be, there are six distinct games (Rome: Total War, Halo, America's Army, Quake, World of Warcraft, and Second Life) covering three major genres (real time strategy, first person shooter, and massively multiplayer online roleplaying game) referenced in this paper alone. I tried to gather a variety of movies, but still showcase what I consider the best. There are, literally, thousands out there.
Machinima creates a new dimension for games. It allows players to compete for bragging rights and actually have some proof where, before, only real-life friends could really show actual honest competition. It lets players showcase their skills to prove how wonderful they are. It can demonstrate a strategy or explore a new area or method of playing. Movies can even unleash people's creative side with no other purpose than to have fun.
In-game move capabilities allow players to amplify their experience, no matter their reason for playing. They give players more reasons to play, to share their experiences, and to have more fun while they're at it.
