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Join the Quest 2 Change Real Life!

Machinima (machine cinema) is where video and film makers stage their productions in online virtual game worlds (like Second Life or World of Warcraft) and use their game characters as movie stars.

Machinima represents what is being called "emergent gameplay" by the online gaming industry. Gamers are using the virtual worlds and their characters in ways not originally intended by the makers. Machinima makers use software that they don't have a license to use. EULA (all that text you click 'accept' to without reading when you install video game software) provisions in most games also provide ammunition for copyright holders to claim infringement. Machinima appeals to the pirate in all of us, obeying no master but adhering to open source community concepts like the "creative commons", a sort of Pirate's Code.

Machinima's very nature as a medium incorporates a redefinition of property as belonging to all of us, removing the "permission from the powerful" barrier to creating works (see creativecommons.org). Thus for an evolution around the concept of property in online games to occur it does not require that the content of online movies be revolutionary since the medium of machinima by its nature will cause the revolution. Machinima is the contemporary equivalent of storming the sets of the most popular films ever and using their back-story, props, actors and special effects to tell whatever kind of story you want. As The New York Times recently reported, "It's what you get when gamers stop blasting aliens for a second and start messing with the narrative."

The Quest 2 Change Real Life

The following is text from the contest home page:

Submissions open May 1, 2008 and contest runs through September 22, 2008

quote (Quest2ChangeRL.com):

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"The Quest 2 Change RL video festival invites you to submit stories that you create inside these virtual worlds (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games) or any computer or video game world. Your film should specifically address the climate crisis, loss of biodiversity/extinction, and/or environmental justice. The type of action and solutions you offer in your under-five-minute machinima video is up to you, but could include concepts like the "guardianship of future generations" and the "precautionary principle". You can incorporate "real life" video footage as well, just be sure to tell a good story!"

"We will be giving away two main prizes. The first prize will be awarded via the QuantumShift.tv judging game engine. The other first prize will be determined by a panel consisting of the contest sponsors. We anticipate other contest sponsors and so might add more prizes. The exact prizes are yet to be determined."

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Read more about the political history of machinima and it's attack on the concepts of property:
The Evolution of Online Games