Machinima is probably the most useful way for a video game company to promote its game, and yet I think it has been sadly neglected. Even though in the hands of a talented author, machinima can make a game appealing to a potential player who would have never played otherwise, and even though a video game company would get free advertising from all the potential authors out there if they released some machinima tools, few game companies to date have developed such tools for their games.
Recently I've been making machinima with World of Warcraft and Team Fortress 2. There are machinima tools available to both games that are powerful, but all these tools are insufficient, lacking in many ways and little attention is paid to improving them by the game companies.
For instance, the user-made WoW Model and Map Viewers for World of Warcraft allow you to do some great compositing, but there is no tool available to the machinimator to summon characters or monsters in an actual 3-dimensional environment (aside from using a private--illegal--server), which would lead to greater realism, and there is no lip-syncing mechanism. Indeed, the best way to convey expression or emotion with WoW is to use emotes, but you can't speed or slow these up in-game—thus you are forced to composite.
Team Fortress 2 (and other Valve games) has a tool called Faceposer, and it in conjunction with the real game and tools like Garrys Mod allow you to do many complicated things, including lip-syncing, facial expression manipulating, and even bot-programming. All these tools, however, are over-complicated, clumsy, with poor interfaces and a very steep learning curve.
Gaming companies need to invest time and money into developing machinima tools for their games that have clean, intuitive interfaces and give the machinimator absolute control over character expressiveness, design, cameras and world interaction. The most important thing, however, is that the game is, itself, a great game. Any game that has focused exclusively on machinima has failed for one reason—people watch machinima because it is made with game artwork they recognize and enjoy. The fun of machinima is seeing a character model that you see every day, but seeing it do something it doesn't do in the real game. The Movies, a game released a few years ago with the sole purpose of allowing the user to make a movie with video game art, is shutting down this December for just this reason. No one watched The Movies machinima. It wasn't from any real game, no one had any attachment to the characters and other artwork, and there was no built-in audience of people who could relate to it. If people want to watch an animated movie, they'll watch something that looks good—a CGI Pixar-ish movie. The only reason people watch machinima is because they relate to the game (or genre, like MMO) the movie is made with because they've played it.
Gaming companies who are producing new games have a real opportunity to spend some time designing machinima tools that will give their players the abilities they need to make charming, potentially viral movies that will advertise their game. Before SPORE was released, Will Wright was interviewed and asked about machinima. He said that SPORE had some built in machinima tools, but now that the game is released, we've discovered that there really are none. Yes, you can take screenshots, record movies and make animated gifs. But none of this is useful for making machinima. You can't even hide the user interface in the game. You have to go out of your way to make machinima with SPORE, and because of this, I see very little of it being made in the future, to EA's own detriment.
To write a list of all the tools a machinimator would need is too big of a task for this post, but I'll end by saying that the next game that is a good game AND releases well-polished tools for the active machinimator will see more user-generated free advertising than it could ever buy.
Posts
14 comments:
Well, I just got the free footage recorder from WeGame, so hopefully, I can start trying a hand at this Machinima thing...I'll see where it goes.
This is actually one thing I will make sure that is in Conquest Of Heroes. At that point I will be having some machinimators contacted for input only mainly. It's something I feel strongly about and probably will fight to get.
The question I have is. Would it be ok to purchase these tools, or a suite of these tools for a small fee? I'm thinking making tools such as this will take a bit of time out of the game, and probably won't be done till after launch possibly...maybe.
Maybe. If machinima authors had to pay a small fee of, like, $9.99 for a digital download of the machinima package, it might not be that much of a deterrent. It may deter casual players from downloading it and dinking around with it, and discovering that it is intuitive and fun to work with, so machinima production by fans will surely be limited. By how much, though, I am not sure.
I agree to all thats said here, really i've watched your Machinima for a long time now and I love seeing how you can get your guys act and do things that will never be in the real game. As for built in tools for Machinima, there are lots of great games that would be cool for. Most machinima I see now has to do with Warcraft or Halo.
But just a thought, it would be great to have a built in Machinima program to a game such as WoW (or any other games), so why not make a program such as a server thats not connected to blizzard that is built into the WoW files though to where you could just do anything.
Though I do, 100% totally, agree with you I don't think the lack of tools is the biggest problem with the neglect. For me part of the fun is figuring out how to do stuff that basically can't be done :P.
You touch the subject that I agree with the most in the first sentece. (The thing about machinima being a great way to promote games). Take Blizzard for example, they've got a handful of producers (including yourself Brandon) who could be good enough for Hollywood, who they can exploit basically as you say for free. The treatment shown to the machinima contest at Blizzcon is equal to giving us the middle finger in my mind, and I am not the only one who thinks so. Why they don't use the machinima community for some extra advertising, lets say for Wotlk, is beyond me.
Anyway, great post mate :D
-Johan
This is definitely one issue that should be thought about more with up coming new releases seeing as the mass of machinima creators is growing larger by the day. I think the one deterrent for the game developers themselves is the time and money it takes to include these apps into their creation, and doing it well. Something I can see working out would be for the developers to focus on making a great game first, release the game to the market, see how well it does, and if it looks like it is going to be a huge hit, then work on and release, as a kind of update package, the machinima tools. It is possible they could determine the value of doing so during the beta tests. I just know from experience with companies that most would not want to take the risk of the game not even being popular enough to develop machinima before spending the extra time to pre-include it. This of course does not include expansions of vastly popular games such as WoW or other classics. Companies that have the rights to those games already have great games and know they will do well by adding anything that could entertain their fans even further.
If only your idea could be so, unfortunately we will probably not be seeing this for a while. Ive been learning about the video game industry (as i plan to become a video game designer) and there are a few problems with your idea. From the point of the company, why would they want to waste company time and rescources (both of which equal money) to please a very small audience. I do acknowledge the fact that machinima is growing, the only things is there are currently not enough "big" machinimators or a high demand for such a thing. Most companies see it as a loss for themselves, and would rather let the community find creative solutions for their problems (companies love that). There is one final problem with that, something most people tend not to know. Here is the official definition of machinima:"Machinima (muh-sheen-eh-mah) is filmmaking within a real-time, 3D virtual environment, often using 3D video-game technologies." (quote taken from machinima.org). While video games are the most popular meathod for creating machinima, they are not the only way. Many think that the problem lies with the companies, but in truth, it lies with themselves(not to offend anyone). As machinima grows it will eventually move past just video games and on to its real potential. Things such as real-time raytracing (a 3d term) as well as many other improvements are on their way and soon the 3d world, knowing or not, will be making machinima because they will be rendering in real-time. And that is the key, unlocking machinima's full potential, cheap, fast, and effective.
from JB of bearanimations
Yeah, machinima makers are a very small community, but the people who watch and enjoy machinima are innumerable. I alone have over 17 million views on YouTube. Part of that is because World of Warcraft is a popular game, thus my innate audience is large, and part of that is because I make movies people want to watch.
If a game came out that was a good game AND released compelling tools for the machinimator, I would make machinima with that game. The problem with waiting for a game to be popular before investing time and effort into developing machinima tools is that the point of investing all that time and money is to allow talented people to promote your game for free.
If a new game is completely unknown, but it is honestly a good game, and if an author makes compelling machinima that people want to watch, it is nothing but free advertising for a game that stands up on its own two feet but needs a little step-stool to be seen.
Good machinima will never make a good game popular. Good machinima will always make a popular game more popular.
in truth i think the best way to handle this is to move past video games as the medium with which we create our movies. also i think we need more producers, people who , like oxhorn, make a consistent stream of videos, maybe in the form of short movies, or series. Game companies do not see machinima as a big thing, even though it really is. Personally, i dont see why they wouldnt want free advertising but that is what they chose. We need a bigger community, and that is the fact.
from JB of bearanimations
Yeah, moving away from video game art would certainly open up exposure for the author, but then it would no longer be machinima--it would just be animation. We could get flash artists to animate cool short series, like homestarrunner.com, and they would be popular, but we would be targeting a different audience.
Machinima targets a mainly gaming audience, and if we want to continue to target that audience--which are the exact people gaming companies want--we need video game artwork used by a talented author to tell a story, joke, or sing a song. The easier game companies make this for potential machinima authors, the better it will be for them.
lol homestar runner is awesome.
How will it be better for game companies? Having tools would be great, we wouldnt have to wait for the next version of wmv to come out to make our machinimas (at least for me), but we are just a small minority asking for a huge thing from companies. Not only must the directly spend money to make these tools, but they also waste time (time=money in game companies). And who truthfully would it benefit? So the company gets free "advertising", personally a good game company should need more advertising at all. They would waster money and rescources to make tool so people can be like red vs blue (not bashing them btw, i love their machinima) and make money off of their game. That is why some companies like epic games (gears of war, and unreal tournament), and bungie put strict rules on machinima made in their games. secondly, i dont know of anyone who would buy a game because someone made a cool movies with it. Machinima appeals to video game players, but more specifically it appeals more to the people who play that game or are already interested in it. correct me if im wrong (and id love to be) but im pretty sure that your movies, while very good (first machinima ive ever seen), dont cause hundreds of people to go order world of warcraft. any thing less than a couple hundred customers is not actual advertisement. if fifty people went out and bought WoW after whatching machinima that would be 50x40x15m (were m= the amount of months they played) and that would equal much less than if you took the amount of programmers who would develop that tool and multiplied it by their salary (video game programmers get paid very hansomely). ultimately, its just not worth it for companies to cater for us, we should find ways ourselves, it builds bigger and better online communities.
PS: some of my post may have been taken very negatively, if so i apologize, i dont not wish to offend anyone.
from JB of bearanimations
In all honesty, you are kind of belittling The Movies in your column unfairly. The reason Lionhead is shutting down their "movies" site is because many of us have moved on to bigger and better sites that allow us a little more freedom than what we had on the Lionhead site. The game has been massively transformed through the work of a number of modders which allows us a freedom to make new and original movies that tell real stories rather than being restricted in one universe or scenario. Plus tools like the ones found in The Movies and its expansion pack educate the users in the actual process of filmmaking, processes that can be adapted to outside editors and other video-grab applications. Though the game was deemed a failure in terms of sales, it produced a whole new generation of people who are now learning to create better movies through other formats. Believe me when I say that the only failure of The Movies was the insistence of selling it as a Sim game, instead of what it really was: a fast and easy way to learn some of the basics of machinima in combination with real filmmaking tools.
Apart for your disdain for The Movies, I felt most of the rest of what you said makes perfect sense. Macinima made with games would indeed be an effective and inexpensive way for companies to create free promotion. Pity so few of them ever figure that out.
The point, JB, is that though we are a minority—there are few of us who make machinima—our audience is a great majority—machinima has untold millions of views on YouTube. Every single view a machinima movie has is one potential person who is being exposed to the game for the first time, whose interest is perked, and who may buy the game. That is why it is good for video game companies. Even if only one person ever uses a game's built-in machinima tools, if that one person makes one movie that gets viewed millions of times, that game company's player base WILL grow.
You may not know of anyone who would buy a game because someone made a cool movie with it, but I do. I make machinima primarily with World of Warcraft, which already has a player base of over 10 million world wide, but even I get messages from people all the time that look like this; “Love your movies Oxhorn! I never really wanted to get into the World of Warcraft hype, but after watching your movies I must admit that my curiosity is perked. I think I'll buy the game”. I get messages like that many times a week.
Admittedly, WoW does not need mine or anyone else's help to make their game popular. It is popular on its own merits. But small gaming companies that are just starting out or are about to release a new game could GREATLY benefit from the kind of exposure that machinima authors can give them. If they do not hire authors themselves, they should provide the tools necessary to those in their own community who are creative enough to make machinima for their games. A couple hundred new gamers may be just a drop in the bucket for World of Warcraft, but for a brand new game, a couple hundred gamers is a starting point, for those gamers will tell their friends, recruit more gamers, and then more machinima authors will emerge, who will introduce the game to new possible gamers—and so on.
Anon: All the things you listed about The Movies are very true, but what you are missing is that if an audience cannot relate to the game, they will not watch your machinima. The Movies may very well have great modding, with wonderful film making tools, and it may very well teach people all about how to make movies—and that is fantastic. But none of that is any help to them if they are wanting to “make it big” in machinima. As I mentioned previously, the ONLY thing that makes machinima popular is that people watch it because they relate to the game it is made with. What was The Movies? MMO? FPS? Strategy? It was none of those. It wasn't a game. If it isn't made with a game they have played, then it must remind them of something they have played, or be otherwise familiar to them in order to be interesting.
The Movies was clunky, and the artwork was poor. It may have had fantastic tools, but viewers don't watch the tools—they watch the art.
Post a Comment