Machinima in 2007 part 2 - Legal Machinima and the Brain-Drain
Jan
And welcome to part 2 of my round-up of last year’s developments and issues in Machinima! In part 1, yesterday, I talked about community breakdown and feature films. Today, I’m discussing how the legal landscape has changed, and how the hirings of Machinima creators by games companies is altering the Machinima world.
The Rise and Rise of Legal Machinima
I’ve been doing Machinima for a decade now. And let me tell you, it has frequently been a pretty wild and lawless land out here.
The last few years have seen Machinima creators get steadily sicker of being unsure of their legal status, unhappy about being unable to make money, and generally sick as the proverbial parrot of legal arguments, confusion, and uncertainty.
And one of the biggest changes of the last year has been the massive advance in options for Machinima where you definitely, absolutely won’t get sued - and might even be able to make money.
Of course, one of the big stories of the year in Machinima has been Microsoft’s history-making move to provide a clear license for Machinima creation. They did it at the right time, they did it in the right way, and they even listened to the people they were licensing to. Halo Machinima creators are now in the clear for an enormous variety of Machinima creation, and that will extend to other Microsoft engines.
And Blizzard Entertainment jumped on the licensing bandwagon shortly afterward, with a license that’s better in some ways (notably the sponsorship provisions) and worse in rather a lot of others (notably the just-plain-incomprehensible film festival permissions, the harsh content restrictions, and the deeply unclear exemptions for download fees.). Still, again, WoW Machinima artists are now, mostly, in the clear.
You can’t use either of those engines to make money without contacting the developers (although Microsoft, in particular, seem very open to that idea, and Blizzard have presumably licensed Nhym’s recent appearance on The Escapist - more below). But, handily, 2007 has also been interesting with regard to cash-making Machinima.
One of the other big stories in Machinima, in September, was the aquisition of Molotov Alva’s “My Second Life” by HBO, for an undisclosed “six-figure sum”. Whilst the hyperbole about this being the first big money in Machinima is clearly rubbish (for example, Strange Company was involved in a six-figure Machinima project back in 2001), it’s great proof of the theory that Machinima is a potential incubator for new film ideas - and that companies will actually buy them! And, of course, this couldn’t have happened without Second Life’s status as the first virtual world where commercial work was allowed and encouraged.
2007 was also the year of Moviestorm’s launch. Moviestorm is, of course, the free, commercially-licensed Machinima platform from longtime developers Short Fuze, which has attracted a lot of funding and currently employs one of the authors of this blog. (Not me - Johnnie Ingram, my co-author). Already we’re seeing the first good films coming from Moviestorm users, notably Fling Films’ Morning Run Amok and Phil “Overman” Rice’s Ad Absurdem and What I Love About XMas. Moviestorm is still very much in development, but for serious and commercial Machinima creation it offers massive potential.
Three years or so ago, Machinima was basically uncharted waters, legally speaking. 2007 has very much been the year where we’ve finally been able to, mostly, stop worrying about being sued.
Will this trend continue? Probably. A lot depends on how successful Halo and WoW moviemaking continue to be - but currently, as I mentioned above, they’re two of the most obviously strong communities out there. Many people are looking for EA to follow suit - whether or not it’ll happen I’m not sure, but probably not until they release a new, Machinima-friendly game.
Money Comes Calling
Where did the old school go in 2007? Mostly into (presumably) high-paying games company jobs.
Paul Marino, Michelle Petit-Mee, Jason Choi, Red Sky Foundry, Terran Gregory, Tristan Pope - over the last two years, the games industry has really started to hoover up Machinima talent for its cutscene teams. Meanwhile, there have been other companies hiring too. Notably, in February Electric Sheep grabbed the Ill Clan, whilst Short Fuze/Moviestorm now houses several ex-StrangeCo people.
Before I start, I should say that of course this is fantastic news for the people involved, and I’m not in any way saying that they should continue to starve in garages for their art. I can’t say that strongly enough.
Being hired by a games company is threatening to become the default “exit strategy” for a Machinima team., though, and that does pose some problems for the Machinima community.
Rather than a successful filmmaker suddenly breaking through into making very big, successful films, offering a role model for those below them, we seem to have a situation where very successful filmmakers disappear into games companies doing not-very-high-profile jobs (speaking in terms of public visibility), have to massively diminish their involvement with the Machinima community thanks to time issues, and certainly are unlikely to be able to make their own movies any more.
(The situation with the Ill Clan is obviously better (excepting Electric Sheep’s recent downsizing, which I hope didn’t affect them too badly), but, again, they’re many less indie videos these days.)
Quite what that means for filmmaking in Machinima is uncertain. I think there’s a risk that Machinima faces that, each year, most of the top people will eventually be hired away, just as they reach a stage in their careers where they have the audience and expertise to make Machinima films that could go truly mainstream. That’s happened over the last couple of years, I think, and has possibly accelerated the decay of the Machinima community I wrote about yesterday, as well as making it very likely that we’re not going to see a truly breakout film from any of the hirees - the people most likely to have the talent to create a breakout Machinima film - any time soon.
But it’s not all doom and gloom. For starters, maybe the people involved didn’t want to create huge movies that would break Machinima out and make them the next Spielburg, etc, etc. I know I have a nasty tendancy to view any talented Machinima creator as the Next Big Hope for the industry, whether or not they’re insane enough to want to make films full-time. That’s unfair and it’s a lot of pressure to put on people.
And there are more signs of opportunities existing for Machinima creators that do allow them to create their own work, or at least work that’s close to what they want to do. The Ill Clan’s partnership with Electric Sheep allowed them to make The Grid Review, a darned interesting show of which they’re justifiably proud. Friedrich Kirschner has been an official Artist-In-Residence in Stuttgart for the last year. Obviously, Strange Company is still creating indie Machinima full time. Nanoflix’s Stolen Life was funded and quite high-profile. As I previously mentioned, HBO aquired “My Second Life”. And most recently, WoW filmmaker Nhym was hired (presumably for cash, although we don’t know for sure) by the Warcry network to create a series for them - which is a tremendously positive development, given that they appear to have, rather than wanting Nhym just for his technical skills, wanted to pay him for the indie work he’s already doing. That’s what should be happening, and what will enable Machinima to grow: companies recognising and wanting to pay for the creativity and storytelling in the Machinima works that come out.
(Unfortunately, in a stunning example of mis-marketing, the Escapist Magazine, Warcry’s sister publication, then offered Nhym’s first piece, a very WoW-centric rap parody video, in place of the incredibly popular and totally dissimilar Zero Punctuation, over Christmas. The ensuing flamewar resulted in Nhym backing out of the deal - a very wise move on his part - and the entire thing subsequently being removed from the Escapist’s front page. Still, the fact that he was hired in the first place shows that there are more and more opportunities out there.)
We can hope that more direct filmmaking opportunities start to arise as licensing issues diminish, into 2008 and beyond. I hope they do - if only because, from a selfish point of view, I’d like to keep seeing films from our top filmmakers.
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From Overman's Blog
OverByte #5
Behind the Workflow: Unreal Tournament 3 on CG Society. (they also have a little write-up on the design of Team Fortress 2) Machinima For Dummies - 2007 Year in Review (part 1 and part 2). A thought-provoking read. Machinima For Dummies - Hugh and...
I think one of the most intriguing aspects of the licensing “bandwagon” thing is how slow any of the remaining game companies are to take an official stance on machinima. You’d think there would have been a bit of a snowball effect. But it’s Microsoft, then Blizzard, then… nobody. The silence of EA, in particular, is both strange and compelling. Not to mention Valve. I’m not sure what to make of it. Very glad my personal stake is reduced now.
Good to see these interesting additions to your blog guys.
Overman - yes, I agree. In both EA and Valve’s case (not to mention Epic Megagames - and I’m very surprised we’ve seen no agreement there), they’ve got a major finger in the Machinima pie, and yet we’ve not heard a peep.
I do think that over the next year or so, we’ll see a split, as basically all of the Outside-In Machinima creators abandon game engines for things that let them make money and/or have creative freedom (which I assume is what you are referring to when you say your personal stake is reduced). That’s a pity, and I think that it’s going to hurt the games companies. But hey, their bad for not giving us better terms, or indeed terms at all.
They’ve had plenty of time to do so, and the writing has been on the wall for years. Two things surprised me about the Microsoft and Blizzard announcements. The first is how fair and well-thought out they were (in general) and how much they benefited us as creators. The second thing that surprised me was that it took so long for any games company to do this. I would have expected a similar move much earlier. I can’t help but view the silence of the other big players as fingers-in-the-ears and la-la-la-I’m-not-listening.
Thanks for these overviews.
With respect to the dangers of exit: I’m not currently worried that a brain drain will damage the medium, because we’re in such a time of growth. The conditions to rediscover machinima from scratch, let alone to simply make it, have gotten steadily better since day one. New talent appears at an accelerating rate, whether or not the old guard are there to assist.
At some point the concern will become statistically important. Not now though, I think.
It matters at an individual level, though. Anybody who avoids repeating every mistake will be grateful. And to the extent that it means we might see less stuff from older favorites, that’s a great shame so far as this watcher is concerned. So I will certainly be nagging old acquantainces not to let deserved professional success completely push out spare time projects, or go dark.
I think seeing machinima makers being hired by companies is an extremely possitive step for the community.
It adds legitimacy to what we have done. It posits machinima makers inside the companies where we want to see change, thus giving the community a voice.
As individuals, it gives hired machinima makers the opportunity to fully invest themselves in getting better.
Instead of seeing getting a job making machinima full time as an exit stratedgy perhaps it may be an entry stratedgy.. Working with a budget, a team, deep resources, and game designers was not something I imagined I’d have the chance to do a year ago.
Because game companies have not been brazenly supportive of machinma makers with commercial interests, don’t assume they’re not supportive of their machinima makers.
The expectation that companies are slowly embracing change, I feel, isn’t fair. We’re seeing US media companies still unsure how to compensate television and film writers in the “new media”. Game companies which have invested millions in their IP’s are rightly concerned about ceding these interests in an open creative-commons like arena.
Talented directors deviating more towards tools (moviestorm, iclone etc.) and away from games is more worrisome to me when it comes to the future of machinima. Though, I understand and support their reasons for doing so.
But for me, film making may be less interesting these days then creating interactive narratives or capturing the fiction fans invest in virtual identities and worlds. It can be argued that games have the mindshare of younger audiences when it comes to their recreational hours, and thus more impactful then whatever Mr.Spielberg is cooking up next.
In other words, we’ve moved beyond the isolated cutscenes of past years.
Thanks for the post, it sparked some thought.
This was a very interesting read, thankyou.
I think machinima makers being bought up by games companies is a bad thing. As you said there’s no longer a role model for people to aspire too.
At the same time though, I would jump on any opportunity to be paid for doing my hobby. I don’t think there’s many people who wouldn’t.
This wouldn’t be such a bad thing if instead of being bought up by game companies they were bought up by machinima companies. I know the likely hood of that happening is pretty slim but it would solve the problem of no longer having good machinima makers in the public eye.
With these new laws being thrown around I can see things changing. Though I don’t think everything will work out properly until the game companies start releasing machinima films.
There are of course trailers, but I’m talking about Blizzard getting together a team of machinima makers, some writers, and paying them to come up with a really good machinima film. It could be a stand alone story or in the case of Valve and the Half-Life cannon it could progress the back story.
Valve is a pretty good example. Although Half-Life doesn’t appeal to me much, the game Portal, which is set in the same “universe” has definitely made it’s mark, without interfering with the Half-Life series too much. The prices for their games are very cheap. I’d pay $10 to watch a feature length film exploring more of the Half-Life story. I’m sure many people would.
This could be true for many games.
If this happened, we’d still get the machinima makers earning legit money and landing jobs in an emerging industry, plus we’d still get to see their movies coming out rather than their name in the credits for the cutscene team. This way they will still act as a role model.
As I said the likely hood of this happening in slim, but one can dream. In the end though, people with the ambition to make films will still make films, regardless if they’re making money or not and regardless if it’s legal or not.
I know various people have pitched this idea in the past - it’s not as implausible as it might sound. No idea if it’ll ever happen, though.
The problem is that the games company would need to ensure that the series was as slick as possible, so that it didn’t taint their brand by association (at least, that’s the thinking at most big companies). As a result, they need to spend a LOT of money on it - and that makes it a lot less likely to ever come to pass.