Has the Slope of the Curve Increased?
I'm starting to notice an interesting trend that I think gives an idea of how machinima is currently viewed in the markets and may point to what's next. First there's the CNN Money article, "One word for you Hollywood: Machinima," which is interesting not only because it focuses is on how machinima may affect Hollywood monetarily, but that the article is in the Money section of CNN, vs. tech or the arts.
Or are we higher?
In addition to that, I've received a few calls recently from market research analysts. These are the guys at security trading firms whose sole job is to research current trends in a particular sector - technology, software – that could affect the companies they invest in and trade. Whatever you might think about Wall Street, one thing these guys are good at is sniffing out the smallest movement in a market that may affect their bottom line.
Now mix in Paul's experience in Atlanta at the Georgia Tech Will Wright conference (along with the recent NY Times article), where some well titled media VP's gave powerpoint presentations with our good word machinima in it, presentations that mentioned how they were monitoring machinima and discussing its potential for future entertainment. It seems eve the word machinima itself is starting to become a buzz word.
I'm no expert on the life-cycle of a nascent technique-process-market (and would like to find one that correlates to ours and study it, any ideas?) but it's clear to me that people who produce media are watching and possibly even positioning themselves for what may come. It will be interesting to see what happens in the next few years and look back to see who predicated and planned skillfully.
In addition to that, I've received a few calls recently from market research analysts. These are the guys at security trading firms whose sole job is to research current trends in a particular sector - technology, software – that could affect the companies they invest in and trade. Whatever you might think about Wall Street, one thing these guys are good at is sniffing out the smallest movement in a market that may affect their bottom line.
Now mix in Paul's experience in Atlanta at the Georgia Tech Will Wright conference (along with the recent NY Times article), where some well titled media VP's gave powerpoint presentations with our good word machinima in it, presentations that mentioned how they were monitoring machinima and discussing its potential for future entertainment. It seems eve the word machinima itself is starting to become a buzz word.
I'm no expert on the life-cycle of a nascent technique-process-market (and would like to find one that correlates to ours and study it, any ideas?) but it's clear to me that people who produce media are watching and possibly even positioning themselves for what may come. It will be interesting to see what happens in the next few years and look back to see who predicated and planned skillfully.
posted by Frank Dellario at 9:09 AM
4 Comments:
I think we'll see a tipping point, where some project hits household name status (outside of gaming circles), and breaks everything wide open. I'd like to think it'd be something brilliant, but it'll probably just be a dancing-baby style fad. It will shape what everyone's perception of machinima is for better or worse, and most of us who were with things all along will have to fight the new stereotypes that emerge.
I think it's good to ask ourselves: When everyone knows what machinima is, what will they find when they go searching for us? What do you think will be missing? We're more than obscure Quake jokes now, but I think we still have a lot of vistas to explore.
I have a feeling you are right, Tess. And for machinima to become popular with the general public, I suspect whatever the "tipping point" will be something most of us consider trite or mediocre. But the important thing will be that money will move into machinima making and PC companies will make better tools for movie making.
I'm also concerned that with increased public exposure there will be problems with copyright. When I talked to Paul Marino this last fall he said the only company that had set up a low priced non-game use license was Epic (Unreal). That means that if somebody starts making bucks, the lawyers will come calling. It's an area that hasn't even been thoroughly discussed yet.
gtoon said:
"That means that if somebody starts making bucks, the lawyers will come calling."
When you license a game engine, such as Unreal, to make a game, you are licensing the right to earn money redistributing the core functionality of that engine to individuals to play your game. It is, in effect, middleware.
When you make an original movie using Half Life, and then edit it in an editing program, you are NOT using it as middleware. You have effectively used Half Life as a tool, much as you would use, say, a word processor. If you use none of the game's intellectual property without permission, then the game company demanding a fee from you would be every bit as ridiculous as Alias|Wavefront demanding a license fee for every movie you ever made with Maya.
The difference is that games are not licensed as tools. Most game EULAs do not expressly permit, prohibit, or otherwise regulate their use in this fashion. If they do wish to regulate this use in some way, then they should make that clear in their licenses. Otherwise, I'm not sure they have any real grounds for a suit.
That said, most machinima developers are small, indy-types, without big bankrolls, so it would be easy for a particularly nasty company to file a lot of frivolous lawsuits, and force people to roll over for them, regardless of whether there are good grounds or not.
Also, many people *are* using intellectual property without permission. This tends to be tolerated, for the most part, since the movies are almost invariably beneficial to the sales of the intellectual property in question, but I can imagine a controversial film causing a company to bring the hammer down really quickly.
Hi Tess...
I am curiously exploring the world of machinima these days, and also wondered about the copyright thing. Are you a lawyer of some sort, or is it just guesses?
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