The tools of the game

Regarding our recent foray into machinima, I found most interesting the use of the rules and mechanics of games like Halo in unintended ways. In a way, shows like This Spartan Life and Red vs. Blue resemble literary fan fiction--they elaborate on the primary text in a creative way which expands the possibility of the created world. These tributes essentially borrow the world built by the writer/creators and rearrange certain elements, speculate on previously established characters, and even imitate the mechanics of the original author's writing style. However, machinima seems to go farther than fan fiction in its creative activity while taking place inside the very same game world in which the creators built their text. The software with which machinima creators film their shows/movies is the very same software that the gamebuilders turn over to a publisher. The creation of machinima requires rearrangement of game elements, selective use of in-game environments, and manipulation of provided software scripts (e.g. physics engines). A fan fiction writer cannot engage in the same manipulation of the story world because the written storyworld is not so fluid as the video game's. The written story world is defined by the linear narration by the author, and is limited to the boundaries presented within the pages of the book(s) which describe it. The video game storyworld, by contrast, is a more dynamic engine, which includes the traditional story elements, but also includes massive visual environments, artificial intelligence rules, and virtually constructed physical boundaries (physics engines, "invisible walls", etc.) The game storyworld is dynamic and an engine in the sense that it is constantly reacting to the actions of the player, in a recurring act of creation which never stops "building" the world occupied by the player's avatar. Horizon fog (a staple of many games) which obscures the gamespace and helps to create a sense of distance on the 2-D game screen, reveals the dynamic nature of the game engine--as the player advances, horizon fog dissolves into scenery, or more literally, undefined pixels are converted into mapped gamespace. Even in games without horizon fog, the simple act of movement by the character requires active mapping by the game software to reveal parts of the gamespace previously outside of the player's view on the screen.

In addition to manipulating the virtual world created by the primary text, machinimists even have the ability to transform that world into something entirely different. On the small scale, Red vs. Blue and This Spartan Life rewrite the rules of Halo's fictional universe--they change locations written into the game world into something more useful for their creative fiction. For example, a medical tent in Halo could become a dog house or a camping tent or a speaker's podium in a work of machinima. In the case of Red vs. Blue, Master Chief can be transformed from a relatively ambiguous and nameless avatar into several recognizable characters (when paired with the differentiated voices of the creators/actors). On a larger scale, players of Half Life 2 using Garry's Mod (a "sandbox mode" which allows players to conjure, manipulate, arrange, and change game elements in an open space) almost have the ability to create new worlds--ones with half-gravity, watermelon guns, and carefully arranged ragdoll characters.

In some cases, machinima essentially builds new worlds. However, this activity requires, in addition to using the provided software and game elements, the same creative writing as fan fiction. The world of Red vs. Blue is a mixture of the Halo world and the Rooster Teeth world--it is a mixture of rules established by the two creator groups. Thus, machinima can serve the same role as literary fan fiction, but the dynamic virtual worlds created by video games permits a much broader capability to create new worlds from the inherited text.

I'm curious to hear what anyone thinks about my conclusions--does my differentiation of fan fiction and machinima go too far or not far enough? Is machinima, counter to my argument, more constrained by the inheritance of the game's rules?