Blizzard introduces WoW Machinima page
by Robin Torres 
Sep 25th 2007 at 7:30AM
In order "to nurture the advancement and growth" of the Machinima community, Blizzard has launched a Machinima information page.
Currently they have a selection of movies to view, but the really interesting thing, to me at least, is the Guide for Fair Use video creation or the Letter to Machinimators of the world. This document describes the main rules for making WoW movies and not getting into trouble. Here are some highlights:
Blizzard has always been supportive to the Machinima community with their contests and displaying the winners to a large audience at BlizzCon. Obviously, they see the benefits of further encouraging the spreading of the Warcraft word via visual media.
Do you moviemakers out there consider this a step forward or an attempt to gain more control?
Currently they have a selection of movies to view, but the really interesting thing, to me at least, is the Guide for Fair Use video creation or the Letter to Machinimators of the world. This document describes the main rules for making WoW movies and not getting into trouble. Here are some highlights:
- Your movie has to be non-commercial - so no selling it or charging fees to view it.
- It has to have a T (Teen) rating, just like the game.
- If you want to enter a non-Blizzard contest, festival or get your movie shown on TV, you have to get a Content Use License from Blizzard first.
- You can have sponsors, but sponsor related content must be limited to 10 seconds and be clearly labeled.
- They encourage the use of WoW movies for educational use.
Blizzard has always been supportive to the Machinima community with their contests and displaying the winners to a large audience at BlizzCon. Obviously, they see the benefits of further encouraging the spreading of the Warcraft word via visual media.
Do you moviemakers out there consider this a step forward or an attempt to gain more control?
Filed under: Machinima, Blizzard, News items
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
nav Sep 25th 2007 8:48AM
It'd be nice if they gave a link to whatever a T rating involves.
Hollywood Ron Sep 25th 2007 9:09AM
If there are some machinima-makers in the Insider audience, I'd like to encourage you all to upload your goodness to Flektor (http://flektor.com). The official Flektor blog (http://flektor-blog.com) needs cool content.
Hugh "Nomad" Hancock Sep 25th 2007 11:21AM
ESRB Teen rating is defined as:
"
Titles in this category may contain violence, suggestive themes, crude humor, minimal blood, simulated gambling, and/or infrequent use of strong language.
"
This is less restrictive than many people have claimed, but more restrictive than, for example, the similar Microsoft license.
(Obligatory plug - I wrote some commentary on the Blizz Machinima letter at www.machinimafordummies.com - http://www.machinimafordummies.com/articles/2007/09/08/blizzard-posts-machinima-rules)
so2 Sep 25th 2007 1:23PM
Blizzard supports machinima, but a lot of machinima artists use private servers, model changes and model viewers to film exactly what they want. Although Blizzard isn't explicitly saying anything about that, they don't seem to crack down on it either (because some of the best machinima really needs to come from those sources). It seems that they've taken on a 'don't, ask don't tell' stance in regards to using private servers to create machinima.
It would be nice if they came out with an official model viewer or film environment for machinima artists.