Machinima production tools: a vernacular history of a creative medium

In recent years, HCI has shown a rising interest in the creative practices associated with massive online communities, including crafters, hackers, DIY, and other expert amateurs. One strategy for researching creativity at this scale is through an analysis of a community's outputs, including its creative works, custom created tools, and emergent practices. In this paper, we offer one such case study, a historical account of World of Warcraft (WoW) machinima (i.e., videos produced inside of video games), which shows how the aesthetic needs and requirements of video making community coevolved with the community-made creativity support tools in use at the time. We view this process as inhabiting different layers and practices of appropriation, and through an analysis of them, we trace the ways that support for emerging stylistic conventions become built into creativity support tools over time.

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