South Park Plays World of Warcraft
SLBoutique’s FlipperPA Peregrine flags a Slashdot post about the fact that World of Warcraft will be featured in tonight’s season premiere of South Park, of all things. Check out the video clip. As Flip points out, this is probably the first mainstream appearance of machinima. Here’s Blizzard’s press release about the episode, which sees Cartman, Kyle, Kenny et al. charged with saving WoW itself from the depredations of “a renegade player.” A very interesting mashup of virtual worlds as well as entertainment media. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Ron Howard reportedly has a television show in the works that features a massively multiplayer online game, and James Cameron is said to be making a film that will be shot partly within a virtual world. Look for 3pointD this fall at a theater near you.
Feeds
First machinima appearance on a mainstream outlet was Strangerhood Studios made by Rooster Teeth Productions for IFC last year.
http://www.ifctv.com/ifc/what?CAT0=45&CAT1=6506
I guess one could argue whether Comedy Central is more mainstream than IFC (I’m sure they have a larger audience/available in more homes), but I’d say its really up for grabs.
Good catch, Fritz. However, I’m going with South Park, which you have to admit is wa-a-a-a-a-y more mainstream than some machinima shorts showing on IFC, as absolutely cool as that may be. That’s a real preponderance of The Sims over there, too. (Or is it The Movies?) Hasn’t IFC heard of Halo?
From what I remember, IFC screened winners from last year’s Machinima festival as well. I don’t think Halo ones were a part of it though. But don’t blame IFC on that one however. The red tape associated with getting clearances on any Machinima piece is enough to make enough lawyers retreat back to their golf game.
That’s very true, good point about the clearances.
Ah- someone on my IM list just reminded me that the Drew Carey show had an episode where a scene took place in the Sims.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drew_Carey
Wonder if anyone is chronicling this stuff…
ill clan provided machinima segments for either G4 or MTv awards etc. forget which. Viacom trumping Viacom..lol
IS showtime mainstream?…my guess it is. machinima shown there by ill clan in 2001….. on air? maybe.
I don’t generally follow South Park anymore, but I made a point to TiVo it last night. Funny episode, and uncomfortably close to home.
But what is that thing the avatars were doing with their mouths? They kept flapping open and closed when they talked! It confused and frightened me. Most unnatural avatar behavior.
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Wonder how much Blizzard paid to get World of Warcraft feature in the episode.
Couldn’t tell you how much they paid but you can read an article on Craftingworlds.com which is the site of one of the machinima artists that helped create the in game aspect of the episode. :)
~poae
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