Blizzard and Microsoft make machinima rules

Wired discusses Microsoft’s Game Content Usage Rules, a document that tells Halo fans exactly what they can and can’t do in machinima; and compares it to Blizzard’s new machinima rulebook for World of Warcraft. Machinima is the practice of making animated movies using videogame engines.

The Microsoft document basically places four restrictions:

1. No “obscene or pornographic” material. So much for “Red Vs. Blue.”
2. No use of original music or sound effects. Microsoft does not always own the licenses to these.
3. No reverse-engineering the game. You can’t hack the game to make the characters do something they can’t normally do.
4. No expanding on the game universe. This means you can’t use Halo to make a story that takes place in Halo.

That last rule supposedly exists to keep you from telling a Halo story, then suing Microsoft if they use that story in a future game.

The Halo games do not come with a EULA, so Microsoft is basically adding restrictions to your use of their game.

It’s the opposite case with World of Warcraft. Blizzard makes players click-off on a EULA that limits the user from doing anything with the game Blizzard did not intend. To date, the creation of WoW machinima has been a EULA violation (although you wouldn’t know it from the official machinima contests at BlizzCon). The new rules specifically permit WoW players to create machinima in Azeroth.

Both sets of rules prohibit any commercial sale of machinima. Microsoft allows users to sell ads on sites that offer free machinima downloads.

Read the Wired article.