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Gaming 225working on something so complex like a movie could have helped me tolearn not only new skills but also about myself.” Tom never talked aboutvideo games in terms of “gamer guilt”: “I never felt that playing a game wasnot culturally valid: I really don’t see any difference in watching a movie andplaying a game. They could be both very enriching experiences.” However,Tom is not a fan of television. “That does feel like a waste of time.” In hismedia hierarchy, television is at the bottom because “it is so dumb” and “neverreally asks the viewer to do any effort.” Machinima making, on the contrary,was intensely creative.To describe the process, Tom frequently used words such as “persistence,”“perseverance,” and “tenacity.” “I have never felt that I was going to quit,but I must admit that I underestimated the time and effort that it takes tomake something good.” Tom’s biggest fear was to be perceived as “the lazykid,” “the flaky one,” somebody “who cannot finish what he started.” Whenhe first announced to his friends that he was making an animated movieusing video games, he felt that “bailing out of the project would have beencatastrophic [laughs].” What drove him to complete his film was “a mixtureof ego, stubbornness, and excitement.” He added: “I kept telling myself: Don’tgive up on me, don’t give up on me.” Tom is fascinated by the Roman Empire(some of his favorite books are The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empireseries by Edward Gibbon) and he was surprised to see that very few gamesfocus on this particular historical period. “There are millions of titles set inthe future, like Halo, or during World War II, like the Call of Duty series, butalmost nothing on the ancient Rome.”To re-create historical battles, Tom resorted to Total War, a very popularstrategy game for the PC. It was an unusual choice for a machinima: infact, most authors use first-person shooters or simulations such as TheSims. Tom wrote the script in two days, but he faced a daunting task.He needed to obtain the necessary game footage to construct a long andcomplex story. While most machinima last a few minutes, his intention wasto create a one-hour film, quite an ambitious goal for a first-time effort. Producinga machinima requires technical and social skills: One, one has tocollect the appropriate footage from a game. Such content needs to be edited.Convincing dialogues and/or proper subtitles need to be added. The implicationsare twofold. First, creating a machinima is much more complex thanjust “playing a game”—the gamer becomes a director. The implication orprerequisite is that the creator needs to understand the language and conventionsof cinema as well as the inner workings of a video game. He also assumesthe role of a skilled technician able to master sophisticated applications suchas Final Cut Pro or Vegas. But personal expertise is not enough. Second, afterhe collects all the raw material, the production process becomes intensively