Collective creativity: The emergence of world of warcraft machinima

Abstract

HCIs interest in creativity support has extended beyond the realm of information-oriented professionals to the efforts of experience-driven collective communities. World of Warcraft machinima provides an opportunity to study networked creativity among a widely distributed and highly productive amateur community. We present an analysis of metadata gathered from the most viewed machinima on YouTube and WarcraftMovies. We demonstrate (1) a means for selecting an accessible corpus from a large population of videos, and (2) provide early evidence to support the claim that collective creativity develops over time and reaches a point of stabilization of production practices, technological infrastructure, aesthetic forms, and critical appreciation.