Collective Creativity: The Emergence of World of Warcraft Machinima

Published: July 3, 2011, 10:11 p.m.

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.