The first half in the term “Machinima” comes from the idea of the machine. In the case of the form, the “machine” that is referred to is the computer game. The second half refers to the cinema.
In the creation of Machinima, games are used not for their intended purpose. Instead, users take the characters/settings/actions available within the confines of a particular gaming engine and use them as cast, crew, camera, sets/props and plot. This “breaking of the rules” and revolution in game usage is perhaps the most praised example of ‘emergent gameplay’.
Emergent gameplay is the creative use of a game in ways unexpected by the game designer's original intent. It commonly appears as complex behaviours that emerge from the interaction of simple game mechanics. This is most common in computer games and is often prized by game designers. (Emergent Gameplay - Wikipedia.org)
“Emergent gameplay supports player choice and expression in a way that you can't get in a game where every possible challenge, solution, and outcome is understood and explicitly implemented ahead of time by the developers. The important thing to me is the fact that interaction is what sets games apart and makes them a unique art form. If the history of other art forms is any indication, then I believe the future of interactive art is in more complicated forms of interaction, and emergence is likely to be a designer tool which contributes to pioneering that future. But it's probably the case that whether entertainment software follows this development is up to fickle consumer demand.” (Randy Smith, 2005)
Although emergent gameplay may be seen as responsible for the birth of Machinima, the form’s connections with conventional filmmaking and roots in traditional storytelling can also be attributed to its rise. Even before the advent of Machinima, theorists have viewed strong associations between game and story. They both have in common two important structures, and so resemble one another whenever they emphasize these structures. The first structure is the contest, the meeting of opponents in pursuit of mutually exclusive aims… The second structure is the puzzle, which can also be seen as a contest between the reader/player and the author/game-designer. In a puzzle story, the challenge is to the mind, and the pacing is often one of open-ended rearranging rather than turn-based moves. (Murray, J. 2004)
Janet Murray asks: “Which comes first, the story or the game? For me, it is always the story that comes first, because storytelling is a core human activity, one we take into every medium of expression, from the oral-formulaic to the digital multimedia.” (Murray, J. 2004) This may also go to explain, in part, the movement of emergent gameplay toward the incorporation of narrative filmmaking, as seen in the Machinima product.