The Machinima mushroom

A DIY guerrilla art form takes the film industry by storm(troopers)
It was only a matter of time until someone realized that movements permitted by in-game cameras closely approximate the visual language of film. Even more exciting possibilities opened up when fans combined this cinematic capability with social spaces such as first-person shooters and massively multiplayer games. A group of players can perform as actors while others can use the camera controls to record their interactions. In this way, gamers transformed a $50 video game into a powerful engine for creating animated videos.

A decent machinima primer to the San Antonio Current readers.

San Antonio Current