Machinima.....what?

What is machinima? Well according to UrbanDictionary.com, the leading defining source of all that is slang, and everywhere else i looked machinima was defined as the practice of people making movies/short films using video games instead of professional animating software. Everywhere that I looked it all had the same definition, people making films in real-time using these preconstructed interactive environments as there tools. For the most part first-person shooters, or role-playing simulations are used to make these films, games like Halo, World of Warcraft, The Sims or Quake. And these films range from super-reality films of the extra ordinary characters in these games, to people having the characters act in natural human ways. I came across many different "series" of these short films, like Red vs. Blue (using Halo), Anna (using Quake III) and a large archive/posting website called www.sims99.com with a collection of short films made using The Sims. Now, the first thing that strikes me when i went to the Red vs. Blue website is all of the episodes and "seasons" that they had for this machinima made for the internet, and most of all the Season 5 DVD set for sale. This made me wonder how Halo obsessed the public is that not only is there a mad rush for it when the video game comes out, and people waste endless hours staring at the tip of a gun on there TV screen, but they go and watch this series online, and then even buy it for DVD to watch it on TV again, only this time they aren't even playing the game, just watching a show with these characters they love. People spend so much time with these Halo characters that they need them as much as possible I guess, and having a live-action movie doesn't cut the cake, people want movies/TV shows staring the actual characters from the game, in there video game graphic 3D glory. Another series was the Anna series which followed the life of a flower being grown in the Quake III world. Now, this one is alittle wierd to me because Quake is shooter game, and here is this series that is based around a flower, it's kind of ironic and funny in that sense. But, I still find the world insanely video game obsessed if people are watching things likes this, and people are making films like this instead of maybe doing something in the calibour of Pixar, something that is more asthetically pleasing, and isn't stemed from someones obsession with the video game world. Me talking about and researching this is probably a little biased being that I don't really enjoy video games or the idea of people wasting away infront of a television of computer screen, but these are my opinions on it. I feel that if people really dig video games, and really want to make short films using these characters, instead of making these movies in this virtual world in real-time and overdubbing, they can learn how to make these 3-D characters themselves, and maybe create something using them, something they created themselves. All of this makes me think about the reading of the virtual worlds, and how there needs to be access in and out of the virtual world, and this just seems to be blending the two in a way. Also, it reminds me of Rose's writing about sampling, because the people that make machinima are taking this other person work and remaking it into there own. It isn't music, but it's still a form of entertainment, so I'm not going to go on a rebelion againts machinima, but you probably wouldn't find me going out of my way looking for it in my every day life.