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In the hierarchy of pop culture, video games are relegated to the lowest of lowbrow categories. Praise for their artistic qualities tends to fall flat with non-gamers. Author Gabrielle Zevin writes beautifully about designers creating “infinite rebirth, infinite redemption”. But it’s difficult to remember that when you’re watching someone run over a pimp in Grand Theft Auto.
在流行文化的等级制度中，电子游戏被归为最低级的低俗类别。非游戏玩家对其艺术品质的赞美往往不屑一顾。作家加布里埃尔•泽文(Gabrielle Zevin)优美地写道，设计师们创造了“无限的重生，无限的救赎”。然而，当你看到有人在《侠盗猎车手》(Grand Theft Auto)中撞死皮条客时，很难记住这一点。
There is, however, one way in which the uncanny semi-reality of video games can be used to produce works of art.
然而，有一种方法可以利用电子游戏中不可思议的半现实性来创作艺术作品。
During England’s third, bleak pandemic lockdown, a pair of out-of-work actors hit on the idea of staging a full production of Hamlet while they were gaming. Their play, which was live streamed, won an innovation prize at The Stage Awards in London last year. It has now been turned into a documentary, Grand Theft Hamlet, that is a tribute to both the madness of elaborate lockdown projects and the possibilities of machinima.
在英格兰第三次惨淡的疫情封锁期间，两名失业的演员突发奇想，在玩游戏时上演一部完整的《哈姆雷特》。他们的戏剧通过流媒体直播，去年在伦敦的舞台奖(The Stage Awards)上获得了创新奖。现在，这部剧已被拍成纪录片《侠盗哈姆雷特》，向精心设计的疯狂封锁项目和游戏电影的可能性致敬。
Machinima (a misspelt portmanteau of machine and cinema) is a form of filmmaking that takes place inside video games.
游戏电影（Machinima，机器和电影的拼写组合）是一种在电子游戏中进行的电影制作形式。
Some are simple voice-overs recorded by gamers messing around. More elaborate examples include an Emmy-award-winning episode of South Park set among the orcs and gnomes of World of Warcraft and artist Brent Watanabe’s San Andreas Streaming Deer Cam, in which a computer-generated deer wanders serenely through a game cityscape listening to the babbling of NPCs (nonplayer characters).
有些是游戏玩家随意录制的简单配音。更复杂的例子包括获得艾美奖的一集《南方公园》(South Park)，其背景设定在《魔兽世界》的兽人和侏儒之间，以及艺术家布伦特•渡边(Brent Watanabe)的《圣安地列斯流媒体鹿摄像头》，其中一只电脑生成的鹿在游戏城市中安详地漫步，聆听着NPC（非玩家角色）的絮絮叨叨。
The format comes with challenges. In Grand Theft Hamlet, the actors are constantly interrupted by violent police chases and robberies. At one point, Hamlet has to break his soliloquy to make a plea for audience members not to shoot one another until the performance has come to an end.
这种形式带来了挑战。在《侠盗哈姆雷特》中，演员们不断被警察的暴力追捕和抢劫打断。有一次，哈姆雷特不得不中断独白，恳求观众在演出结束前不要互相开枪。
The obvious question is why? Why put so much effort into making films in a medium designed for mindless distraction? And why create something that relies on blocky computer graphics and stiff avatars that have trouble moving their features?
显而易见的问题是，为什么？为什么要花这么多精力在一个专为无意识分心而设计的媒介上制作电影？又为什么要创造出依赖于块状计算机图形和难以移动特征的僵硬化身的东西呢？
Jenna Ng, professor of digital media at the University of York, says one reason is accessibility. No expensive camera equipment is needed to make a film. And if the aesthetic is off-putting to some it’s why she loves them. “I find it beautiful because it is unlike anything else we see in our visual culture.”
纽约大学(University of York)数字媒体教授Jenna Ng表示，其中一个原因是可及性。制作电影不需要昂贵的摄影设备。如果这种美学让一些人感到不适，这正是她喜欢它们的原因。“我觉得它很美，因为它不同于我们在视觉文化中看到的任何其他东西。”
Machinima is a niche pursuit, though popular enough to have its own film festival in Milan. It joins the ever-increasing number of crossovers between traditional art forms, mainstream entertainment and gaming. Shakespeare fans can also seek out the Nintendo Switch offers To Be Or Not To Be (tagline: “guide Hamlet, Ophelia and Hamlet Sr to hundreds of hilarious deaths”).
游戏电影是一种小众的追求，尽管它已经流行到足以在米兰举办自己的电影节。它加入了传统艺术形式、主流娱乐和游戏之间日益增多的跨界。莎士比亚迷们还可以在任天堂Switch上找到《生存还是毁灭》（标语：“引导哈姆雷特、奥菲利娅和老哈姆雷特走向数百次滑稽的死亡”）。
If you don’t play video games it can be hard to wrap your head around exactly how popular they are, let alone the idea that anyone could find them beautiful. But for several years now, gaming revenue has comfortably exceeded that of both film and music combined.
如果你不玩电子游戏，你可能很难理解它们到底有多受欢迎，更不用说有人会觉得它们很美。但多年来，游戏收入已经轻松超过了电影和音乐收入的总和。
There was even a time when it seemed as if machinima might become a dominant form of entertainment. In the early 2000s, during the rise of LA’s “Silicon Beach” mixture of entertainment and tech start-ups, a company also called Machinima began collecting the films and putting them on YouTube. Its founder declared younger generations didn’t want to watch TV in the old way any more. But after a change of ownership, Machinima was shut down.
甚至有一段时间，游戏电影似乎可能成为一种占主导地位的娱乐形式。21世纪初，随着洛杉矶“硅滩”(Silicon Beach)娱乐和科技初创企业的兴起，一家名为游戏电影的公司开始收集这些影片并将其放在YouTube上。其创始人宣称，年轻一代不再想用旧方式看电视了。但在所有权变更后，游戏电影被关闭。
What has emerged since then are films with fewer online views but more cinematic ambition.
自那时起，出现了一些在线观看次数较少但更具电影抱负的影片。
At a screening of Grand Theft Hamlet co-director Pinny Grylls explained their appeal as a uniquely modern art form. “I think it is the job of filmmakers to reflect the world people live in,” she said. “And many more people live, love and interact inside these game worlds.”
在《侠盗哈姆雷特》的放映会上，联合导演皮尼•格里尔斯(Pinny Grylls)解释了它们作为一种独特的现代艺术形式的吸引力。她说：“我认为电影制作人的职责就是反映人们生活的世界。现在有越来越多的人在这些游戏世界中生活、恋爱和互动。”