Dell announces machinima contest to win a XPS M1730 WoW Edition laptop

Earlier today, I posted a huge roundup of links to get you started on your first machinima, or just polish your current work. The reason behind that post was to announce the incredible contest that Dell is having! They're offering up not one, but two systems as prizes, but I'm getting ahead of myself. WoW Insider is lucky enough to have two of their staffers, Dan O'Halloran and myself, as judges for this event.

How to enter:

• Download the Dell XPS asset package from their site.
  

• Create a World of Warcraft machinima under 3 minutes long that features their system.

• Upload the video to YouTube and put it in this post on their forum.

• The submission deadline is September 23rd, 2008 by 11:59pm EST.

The prizes:

• Grand Prize: Dell XPS M1730 World of Warcraft Edition laptop

• Second Prize: Alienware desktop, Dell monitor, and Logitech gaming mouse, keyboard, and surround sound system

• Third Prize: Complete first series of World of Warcraft action figures, plus a Logitech gaming mouse and keyboard

Read on for the fine print and some things you should know before entering ...

Here are some of the more important rules:

• You must be 14 years of age to enter.

• The contest is open to US residents only.

• You can't be a spouse, sibling, parent, child, or househol member of a Dell employee. You also can't be employed there yourself.

• Entries must be flv, avi, mov, wmv, qt, or mp4.

• Entries must not have been submitted to any other contest prior to this one or uploaded anywhere before the start of the contest.

• Don't be a hater.

• Don't violate copyright, i.e. only include assets you have explicit permission to use.

• Don't violate Blizzard's Fair Use Letter.

• The videos will be judged based on three different criteria, including: creativity in conveying how the XPS system provides the ultimate playing experience (0-20 points), editing and technical ability (0-10 points), and creative elements of the video (0-15 points). There's also a bonus for number of views on YouTube (1 point per 1000 views up to 5 points total).

It's worth noting that some of the legalese in the rules is quite intimidating. I wanted to put potential entrants at ease, so I put in a call to Dell to clarify. The good news is that it's not as scary as it seems!

• Dell has permission from Blizzard to hold this contest, which means entering will not violate the Fair Use Letter.

• The contest is pretty hard to game. The max points you can earn for views is five.

• After the contest, you're free to upload your entry to higher quality video hosting sites. Uploading it any sooner would just rob you of the chance to get the extra five points.

• While the rules state that use of their image assets are for the contest video only, if you decide to remix the video at some point after, you can email xpsmachinima [AT] dell [DOT] com to request permission.

• The part about them having non-exclusive rights to your work without having to credit or compensate you is pretty much a standard CYA in order to ensure that no one comes back asking for money if they're featured on a site.

This shouldn't have to be stated, but please be sure to read all of the rules before entering. It would be a shame if your video was disqualified due to policy violation.