"Diary of a Camper" and the films that it inspired were initially called ""Quake" movies"; the term "machinima" was later coined in 1998, in response to the increasing use of other game engines. There was initial hesitance to retroactively label "Diary of a Camper" the first machinima piece; a Machinima.com article from February 2000 opened, "It's kinda hard to pin down the first Machinima: things like the Doom speedruns, the Stunt Island stuff and the Demo Scene all compete for the title. However, it's a lot easier to pin down the first piece of film made in a 3D game engine: Diary Of A Camper". Marino states that the AMAS carefully defined machinima in 2002 as "animated filmmaking within a real-time virtual 3-D environment" to separate machinima from its creative lineage. Separating machinima from the demoscene and earlier demo recordings, he defines "Diary of a Camper" as the first machinima work. Lowood also contrasts the film with earlier recordings of "documented gameplay".