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Video Games Hit The Big Screen
Anonymous Coward writes "A movie theatre owner in Logan, Utah is hoping to start a new trend by bringing video games (Halo in this case) to the big screen. The local newspaper in Logan, The Herald Journal has a nice write-up about the success they had. Does anyone else think this could catch on to be successful, especially in college towns?"
waitaminute. who actually has time to leave the house to go game somewhere else? why on earth would you leave the safety and security of your 100% sunlight free cave of an apartment or bedroom to game somewhere else, and pay extra, and possibly *shudder* socialize and the real world? isn't the point of gaming just to ensure that geeks everywhere never see the outside world? or did i just miss something?
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If they let me play Dead or Alive Beach Volleyball on the big screen... I'd live there!
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I'm not sure if it's ever been something you can pay for, but the local Famous Players (big Canadian theatre chain) was advertising a Halo 2 fest with ten friends if you entered and won some sort of contest. That being said, I'd be more likely to pay 8.00 for a massive two-hour Halo deathmatch than a boring movie.
Put Doom3 or Halo in an IMAX and you won't have any trouble getting $50 out of my wallet.
Is the theater really going to make more money doing this than showing a movie?
It says that "There is a $3 charge for spectators to watch the games.", but that's a far cry from the $7+ they would charge for a movie.
Who here would actually participate, either player or spectator?
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... Moviegoers will be wondering why they always see a Pac-Man maze burnt into the background of every movie they watch! Mwahahaha!
Cineplex Odeon did this back in the early 90's. Allowing people to rent out a theater to play nintendo. It tanked, big time
In reference to the previous article and to ward off any potential slashdotting, here's a link using the new Coral P2P cache. Enjoy!
At UMich Ann Arbor. With Super Smash Bros. and a few dozen others.
Village Cinemas in Melbourne are already doing this...See here
What prizes can I win?
First Prize: Family trip (2 adults and 2 kids) to the USA to visit Nintendo America. Second Prize: A GameCube Interactive Unit and a year's supply of GameCube games. Third Prize: A private Gold Class screening for 25 people at Village Cinemas Crown.
What dates can I play?
Get in by 8.30am each Sunday to register and prepare yourself for the big screen action!
1 August: Registration and Round 1 - 1080: Avalanche
15 August: Round 2 - Mario Kart Double Dash!!
29 August: Round 3 - Super Smash Bros. Melee
12 September: Round 4 - F-Zero GX
26 September: Round 5 - Super Smash Bros. Melee
10 October: Round 6 - Mario Kart Double Dash!!
24 October: Superfinal The top 300 players will compete in the Superfinal on Sunday 24 October where a winner will be crowned!
How much does it cost?
You can purchase a single session ticket for $12, which entitles you entry into one of the above challenges. A guest can also come and watch you play for just $5 a session.
If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence you ever tried.
Those projectors do not get used for slide sales demos ALL of the time you know. The response time is a little slow on the LCD screens, but lower the demo screen, set up the speakers and fire away.
Have you Meta Moderated t
This was already done when I was in college a few years back at Harvey Mudd. Every year one dorm builds a movie screen in their courtyard for the super bowl and leaves it up for a week after for video games and movies. In between, people regularly use the screens in our large lecture hall for after hours gaming. It looks like a blast, but at Mudd at least there's no market for selling this service.
Why not do this 'right'....
Host (for example) a arcade-version Street Fighter tournament at the movie theater and tap the game's A/V signals and route them through the theater's sound system and image projector to make the action appear on the movie screen. Charge a modest spectator fee to fill the seats (and likely offer a cut of it as prize money) and knock yourself out!
Note that classic games like PAC-MAN and TEMPEST won't do as they are played in 'portrait' mode and not the 'landscape' mode that is the same as the orientation of the movie screen.
Even better:
Video games on the IMax.
Can you imagine playing Rogue Leader on a screen that size?!
That would be one awesome dog fight!
Jonahweb.com has stuff.
Look for a new group ending in AA to form soon called the VGAA (Video Game Asssociation of America). I am sure they can put a stop to this illegal, immoral, and downright scandalous behavior. I bet video game sales are plummeting as you read this due to this activity.
Playing video games on the big screen must violate some law, act, or at least allegedly infringe on some intellectual property right. I wonder if anyone will sneak in a mini cam corder then record a game and make it available on P2P. I wonder if people take modded X-Boxes to the movie theatre? Imagine playing Halo on a modded X-box using the big screen (public display), while having someone record a video of the game, then posting it to a P2P network with a hacked 802.11 WEP key from the adjacent grocery store. This might be a new record for the amount of laws broken with a single activity!
Be warned! The black helicopters are probably assembling right now to go round these hoodlums up. I just wish the black helicopters would stop stealing my lawn furniture.
Why are all posts pointing out that this is a dupe getting modded flamebait?
I have a friend who is a manager at a one of the Famous Players theaters here in town. Occasionally late at night there will be an "xbox night". Everyone brings in a controller and their xbox (well 4 people do). Add a few meters of Cat5 and a $19 SMC 4 port router and you've got a recipe for good times. Last weekend we had 16 player games of Halo running for hours. Crimson Skies wouldn't go more than 4 player (2 theaters * 2 players) which was a shame. The new zelda really comes into it's own on a huge screen though.
Pretty much every theater these days has a digital projector for displaying those powerpoint-esque advertisements so it's just like plugging in at home: at least some good came out of those. It's worth buying the controller extension cables so you can sit 2 or 3 rows up rather than right against the back wall. Walkie-talkies cover the inter-theater communication because cellphones can be hit-and-miss.
They sell beer at the concession now and there is a Pizza Hut right there for the food so I can see how it could make a good night out for the guys. All that said, I'm not sure this is something I'd be willing to pay for. 4 players * 4 theater is great because there is no down time. If I had to sit out every 4th round I think I'd rather just play at home on my puny 130cm TV and xbox live. Splitting $60 4 ways also seams a little pricey (though not much more than a regular movie). Not being able to eat and drink while playing would be a major disappointment too.
"Revolutionary"? I don't think it will be any more revolutionary than when they were showing saturday morning cartoons on them a few years ago. A good novelty, but ultimately to expensive, inconvenient (can't just go-and-play) to compete with the home gathering.
i most certainly believe this is going to become a popular way to game (in multiplayer situations for sure). i just graduated from college and i cant tell you how many hours my friends and i wasted playing HALO on the projector i bought. whenever it was time to make teams (i was in a fraternity so we always had 8 people ready to play) there was always a huge fight over who got to play on the "big screen" and who had to go in the other room and play on the tv. i definitely recommend that if any HALO fans get a chance to play on a projection screen, take it! its a totally different experience. incidentally, there were clubs at school that used to commandeer lecture halls and stage huge HALO tourneys on the projection screens. this was at MIT though, so i guess that might not be so common.
They've been doing this around here for a few years now. A local theatre manager who happened to like video games would allow co-workers to invite a couple of friends and play video games on the big screen once in a while on either Friday or Saturday nights. I don't remember what it started with, but they had been addicted to Halo for a while last I heard. I don't play Halo, so I've never bothered to check it out. :-P
No way. College students are way too busy studying to do things such as playing video games and drinking.
Does anyone else think this could catch on to be successful, especially in college towns?
Yes, but only if there is beer provided. Pizza also a plus.
Video games have been done on a bigger "screen" than that: Brown students create massive Tetris game on building
I'm curious about this. There are a lot of accounts of theaters running gaming and such being posted on here. Of these, how many people are actually hooking the sound up to the theater system? As nice as it would be to see the game at theater size, it would be even cooler to hear it, provided it was hooked up in full surround, not just stereo, or upmixed 2 channel surround.
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
I tried this with a few friends of mine once... we knew a T/A in the CS department who had keys to the AV equipment (enough abbreviations FY?). We went to the largest lecture hall and played 20 foot Mario Kart 64 with the RGB projector.
It was fun... but damn, was it ever fuzzy. I don't think the N64 was meant to be blown up so large! Even on big screen TVs it gets a bit foggy-looking. Fish-doggy (Yoshi) was little more than a 6 foot blob.
Next time we'll have to try some PC gaming I think, to see if the higher res images fare better.
Visit the Game Programming Wiki!
This is why I didn't renew my /. subscription.
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http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/08/19
I would like convince my local theatre manager (I happen to know him) to do this, but he wants to know which steps are involved?
Who do you have to get permission from?
What if you do not charge (peeps will still want popcorn and soda)?
What hoops must you go through to have fun?
When modding "Informative", please make sure it both has a source and IS actually informative.
A friend of mine recently bought a projector, and we started playing XBOX games on it. Most are great and it's made a huge difference to the gaming experience. The only problem is that for people who have a tendency to experience motion sickness when playing FPS style games (like Halo) the effects become amplified. I can play Halo on a normal tv and only feel a little ill after, but after just a minute on the big screen I cannot play any more.
.. I hate replying to my own post.
The cinema really makes a killing on selling the candy. $3 cokes and $4 packs of salted and sweet snacks go a long way to stuffing the coffers of your local cinema outlet. The movies themselves are almost just a vehicle to sell junk food.
Film distributors are greedy, soul sapping bastards. If the candy bar didn't pull in an extra $10 or so per consumer here at my local cinema the place would be really scrounging for cash.
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SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
I've actually done this before. Thanks to my affinity with an Anime club, we had access to University theater projection equipment. Car racing type games were breathtaking since the cars were pretty much life sized! The only games that didn't work too well were side scrolling space shooters where there were lots of objects to track on screen. They're difficult because it takes longer for your eyes to track the whole field of view on a big screen killing your reaction time. Aside from that it was a lot of fun. I think if theaters decide to do this, it will be loads of fun! :)
The Cleveland Indians allowed people during "College Night" to play on their newly replaced JumboTron (now the largest screen in North America) at Jacob's Field on their "College Night" on May 6, 2004.
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I don't have any photos of the event, except for a local radio station's gallery of pictures.
http://www.wmms.com/jacor-common/globalphotos.htm
It's kinda coincidental that they've also made the connection between college and big-screen gaming.
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if people will sneak camcorders into the theaters to record the games, then release them on the Net.
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1. As long as this has nothing to do with Fred Savage, Super Mario Bros. 3, and the word "Wizard" (which, when you think about it, spawned, after several generational mutations, "Hackers")...Well, then I'm game.
2. As per college kids...C'mon, Timothy...
Here I quote after drunkedly RTFA...
"Timothy said tournament entry fees are $60 for a team of four. There is a $3 charge for spectators to watch the games."
Let it be said, and I feel safe generalising here, that any college kid with $63 will either spend it on: Ramen
Beer
Some Girl
This idea reminds me of the movie theaters that opened up with the pretense of being 'high class', i.e. serving dinner and booze. Nice idea, but the average Joe Consumer can only watch from afar and wish that he/she could afford such niceties. So. Target patron: College kid? Nope. Maybe parents could foot the bill for their kids to do it. Some pay membership fees for their wee ones to join skate parks, why the hell not this, I guess. It's a goofy niche, s'what I'm sayin'.
In conclusion, I'll get another beer.
Our conclusion was it could work with about a $50,000 investment in equipement and rennovations and could turn a tidy profit, however it was the fact that it was the X-box and we found that while gamers would pay to play on larger screens that many wouldn't because the ease of setting up a 4 room X-box match in the Dorms or existing frat houses, many of which had several new flat-panel TV's in every room (college/frats had just built 4 brand new houses at an average price of $2M a peice).
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
The Atari Home Computer version was projected on the roof of an observatory (planetarium?) in the very early 80's.
(most of these details could be wrong from it being so long ago, but I saw a photo of it.)
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