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Game Industry Not Bigger Than Hollywood
The Grumpy Gamer has a counterpoint to the oft mentioned argument that the games industry is bigger business than the movie industry. From the article: "The domestic US box office is estimated to be around $9B for 2004, and this is where the myth starts to take life. The problem is the movie industry is a lot bigger then just the U.S. box office. DVD sales and rentals for 2003 topped $16B. VHS sales and rentals for 2003 was $6.4B. VHS sales are declining fast, but most of that will just shift over to DVDs, which brings the grand total for non-box office movie sales to over $20B, twice the figure for the entire game industry."
Maybe they'll hit $25B if the keep getting torrent and eMule trackers taken down. They need the money.
The real question: Is the rental industry bigger than the Movie theater industry?
Do these figures take into account game rentals?
Mercy was given to me by Christ...I must give the same to others.
So...
Which sells more merchandising?
Which sells more novel versions?
Which sells more subscriptions?
Which employs more people?
Which sells more disk media?
Which sells more theater tickets?
Here-in lies the problem with comparing any two industries.
no
It's only a matter of time before movies fade away like Lawrence Welk music and radio variety hours.
At the same time, $10B is a lot of dough, no matter what you are comparing it to. The movie industry is "only" twice as big? Yeah, well, they have had over a hundred years to build that up. How long has it taken for the game industry to reach the halfway mark? At that rate, how long before it passes the $20B mark? It is impressive no matter how you look at it.
Since "the game industry" presumably includes hardware sales, doesn't that mean that you have to take into account all types of home theatre equipment sales when talking about the movie industry? DVD player sales, at least?
As far as I can tell from the original article, the numbers generated for video game revenue do not include rentals either.
And Movie Video Games.
You can't exactly say that the industries are entirely disparate. Many blockbuster movies become video games, and we've had a spate of video-games turned movies. Which industry are they a part of? Where does their revenue count?
It's pretty hard to have an objective statistic with these two industries.
With the crap that coming out the theatres, I won't be long until other industries top them.
AC comments get piped to
That the video game industry is a big industry now, definitely a major player in the world of entertainment, for those who weren't aware (like me).
It's definitely ballpark to the movie industry, which blew me away, I had no idea.
-Jesse
Nothing says "unprofessional job" like wrinkles in your duct tape.
The article mentions licensing in both the gaming and movie industries but what I also think about is the licensing as a foundation for a product: either as adaptation to a screenplay or a game itself.
:p
Now, how often do video games get turned into movies. A couple dozen? And how many have been good? Paul W. S. Anderson has done more to damage the flow from games to movies than anyone else. Usually its the movies based upon non-existent games that come off better (the only one I can think of is Avalon for now).
The reverse then: how many movies are turned into games? Hell, you run out of fingers every week for the crap game squirted out to hock a movie. For ever Spiderman 2 you have a Cat in the Hat, Shrek 2, E.T..
The day that a crap movie comes out only to boost the sales of video game will this argument become interesting. And, no, Chronicles of Riddick doesn't count.
What is music when you despise all sound?
Called entertainment.
Take a look behind the curtain.
Many video games are movie tie-ins.
Many movies are video game tie-ins.
Who chalks up the bucks for "The Incredibles" for XBox? The video game industry? The movie industry?
What about the revenue for the Doom movie? Video game industry? Movie industry?
What about the revenue for the endless talk tv drivel about the Doom game and movie?
My point is, the money ends up in the same pockets, for the most part.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
This isn't a proper comparison, and it never was in my mind. If you go to a movie in a Theatre, you get to SEE the movie in its entirety, but you don't own it. On the contrary, if you want to get the full experience out of a video game, you'll either rent it until you are finished, or buy it from the store. You can't compare these 1 to 1 because you can't pay 8$ to play a game for 3 hours and be 'completely satisfied' and get closure from it. Now they want to compare Movies, VHS, and DVD sales to .. it looks like just plain Video Game Sales.. What about Video game rentals? How about all the gaming events that they have around the country? Im sure there's money being spent there.. Does this include arcade games that people plug coins into?
You can't just take a look at opening sales of a movie theatre and compare it to opening sales of a video game and claim either is bigger than the other.
At least, it seems flawed to me, but I've been working all day and am probably fried. Anyone have any opinions on this?
Its Deluxe, son. Deluxe!
I see the quality of reporting by our 4th estate is still ever so wonderful.
[rant mode on] I mean the video game industry is maybe 10bn$ but quality is down the gutter. Same for film industry. I mean just look at how they transformed a good story from Asimov into a action flick. How many film made you think recently ? How many classical like "once upon the time in the west", or even "The Seventh Seal" and many other ? The game industry had become what I always hated in the last 10 years about the film industry : more and more copying and reusing the same sucessful "recept" for the mass (Shooter Episode VII : the return of the evil priester) and few and far original game. [/rant mode off]
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
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Do these figures take into account used games and game rentals?
Almost every game store is pushing very, very hard to sell used merchandise. They offer 'lifetime warranties' on CDs and DVDs (but not against scratching or damage!) and they purposefully steer parents to used titles, if you have been in a game store you have seen it. This income is not shared with the game publisher, or anyone else but the game store itself.
These greedy sons of bitches now sell used games for the same price as new games, and pocket all the money. At EB Games Far Cry sells for 35 dollars used, the same price it sells for new! this is 10 months after it was released. There is no excuse for ripping the allowance out of their hands like this.
Even though the bottom line of the movie houses dont see this, there seems to be a huge buying and selling of used games. Ive seen used LOTR xbox games that I can get for a 25% then any new ones. Of course, you needs to make sure they work.
Heck, even amazon.com encourages the buying and selling of used products.
Let us not forget the money raked in by the porn industry. Sure, it's not mainstream film and it's not done in Hollywood, but I'm sure that would add another couple billion with easy.
Entertainment industry.
Film industry revenues worldwide are roughly on the order of $180 billion, with Hollywood making up roughly a third, or $60 billion. I love games as much as the next guy, but they've got a long way to go.
(Shamelessly stealing from the previous discussion.)
Another difference between games and movies is that movies have a much broader cultural impact. $50/game makes the receipts look comparable, but five times as many people are seeing the movie, discussing it around the water cooler, etc.
And, of course, while the gamer demographic is older and more affluent than a decade ago, it's still mostly males under 35. The movie audience demographic is much broader.
don't forget to tally all the popcorn, candy, and sodas, etc, that the theaters rake you over the coals for.
I wonder how much money is spent in hardware upgrades by gamers wanting to play the latest and greatest?
Sure, it's probably not enough to offset the difference. The point is that the gaming industry also has tie-ins to other areas.
Game rentals.
Game subscription fees.
Game swag sales.
International all of the above.
Factor those back in, and the game industry comes out back on top.
Bottom line: Games get a slightly larger share of consumer entertainment dollars than movies do. People also spend slightly more hours playing games than watching movies.
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And both are dwarfed by the porn industry. If you were to inclube porn in with movies though then well the videogame industry does not come even close. I would look up the stats on porn but I am at work and would rather not get fired today. I do recall porn being bigger than all of major league sports at the minimum.
Tinfoil hat? Naa, I long since replaced it with a reinforced titanium alloy.
... that EverQuest ALONE is bigger than the movie industry -- considering the nice market in Item Sales.
3 Hour film in theater: $10 (1998)
10+ Views of 3 hour film on VHS/DVD: Another $20
10+ Hours single player gameplay: $50
100+ Hours Multiplayer Gameplay: Same $50
0110100100100000011000010110110100100000011000100
...porn video games?
The CB App. What's your 20?
Wasn't there just a slashdot article saying the opposite just last week? I'm so very sick of the lies.
You bastard!!!
Look man, we're a bunch of geeks and our lives revolve around gizmos, gadgets and games. We WANTED to think that we are actually mainstream and thereby justify our lifestyles. Now you went and made us a bunch of niche-dwelling nerds again... I hope you're satisfied.
I hear they play games outside the U.S. sometimes...
All told, all-things-movie (U.S. and non-U.S., theatre, rental, sales, merchandise, etc.)
probably does still outweigh all-things-game (ditto above list), but look how far games have come!
And don't forget the crossover (ie, games that
become movies and movies that are made into
games)... That should be split, somehow.
I dont even see a comparison in the fan base. Even though the game industry is supposedly catching up in sales what is the comparison in products sold? A game usually costs about $50 and a movie is around $20. So for the two to be equal in sales twice as many movies would need to be told than games. Right now the movie industry is making about double that of the games, so dosent that mean that they are selling four times as many products?
They STILL aren't satisfied and whine about losing money...anyone see the centropy interview with the "little" guy...who says piracy really doesn't affect him because he's making minimum no matter what?! Sorta makes u wonder because you would think it still affects them too but listening to him makes it seem like he has it hard no matter what..
THOSE LYING BASTARDS
Amusing you ask that, since the last article didn't take into account DVD and VHS sales and rentals.
I guarantee you game rentals don't even touch DVD sales.
The movies industry has a little tiny bit of lead time on the computer game industry which might account for some of that extra 20 billion...
...that a lot of people associated with the games industry have this fascination with comparing themselves to the movie industry. We make just as much/more than the movie industry. We self-regulate our ratings system just like the movie industry. Our games are so incredibly cinematic in nature, they're like miniature movies! We make all kinds of games based on movies, and movies are made based off our games, we're equals!
It's odd to me that something that for so many years was the "alternative" form of entertainment is now so obsessed with making itself just look and feel just like the movie and or television industry. The gaming industry as a whole needs to collectively take a look at itself and decide if this is what we really want. Creativity is the only limiting factor in gaming, we can't afford to lose that ingredient, or gaming as a fresh, exciting entertainment media is dead.
You can already see this happening: What are the big games right now? Half Life 2. Halo 2. Sims 2. Gran Turismo 4. Everquest 2. Final Fantasy 11. Grand Theft Auto San Andreas (essentially GTA6). Metroid Prime 2. Metal Gear Solid 3. Madden for the 15th straight year. Doom 3. Burnout 3. Prince of Persia 2. Spiderman 2. Pikmin 2. Paper Mario 2. Need for Speed Underground 2. The list goes on and on.
The fact is, you'll be hard pressed to find a video game these days that isn't a straight sequel, the latest title in a long line, or based on a universe established in other games (World of Warcraft). People were having a cow this summer when it was all sequels, where's the outcry over this practice in video games?
It seems like your average movie would take more people to make than your average video game. (microphone people, cameramen, caterers, assistants, makeup, stunts...).
And your average movie tends to support a lot of ridiculously rich people (actors, producers, directors, in addition to the CEO and major stock holders), so there must be more money there.
When the tabloids start following the art director for Halo 6 to see who (s)he's dating, I'll believe that games are on par with movies.
It's a compelling article, although there's a huge amount of number fudging.
(1) If you count DVD sales and rentals, aren't you double counting sales to the big rental chains? And of course, studios don't see the money from rentals any more than a game developer sees money from blockbuster renting a game, so why should that be counted?
(2) Does the $10B figure for the game industry include game rentals? Or is it possible that perhaps the rentals of games at, say, Blockbuster, got grouped into the movie rental business, since they do so much game renting?
(3) How does resale figure into this? There's a huge market for "pre-owned" games AND movies, including a lot of trade-in credits. Personally, I'd expect movies to be rented more but traded in less (at least as a percentage of their sales revenue).
(4) How do you account for cross-licensed stuff? It seems silly to count the Spider-Man 2 game as a purely "video game industry" thing, as it wouldn't even exist without the movie. And when Doom comes out in theatres, how does one account for that? Clearly, the brand names generated in each industry create value and that value is hard to measure solely off sales in one genre or another.
(5) What about subscriptions? There's obviously plenty of license money being thrown around by HBO when they get movies, and likewise, on the Video Games side, how much are all those MMO subscriptions worth?
One could even go into an in-depth review of piracy. How does piracy in each segment compare and effect revenues? What sort of margins do big hits have, and what sort of margins does the industry overall have? And what sort of residuals? It's a lot harder to squeeze more life out of an old game than an old movie. Old movies show up on TV and such, but old games just end up getting cracked.
And they give examples of bestsellers, but they don't look at the breadth of titles. How many video games came out vs how many movies?
And certainly International Box Office is absolutely colossal for big movies. How does gaming compare? A lot of major Hollywood movies take in 65%+ of their gross overseas. How do localized versions of Video Games compare?
I think what we can all agree on is that Video Games comprise an ever-increasing portion of the GDP and probably of the entertainment dollar that we spend, and as such, it's a lot harder to predict where they will go. Most video game players can imagine a *long* way into the future for video games in terms of technology, to the point where I could see people paying thousands of dollars for holodeck-type video game vacations that last a week; it's hard to see where movies go from here for sure, whereas Video Games have shown a seemingly endless appetite for more advanced technology.
Ok, so the money DVD sales are making is some 15 milliard dollars. But somehow, it's the piracy that took the money away from CD sales...
As I posted in "The Smaller Screen", in the earlier Slashdot discussion:
What exactly is this "Hollywood" that Matthew Yi claims is smaller than the $10B "Game Industry" in TFA? Maybe it doesn't include the $14B US ($32B global) record industry: a business run out of LA, mostly, and NYC, even if it's 80% owned in Tokyo/Sony, Berlin/BMG and Paris/Vivendi-Universal. Is it just movies (not TV, either)? The actual scale of "filmed entertainment" revenue (not including music videos, part of the "recorded music" industry) was $75.3B globally, before the predicted 7.5% growth rate for 2004 (ie. $81B). Porn movies and website subscriptions alone have a global revenue of $8-10B. Maybe video games are bigger than Hollywood the same way that John Lennon was bigger than Jesus.
FWIW, my numbers have a stronger citation basis than Grumpy's, comparing the more-relevant global scale, and actually show "Hollywood" to really dwarf the game industry. I'm not complaining about being underappreciated, because my post is mod'ed a "5, Informative", whatever that's worth (not much, as it garnered 0 replies). But I wonder what a guy's gotta do to get his counterpoint delivered on the Slashdot front page? Is it just a matter of publishing in another web page, to which Slashdot can point as a 'blog - chumming the Web with Slashbait, as it were? Or is there really a "higher mod" level than the apparent maximum "5", within which one's fabulous post can be promoted to a story of its own? How do I get my story pitched beyond this little screen discussion syndication, and get it starring in its own story, on the homepage big screen?
--
make install -not war
There were several 'movie games' back in the early 90s with excellent graphics, but you need to find the blue key in the haystack to get past a point. They were so freaking impossible without a hint book that they weren't fun. I'm freaking psyched we've finally evolved past that point. Now we're stuck in MMOG infancy mode. Theres going to be one big MMOG that comes out soon that will be a virutual monopoly(excuse the pun). Lets just hope it doesn't suck. If you don't believe me, think Street Fighter 2 popularity on a persistant world where there is user created content. People love the game at first and invest tons of hours and create tons of stuff in the game, so the game gets better over time. The amount of money it makes affords big name game developers, so the game just evolves in a way no other game could have ever afforded. Since the game rules so much, it will draw more and more gamers in. Since all the gamers are playing this game, they won't have dollars for other competing projects. Some games that have a chance of jacking the market
God spoke to me.
The Beatles not bigger then Jesus
When punk rock is outlawed, only outlaws will have punk rock.
It shouldn't matter, but I'm surprised the Slashdot blurb doesn't mention the fact that the author of the story (ie the "Grumpy Gamer") is Ron Gilbert of Monkey Island and Total Annihilation fame. Note his peculiar About page written in Latin. And he's geeky, too: Firefox and BSD links, and the whole thing is CC licensed.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
Ancient re-runs of the Lawrence Welk show run EVERYDAY on cable TV, at least in the Detroit market. I see it just about everytime I start surfing through the channels.
Lawrence Welk won't be fading away anytime soon.
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
Size doesn't matter.
FLR
don't forget that the game industry also has similar "submarkets" too.
There are various types of game rentals, game related hardware, game-related software (operating systems for PC's), etc.
People are more likely to continuously buy more game-related hardware than their movie-related hardware (TV, dvd players, etc.).
Plus the fact that the profit margins are probably better with games anyways (movies require alot more advertising and requires more initial capital while games, well...everybody and their grandma wants to get in on it if the hype is good).
Plus the game industry isn't that hell-bent on taking their customers to civil court and using tactics that make the mafia think "why didn't we think of that?"
Hell, one of the players in the game industry makes more money than the movie industry. Gatesy himself can buy the whole movie industry with what he has in his wallet.
When they say "bigger" they usually mean makes more money but that is only half the story.
A movie costs £5 at the box office or rental and £20 on DVD. A game costs upwards of £30, so while games may be competing with movies in the area of profits, the number of people playing games is far less than those who watch movies. Culturally videogames are still a long way behind film.
Does anyone factor in cable subscriptions driven by the movies that are shown? What about blockbuster and netflix subscriptions? Does anyone count games on cell phones, pdas, or non platform handheld games ? What about after market sales of movies or games on eBay, garage sales, etc?
Comparing two industries ain't easy. And I mostly agree with stratjakt (596332) anyhow that it is a moot point when you consider all the money ends up in the same few pockets.
are VLT and gambling video games included in this?
...just 'sayin.
Why would you include rentals in the numbers? Those don't make hollywood money except on the initial purchase by the rental place which would count under purchases.
Very enlightening to see how much farther the video game industry needs to climb before the average "Joe" recognizes the industry as he does Hollywood. But the overall point of these comparisons is that the game industry is still in its fledgling years (having been around for 20+ years), and it's not going to stop growing. It's an entertainment revolution in the making, one worth investing some time and money in.
I've been conversing with a variety of successful tech entrepeneurs lately, and I'm still amazed at *their* amazement when I point out the current revenues for video games. It's as if a whole flood of capital has passed by without notice. And one of the major reasons, I believe, is that they simply dismiss this genre of games like one might dismiss a child's idea. But even children grow up.
It is interesting to me that some /.'ers who don't understand the role of copyright law to protect movies in a free and open society are the same who are in love with the game industry.
Guess what folks: the game companies and the movie studios are allies on this one.
And, of course, while the gamer demographic is older and more affluent than a decade ago, it's still mostly males under 35. The movie audience demographic is much broader
Here is the whole point. Gamers are a young breed. Movie viewers are of all ages. When gamers are dying of old age, that would be the time to make side by side comparisons of the industries.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
pfft...Just wait until Duke Nukem Forever gets out of QA.
If you think
I wonder how accurate those estimates are. For example, if a video store buys $500 worth of videos from a distributor, then rents them out for $2500, is that $3000 towards the movie industry's efforts? Are they also counting profits from non-movie related video store sales, such as soda and candy?
And for the video game side, do they count arcades and PC game places in malls?
_______
2B1ASK1
People can check out my supplemental arguments to the idiotic article posted the other day here:/ worst_a rticle_e.shtml
http://www.jackphelps.net/archives/2004/12
or here:
Games are bigger than movies
Matthew Yi doesn't say what he's comparing the $10b figure to. My guess is that it's the oft-quoted ~$9.6b domestic box offices revenue figure. Both figures are domestic, but he is leaving out the important $21b home video market and the aftermarket licensing market (pay-per-view, public performance, etc.). I don't know the exact size of the latter, but according to ABN Amro in 2000 it was roughly 28% of the total dollars (probably about $8b domestic then, but my guess is that it's dropped off some). Hollywood produces a lot of porn, too. You want to throw that $8b in there, Yi?
How do you play your games and movies?
The $10b figure includes hardware. Consoles. Do I need to say that again? The $21b domestic video market requires dedicated players, too, and Yi ignored those in his analysis. Probably the most relevent statistic Yi could have used for the domestic games market, then, is the ~$7.15b 2003 North American games software sales stat from Push Research.
What the hell is Hollywood?
Okay, I understand that the guy is talking about movies, but he never even says that. He says "Hollywood" again and again. Even if he were using the abovementioned $9.6b gross domestic box office reciepts figure, he's wrong to call it "hollywood," because that figure includes a number of movies (albeit small) not produced at all by Hollywood, and does not include Hollywood's exported box office reciepts. That's akin to some sick hybrid between GDP and GNP where you count only good produced in the US and by US companies, and it tells you nothing and reeks of stupid journalist.
The month of November
Yi cites November as a killer month he considers demonstrative of the growth in games, and my personal opinion is that this is equally rotten analysis. November included the release of Halo 2, Metroid Prime 2, Halflife 2, a peripheral sales boom from the October 26th GTA: San Andreas release, and probably the 200,000 Nintendo DS units sold in the first week of release. What that means is that there has never been a month in gaming equivalent to that month, and there probably won't be in all of 2005 unless you count console releases, which again are hardly a relevent comparison.
Read jack phelps dot net
I was curious what the numbers were, however, for game rentals, and if they impacted the study at all.
Mercy was given to me by Christ...I must give the same to others.
Just to put things into perspective, WalMart does about $250 billion in sales annually. That's a single company taking in 10X the annual revenue of two entire industries combined. Now that's impressive.
Where's my 'Spirited Away' First-Person-Shooter?
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
"The 2004 domestic Video and Computer Game Industry is estimated to be around $10B. This is a slightly misleading figure because it includes the sales of the console machines, in addition to the sales of the software, but we'll go with it."
First he states, that it's BS because it includes console gaming. Ok, a stretch but I'll let it go.
"The domestic US box office is estimated to be around $9B for 2004, and this is where the myth starts to take life. The problem is the movie industry is a lot bigger then just the U.S. box office. DVD sales and rentals for 2003 topped $16B. VHS sales and rentals for 2003 was $6.4B. VHS sales are declining fast, but most of that will just shift over to DVDs, which brings the grand total for non-box office movie sales to over $20B, twice the figure for the entire game industry."
Now he says, that the movie biz is worth 20 billion if you take in to account international sales, dvd sales, etc. He says it's important to take into account intertantional sales but then he fails to take into account internation sales of video games. What is that number? Last I heard, it was close to 30 BILLION. (I'll try and dig up an official number later.)
Anyway, he then compares international gross of various movies with NATIONAL gross of video games. Yeah, that's fair. Halo 2 he says made $160 million. Hmm...that's strange, according to my research it made $125 million its FIRST DAY of release in North America alone. I suppose it's possible it only made another $35 million (which is only 700,000 copies) world wide past the first day but I'm doubtful. He says GTA: San Andreas grossed $178 million. I can find several internet sources with one google search that will tell you it made that much OPENING WEEKEND. That's not the total amount it will make.
Then Grumpy Gamer wonders where are all the limosines and fast cars that the gaming companies have. I guess since there's no giant premier on E showing these people coming out of limosines or exotic cars, they must not exist.
You can go on and on with this, but if this guy is going to try and debunk a "myth" (that only geeks know about anyway), at least try and be accurate instead of creating your own myth. This guy is completely talking out of his ass as far as I can tell. He has no hard evidence to prove anything. Apparently, Grumpy Gamer believes you destroy myths by mere speculation, lack of hard evidence, and incorrect figures. (Notice he didn't provide any sources for where his game gross' came from.)
Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood. -- H. L. Mencken
Movie ------> Game
Game -------> Movie
Hollywood is much bigger than the game industry, says google.
Hollywood wins 35 million to 15 million! Hollywood is over double the size of the game industry!
For $20 / month, I'd like to subscribe to 30-50 mainstream, but mediocre video games that are subsidized by ad placements within the game.
Once in a while, I'll want to go to the theatre, and pay $12.50 to play the latest multi-player game for 2-3 hours, with a superior script and cutting edge graphics and sound track.
If I really enjoy the game, I'll also pay $20-$30 to play it again, at home on DVD.
Why is he counting sales and rentals of movies? Does the auto industry count sales and rentals in their figures? I think just sales would be a better measure of the industry. Afterall, aren't the folks who buy the movies (or cars) and then rent them out a seperate industry from the ones who produce what they are renting?
Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
"DVD sales and rentals for 2003 topped $16B."
I call "bullshit" on this one. Everybody knows that P2P has killed off the DVD industry!
Prince of Persia: Warrior Within is the 5th PoP game, not the second. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_of_Persia.
The $10 billion doesn't include hardware and accesories. So, the games industry still isn't as big as Hollywood all around when you add in everything, but let's compare apples to apples.
Dang it, I already quoted the article that says gaming is bigger than movies.
:-)
DO YOU REALIZE HOW MANY GAMES I WILL NOW HAVE TO BUY TO MAKE MYSELF RIGHT AGAIN!!
Oh well, off to the electronics store I go....
(If at first you don't succeed, do it different next time!)
AFAIK, Hollywood DOES see money DIRECTLY from rentals. For some time now, Blockbuster has become merely a middleman for hollywood. Ever wonder why you *could* order DirecTV from BB? Same thing -- BB is a middleman. The movie industry supplies BB with all the movies it wants, and BB merely takes a cut. Ever wonder why there are 100 copies of "White Chicks" on the shelves at BB? It costs BB nothing to put them there. In contrast, AFAIK, blockbuster does not have the same deal with Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo, which is why there are only 1 or 2 copies of any given game on the shelves. I'm not sure what any of the above translates to, but I'd hazard to guess that if you are a developer of games, your profit is being eaten by Blockbuster, EB, etc., any retail outlet that resells or rents games, whereas more money is going directly into the pockets of hollywood and its stars.
Where's my 'Spirited Away' First-Person-Shooter?
You must have that confused with the MechWarrior/ Howl's Moving Castle tie-in video game
The folks who rant and argue over such things as which industry is larger the game or movie industry...are folks that drive me crazy.
What does it matter, do I win a prize if Hollywood is bigger or vice versa?
The point is they are both huge industries.
As long as they do well, who really cares which is larger (aside from the movie and game publishing execs of course).
Read this article to find out why there is such a big difference in the figures (it's a little old, but informative).
If you are looking at the data that indicates a progressive decline in "in-theater movie experiences." American's, at least, fail to express an increasing desire to attend a movie in the theater. You now pay ~$100US for a family of four to have a night on the town including a movie.
At one time, that demographic was the bread-and-butter of the local movie house. Now a large segment of the US population is staying home with their high-quality audio and television units, rather than drive to town (fuel), grab an early dinner (fast food), drive to the cineplex (fuel), pay for your tickets (ouch!), buy a few snacks (sock!) and a drink (pow!), and you have probably spent the entire months entertainment budget.
The movie industry will decline for a short time and will eventually mimic the game industry's business model. They will still put out occasional theatrical releases of big-budget shows, but the "B" movies will probably never be shown in local screens.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
Thats a great idea but I don't think it works.
Think about it. The theater charges ~$8 PER PERSON.
That means if you go with a family of 4 you're actually paying $32+ to see the movie.
I would think that a family of 4 watching the same movie at home for $8 would seriously cut into profits.
Not to mention all that over priced food/drinks the theater sells you.
What's the problem with geeks and "then/than"? (re: headline)
yeah keep talking about billions, I love it !!
Let me first say the use of quotes to seperate numerical sale statistics from your own opinion is commendable, I'm not trying to flame you here.
I hated both of those! I don't claim to be a movie expert, so my feelings on the Titanic is merely at average consumer level, but I'm a very avid gamer. I'd like to think that sacrificing the majority of a social life for the things has brought me at least some credible insight, and I don't think that it's stressed nearly as often as it should be that Half-Life 2 is simply THE best fps to date, hands down.
Am I going crazy? I see people all the time who are torn between purchasing Half-Life 2 or Doom 3, and I'm bewildered. I see Halo 2 get better reviews than Half-Life 2 and I shake my head in disgust.
Halo 2 is a cash cow, a shadow of its former self (which was already overrated to begin with) grossly mutated by the knowledge that it's a pop-culture darling. Half-Life 2, on the otherhand, used those energies to a much more positive use, but unfortunatly, the audience is larger now. Many of the new blood didn't get to experience the magic of the first game, all they know is empty, showboating, ripoff of larry niven, microsoft-mangled Halo. I played them back to back and it seemed to me that it should be plainly obvious to even the lay man that half-life 2 was a vastly superior game, both in technical development and gameplay.
But yes, you're absolutely right, games are much more economical in terms of quantity of entertainment. Quality, too. In many cases longer run-time can mean richer storylines and greater variety. I'm much quicker to add a game to my cd folder than a movie to my shelf for just that reason.
The problem is the movie industry is a lot bigger then just the U.S. box office
I've noticed you do it a lot with "spit" vs "spat" as well, eg:
"He spit the gum into the rubbish bin."
I'd write it off as just typical /. bad spelling, but I've also seen it quite a bit in supposedly professional writing.
/Not flaming so much as just curious...
The point I received from this article wasn't to find another hundred ways to prove the article wrong, but to prove the statisticians that have advertised to the world for at least five years if not longer that the video game industry is larger than the movie industry wrong. That's just a flat out lie. It just makes the story sound more exciting when you can compare it to, let's say this together "The movie Industry". Now you have all eyes watching as you present the game industry. This hidden dark dungeon of money. It's all bull. Flat out, the movie industry makes more, screw the fact that games get pirated; would that put them over the game industry? NO, because then you would counter sue with the fact that the movie industry is being pirated. I'm glad to finally see that the movie industry makes plenty of money and the video game industry is peeking at half the movie industries profits; which we've been told were less than that of the "video entertainment" industry. Movies make more, no more bull from CNN about this massive industry overtaking the world! So does this mean there's room for growth?
This story is completely meaningless. I don't remember ANYONE ever stating that the film industry made less that the game industry. It was only "game industry makes more than movie BOX OFFICE sales". No one with any where-with-all ever said otherwise. This is completely a "lack of news" story stating nothing new.
It's always been BOX OFFICE vs. games, not all film revenue vs. games.
Ok, now we all know that numbers can be turned to support pretty much whatever view we want them to. Here are a few questions to consider on the "Who makes more money."
1. Is the Final Fantasy movie revenue counted towards the Final Fantasy Games (which have been around for years) or Hollywood? (Add movie made from a game of your choice)
2. Is the Harry Potter video game counted towards Hollywood (where the movie came out first) or games? (Add game made from movie of your choice)
3. Is harry potter merchandise counted towards the game, the movie, or the books? (Add merchandise based on several sources of your choice)
4. Are we only counting US markets or worldwide markets? If worldwide then Japan has a lot of high end gear based off of games, conventions based around them, concerts performed by characters of games, etc... Of course, India and China have thriving movie industries now as well.
5. Are TV shows based on discussing games counted towards games? (Cinimatech, Judgement day, etc...)
6. Are TV shows based on discussing movies counted towards Hollywood?
At any rate, deciding who is bigger is playing the same games that politicians play. You just take the things you want to include to support your view and thats what you publicize.
I think the grumpy gamer should learn the difference between then and than.
The day that a crap movie comes out only to boost the sales of video game will this argument become interesting.
Been done(100 minute SMB3 ad, shown in theaters), but not recently.
The key to the enjoyment of pop music is to replace any instance of "love" with "C.H.U.D."
The myth that the video game industry is larger in profits than the movie industry is not only bogus, but it has been thrown around for ages.
From a somewhat reputable source:
"The confusion as to the actual size of the gaming industry is widespread. Since the early eighties, claims has been made that games outsell movies. Nevertheless, it appears not to be so."
The claim has been around ever since 1982, when the Atari era was at its peak.
Total computer and video game *software* sales, US, 2003:
$7 billion.
(The $10 billion figures includes console HARDWARE sales. It inflates the stated size of game revenues by over 40%)
Total movie box office sales, US, 2003: $9 billion.
Add in DVD/VHS sales and rentals (another $22.4 billion) for a total in the US of
$31.4 billion.
And how about actual audience?
Total units sold, computer and video games, 2003:
239.3 million.
Total movie tickets sold, US (just actual movie tickets, not units of DVD/VHS sold/rented):
1.5 BILLION. With a B.
'nuff said.
Flout 'em and scout 'em,
and scout 'em and flout 'em;
Thought is free. - Shakespeare [The Tempest]
The haggling over numbers is really almost beside the point.
Hollywood has a cultural impact that games have not yet approached (simply consider the number of games based on films, vs. the number of films based on games). How many games industry figures are household names? At a rough guess, zero.
Hollywood stars themselves are hugely influential. I don't think any women in shopping isles are reading Us magazine to find out about John Carmack's twins...
Hollywood's marketing machine covers far more than DVDs and rentals. A large proportion of the publishing market is driven by movies (many best-sellers are books that have just been adapted to film that otherwise sold quite modestly), similarly rock groups and fashion houses can be made or broken by films.
Next week on slashdot, someone says that the gaming industry is bigger than god and later someone will argue that it isn't.
Frylock: "We should have cloned twenties, Jackson wouldn't have given a fuck."
Are all the people who posted in the last article that "See, piracy doesn't affect gaming and even helps it" going to now revise their opinions?
No, because they don't need to. The fact that the video game industry "only" makes $10 billion a year doesn't say anything about piracy's effect on it. If the industry really was bigger than Hollywood, that would've, because in order for that to happen, video games would have to be doing amazingly well.
Rob
What about the sale of concessions at movie theaters? Without big name Hollywood pictures, we can't buy $3 bags of popcorn and $4 sodas.
YHBT. YHL. HAND.
Love,
Overly Critical Guy (aka bonch aka rd_syringe)
Sales and rentals SHOULD be counted. Obviously you don't know how Blockbuster works.
Blockbuster gets FREE copies of studio films, and in turn BB kicks back a cut of the profits to the studios.
Thus the studios make money off of sales AND rentals, and they are totally seperate. In fact, with BB (which dominates the movie rental industry), the studios are not selling BB anything when it comes to copies of movies for rent.
Only if you count BB selling previously viewed DVD's would you be including more than you should in this kind of analysis.
General Motors posted 184 billion in revenues for 2003.
So one large multinational company exceeded the revenues for all movie studios in the world. Now I wouldn't be making a deal about this except I'm tired of (a certain political party's) politicians talking about Hollywood's endless supply of money-in the context of its effect on the political process. The truth is, the American Movie industry is a very small part of a huge economy. There are a number of companies whose revenues far outstrip all of tinseltown, and any one of them are just as likely to throw money around to try an influence the government.
The economically most accurate comparison of two businesses is to compare their market value. For example, by that measure, Toyota is "bigger" than GM, Ford and DaimlerChrysler *combined*. If you want to compare industries, in theory you could compare the market values of the businesses that make up the repective industry. Of course, with so many privately-held companies, it's much harder to measure market value, but the concept is the most valid. At least more valid than saying "we employ more people than you, so we are more valuable".