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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."

10 of 306 comments (clear)

  1. Woo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny


    Maybe they'll hit $25B if the keep getting torrent and eMule trackers taken down. They need the money.

  2. Re:Wait... what? by JaffaKREE · · Score: 5, Funny

    Which sells more theater tickets?

    Well, this one I think I can answer for you.

  3. Re:Wait... what? by TopShelf · · Score: 5, Funny

    Forget all those minor details. When you add in the fact that pirates blatantly take $4.7 bazillion-gazillion out of the wallets of the gaming companies, you see that the gaming biz by any reasonable measure is the larger of the two.

    Of course, by that logic, the music biz represents a $843 googazillion industry, based on theoretical revenue from online file sharing.

    --
    Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
  4. um, yah by Severious · · Score: 4, Funny

    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.
  5. Re:But what about Video Game Movies? by rizawbone · · Score: 2, Funny
    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?

    Hit the buttons on your ps2 controller. If Toby McGuire jumps, it's a video game. If everything stops and you see a 'fuck off and die' FBI warning, it's a movie.

  6. Re:But... by rackhamh · · Score: 4, Funny

    Unlike movies, which only exist in the U.S.

  7. Re:Which is bigger? by Todd+Fisher · · Score: 2, Funny

    I'm with you. I've always said that the most annoying thing about going to a movie theater is that other people go there too.

    --


    --I'm not talking about dance lessons. I'm talking about putting a brick through the other guy's windshield.-
  8. Re:But... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    meta-mod parent mod down

  9. Re:Wait... what? by Yjerkle · · Score: 2, Funny

    Which sells more theater tickets?
    Well, this one I think I can answer for you.

    Well, don't leave us hanging! Which one is it?
  10. Re:WalMart by HuguesT · · Score: 3, Funny

    Are we going to compare industries in WallMarts now?

    I.e:

    the movie industry: 0.1 WM
    the game industry: 0.05 WM (tiny!)
    Microsoft: 0.2 WM (ha!)
    GDP of Greece: 0.9 WM