Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Game Industry Not Bigger Than Hollywood

Posted by Zonk on from the counterpoint dept.

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."

3 of 306 comments (clear)

  1. Wait... what? by bludstone · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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 .sig
  2. Re:Valid Point, and Yet Not by arivanov · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Excuse for being an idiot, but where do the games like Shrek 2 and movies like Tits & Guns AKA Lara Croft classify themselves?

    That is without even mentioning the Star Wars frachise which collected a tidy 6 digit sum out of X Wing, Tie Fighter, Rebellion, Tie Fighter vs X Wing, Jedi Knights and the extension packs for all of them.

    These two industries are nowdays ONE industry. Every decent movie has a lame game tucked on it and vice versa. Doom the movie... Yuck...

    --
    Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
    http://www.sigsegv.cx/
  3. WalMart by sxltrex · · Score: 4, Interesting
    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.


    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.