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."

Comments

Woo

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Wait... what?

[bludstone]

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.

Re:Wait... what?

[JaffaKREE]

Which sells more theater tickets?

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

Re:Wait... what?

[TopShelf]

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.

ITS ALL THE FUCKING SAME INDUSTRY

[stratjakt]

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.

Re:It's interesting

[Xaroth]

There is, of course, a major difference.

In movies, sequels suck. I mean, they suck a LOT. And before all of you start saying "Well, Star Trek [insert favorite one] was better than the original!", I have one word for you: Matrix.

The reasons for this are many. Lower budgets, raised expectations, changes in writers, directors, creative and technical staff, trying to extend a situation that shouldn't be extended, "direct to video", etc.

However, in video games, sequels are generally very good compared to their predecessors. Now, before you go saying "Final Fantasy [your least favorite one here] was so much worse than [your favorite one here]!", I can retort that you've just proved my point.

The reasons for this are many, but among them are: increased budget, improved technology, gameplay can be improved in an evolutionary fashion, a generally lesser emphasis on character development (so reusing characters isn't as big of a deal, since they are largely peripheral to the process; think "Mario"), an increased focus on the producers of the games themselves, etc.

In other words, the production of sequels for both formats is exceptionally different, and so, therefore, are their results. That's not to say there aren't exceptions on either side, but if you look hard enough at the exceptions, you'll probably find examples of techniques from the other format. (For example, changing the creative direction for Silent Hill 4 was disasterous, whereas a lack of emphasis on character development is what has allowed the Godzilla franchise to continue to exist).