li.MsoNormal
{mso-style-parent:””;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:”Times New Roman”;
margin-left:0in; margin-right:0in; margin-top:0in}
div.Section1
{page:Section1;}
h1
{margin-bottom:.0001pt;
page-break-after:avoid;
font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial;
color:#010101;
margin-left:0in; margin-right:0in; margin-top:0in}
December 13, 2007
Why The Game Industry Is
Smarter Than Hollywood – And Must Stay That Way To Survive
By
Louis Bedigian
Which do you
think Hollywood cares about more: movies or light bulbs?
Nintendo
doesn’t make light bulbs. EA doesn’t make washing machines. 2K Games doesn’t
make hot coffee (though a mini-game by that name did get them in a lot of
trouble). For all its faults and growing concerns of mergers, which lead to job
and competition eliminations, the game industry is primarily about games. Yes,
they make the games to make money. But they don’t think of games as a side dish
to a bigger meal. Even Sony and Microsoft, who have many sources of income, have
divisions that are dedicated to gaming and nothing else. If you need proof,
compare Sony’s biggest games (such as God of War or Gran Turismo) to their
biggest summer blockbuster movies (such as XXX or Spider-Man). Which would you
rather spend time with?
Gran Turismo 5 Prologue
The same
cannot be said for Hollywood. The majority of its major players include a light
bulb and washing machine manufacturer (GE, owner of NBC and Universal), an
Internet Service Provider (AOL, owner of Time Warner and New Line), and a
merchandising conglomerate (Disney, owner of ABC and Touchstone Pictures). Most
of the big players own the little guys, and all of the independent studios must
work with the big players to get in theaters or on national television. Even
George Lucas, who despises Hollywood, had to use 20th Century Fox to distribute
his Star Wars prequels. Now Starbucks is getting into filmmaking, a company
whose primary concern is over-priced coffee.
In other
words, to make a movie or TV series succeed, you must at least go through a
company that puts something else first.
Which is
exactly the point I’m getting to: gaming is great because, in spite of the
enormous companies looking to buy up every studio they can get their hands on,
they are still all about the games. THQ doesn’t throw away good software because
they could turn around and sell laundry detergent to make up the difference. But
Hollywood throws away good film and TV series all the time because they know
that in the end, profit will come from
somewhere. And they don’t really care where somewhere is.
In
Hollywood, there aren’t any small players that can act independently from the
rest. "There are hundreds of independent filmmakers," the studios would say. But
who must those filmmakers work with to ensure that us, the viewing public, are
aware their films exist? "The Internet is changing everything," is another
gimmick you hear. In truth, Hollywood has sunk their teeth into that as well.
But the
video game world is different. It’s not corrupt by dispersion and multiple core
competencies. Game developers (and some of the billion-dollar publishers)
actually care about the quality of the entertainment they produce. The list of
must-play games released each year far exceeds the number of must-watch movies
or TV series.
And guess
what: because of old-fashioned corporate selfishness on the Hollywood end (and
knowing that somewhere a dollar
will be made), the few good TV series that do exist are going to be killed by an
ongoing writers strike. I’m not going to reiterate the details of the strike
itself – they’ve been publicized more times than I can count. But starting this
month, TV viewers – the people who make $300,000 ad spots relevant – will not
have anything to watch. The shows that began airing in September are already
done or close to it – those that start next year won’t get past their eighth
episode. This means that some shows will conclude improperly, giving all but the
most diehard fans a reason to leave and
never come back. That’s just what a large percentage of viewers did
during the last writers strike.
24 isn’t
expected to return to TV until 2009.
There’s a
rumor going around that the strike will cost TV networks around $300 million.
Allow me to paint a more realistic picture: the last strike lasted four months
and cost them $500 million. That was in the 80s, before shows like Friends and
Seinfeld held audiences’ attention so firmly that NBC could raise the rates to
$300,000+ per 30-second ad. The other networks followed suit and have since
received enormous revenue from shows like CSI, 24, ER, House, Lost, and
Desperate Housewives. If this strike lasts four months, the loss will be much
greater than $300 million.
Studio execs
are hoping that reality TV will soften the blow, but that’s only if they can
convince ad buyers to jump on board. Even if they do, there’s an even bigger
loss they can’t avoid: the 2009 movie season. Most of next summer’s blockbusters
are set in stone. The scripts are finished, and in most cases, the scenes are
already complete. This is not true for 2009, whose scripts are not yet finished.
If the strike doesn’t come to a close before Christmas, most of 2009’s big
releases will likely be pushed back to 2010, killing any chance of having a $4
billion-dollar summer at the box office (the reported benchmark).
It will only
get worse from there. With rising ticket prices (annually!) and an overall lack
of quality, ticket sales haven’t been what they used to be. Financially, the
studios are making money because of higher prices. But if you look at the actual
number of tickets sold, classics like Gone with the Wind and the original Star
Wars far exceed any of today’s blockbusters. Does Hollywood really believe they
can recover from a dead summer? Remember: the corporations that own the studios
also own the TV networks. Oh, and a light bulb factory.
Now step
back for a moment and think about what would happen if these same corporations
ran the game industry. Some
hypothetical scenarios:
-
Mario
Galaxy’s star collection is cut from 120 to just 60. -
Metal Gear
Solid 4 loses another release date; a new American Idol-themed Karaoke
Revolution game is released to fill the void. -
Resident
Evil 5 gets "held up" because the script wasn’t finished before the [hypothetical]
strike. Never fear, there’s a new mini-game collection (the video game
equivalent of reality TV) to play instead.
Listen up
publishers and developers: If my words aren’t meaningful enough, if my story
isn’t ugly enough, you need to read through this again. Because you must
never, ever let this happen to our industry. I’m not saying that
developers should accept a bad deal or that publishers need to give away every
penny. Right now the game industry doesn’t have the kind of union that would
lead to a massive strike. But if it ever comes to that – if there is ever a
dispute over who deserves what – the powers that be need to take a good look at
the bigger picture and ask themselves: is it worth it?
