Comparing the MMO Industry With the Silver Screen

Karen Hertzberg writes "With video gaming — specifically the massively multiplayer online titles — quickly surpassing Hollywood's cash flow, it seems logical that the silver suits at Tinsel Town would begin paying attention to their digital brethren. On the same line of thought, Hollywood provides the MMO industry with a history in the entertainment medium that we simply don't have. Ten Ton Hammer's Cody Bye sat down with four industry experts to draw together some similarities between MMOs and films, and he attempted to use those points to draw out some predictions for the future of the MMO gaming industry."

lolwut?

[Desler]

With video gaming â" specifically the massively multiplayer online titles â" quickly surpassing Hollywood's cash flow

This is fucking bullshit. Each of the Hollywood studios brought in around $8-12 billion each last year. Activision Blizzard as a whole company only made $5 billion. World of Warcraft is the most successful MMO to date and it grossed around $1.1 billion last year. I'm not sure where this submitter is getting that an MMO title's cash flow exceeds any Hollywood studio's cash flow, since it's total BS.

Re:Similarities between MMOs and films - Huh?

[icegreentea]

That analogy doesn't make sense. Lithographs vs photographs, and 16mm film vs video are cases of the technical medium being replaced, while the basic art form remains the same. Lithographs and photographs both serve the same purpose, to visually capture a moment in time (approximately), while film and video both serve to capture some interval in time.

Film, like physical film might all but disappear in 2020, but I bet that there will always be something analogous to it, even something as 'mundane' as digital video. To predict that gaming as a form of entertainment (or even artistic creation?) will completely replace film/movies is just silly. They are fundamentally different. One is active, one is passive. They give completely different levels of control to the creator(s). And it goes on and on. It's really like saying, now that we invented ways to record sound on wax, books will disappear in 60 years! And this is ignoring the ridiculousness of capturing moments in history (news and such) in GAME form, as a primary reference.

It's a fair prediction to say that films may recede in their... scale might be the right word. But for them to disappear? No way.

Re:lolwut?

[Red Flayer]

Each of the Hollywood studios brought in around $8-12 billion each last year.

World of Warcraft is the most successful MMO to date and it grossed around $1.1 billion last year.

How many movies did each of the Hollywood studios release last year? If you're going to compare game vs. movie, then it's erroneous to look at total revenues for the Hollywood studios.

As for the aggregate for each industry... well... movie ticket sales in 2008 (a record high, btw) was approx 9.8 billion dollars. Videogame software sales were 11 billion dollars (hardware sales were just under 8 billion). See, anyone can pick irrelevant numbers to make their case (notice I left out home video purchases and rentals, around 30 billion IIRC).

What's made so many people take notice is that blockbuster videogames now take in more cash than blockbuster movies, which was the point of the quote that you argue with.