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."
They (you know, "they") don't tie the two industries together in a video game.
Login to "Hollywood World", pick your sim. Have them go on sets, act, thrash hotel rooms, act strange on Letterman. Get fat, get too skinny. Drink too much, do drugs. Go into rehab. Be "reborn" with a role that makes you relevant again.
They (you know, "they") don't tie the two industries together in a video game.
Login to "Hollywood World", pick your sim. Have them go on sets, act, thrash hotel rooms, act strange on Letterman. Get fat, get too skinny. Drink too much, do drugs. Go into rehab. Be "reborn" with a role that makes you relevant again.
People talk about those games all the time, too. Goldeneye for the 64 is much loved because it was a lot of fun, had split-screen multiplayer and enough levels/modes to keep it interesting for a long time. I liked the three you mentioned, too, but my friends and I used to love getting together when we were younger and playing Goldeneye for hours. My guess is you're just too old to have been the right age when it was out.
Because you only needed 1 N64. You didn't have to know anything about networking. It hooked up to a TV easily. It didn't have complex controls, which made it easy to pick up.
Hell in college it was a fucking awesome drinking game because it was so simple to play. I want a remake on the Wii, don't change a thing but update the graphics and maybe a level or two.
Speaking of college, I was a freshman at the height of Goldeneye's popularity. You'd see an N64 hooked up and people playing it at parties. And I mean real parties with kegs, and girls, and fun drunken stuff. The only other games I've seen with that kind of popularity among the non-gamers are Wii Sports and Guitar Hero. That's where Goldeneye was popularity-wise. A lot of people forget that for a very brief time, normal folk were playing an FPS on a regular basis and doing it in a social setting.
Point he's trying to make is that anyone can pick it up and play. His friends could practice because they could hook it up, play at home, bring it to his house and play there. I fall squarely within the Slashdot crowd, and lots of people here don't talk about end-user friendliness. It's plausible for someone to learn about networking to play doom. But you know what? You barber isn't gonna go ahead and learn networking so they can play one game they tried once (mind you, this is 1997ish. They may not have ev
Goldeneye was the first console shooter that really worked. Plus, it was a ton of fun on local multiplayer in a time before online play was common with console games, making it fun to play, plus had lots of secrets.
They should be looking at the differences to see where convergence will generate a lot ^H^H^H little more money.
My prediction is that by 2020 films & their ilk will have all but disappeared, like lithographs in the age of photographs, or 16mm in the age of video. etc. etc.
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
I disagree. Simply moving to digital "film" format will keep the genre alive.
Like I stated below in a post, some people like to listen to/watch/read a story instead of participating in it. Modern movies are IMHO the most well produced entertainment on the market. They have perfected the craft of story telling. It's gonna be a long time until the moving picture format goes away, if ever. In fact, one could argue that modern video games simply borrow from it, continuing the format.
My prediction is that by 2020 films & their ilk will have all but disappeared, like lithographs in the age of photographs, or 16mm in the age of video. etc. etc.
Wall-E is as technically advanced in its use of digital techniques as anything we have seen.
And yet Wall-E at it's core is a silent movie - and the silents were never projected in silence - but told their stories through music and expression alone. Wall-E is no less deeply rooted in the aesthetics of 35mm film and optics.
While some of this may have apt parallels, one of them seems a bit of a stretch. And that's the old Western Vs Eastern card:
With Hollywood operating a fully-functioning, movie-making machine throughout the two World Wars, it wasn't until Asian cinema
blasted onto movie screens in the 1950s that we saw really poignant non-English cinema. Akira Kurosawa was perhaps the most influential of these Asian film makers, and his films Seven Samurai and The Hidden Fortress went on to influence a large number of film makers. However, Asian cinema still hasn't caught up to Hollywood in terms of overall, international popularity, and may never surpass the Los Angeles juggernaut.
However, the scenario is different when it comes to video games. Nintendo and Sony - and Sega for many years - have held a tight-fisted grip on the video game world⦠but not so with MMOs. Remarkably, MMO design and development has remained a very segregated sphere with very little crossover success occurring. Still, the MMO industry is beginning to feel the influence of our Asian allies quite significantly, and the buzz around this fall's upcoming release of Aion only proves this point.
The question still remains: Will Asian MMOs ever succeed where their film brethren have failed? I went to our experts to find out. Again, the answers were mixed and divisive along several lines of thought. Rather than preface their thoughts in any way, I'll just give you the ideas of the men, straight from their mouths.
I think a lot of the responses deflated this pretty well even though a few reinforced it. I've been torn apart on Slashdot for claiming Hollywood out performed other country's movie studios (like the USSR) [slashdot.org] so it'll be interesting to see the movie buffs here come out of the woodwork. The fact is that you can't judge a country's MMO successes based on its movie successes. Luckily most of this article doesn't attempt to do that but why ask, "Will Asian MMOs ever succeed where their film brethren have failed?" It doesn't make any sense to me. Compared to 95% of other countries, I find Japanese movies to be very successful. Same with their MMOs. I don't understand this parallel or the differences between MMOs here and MMOs there. WoW has obviously been very successful both in China and the US... and while Chinese studios may only have one per year debut in US theaters, they are successful in China. Confusing to compare across countries the movie/MMO success stories. Weakens the comparison of MMOs to movies in my book.
I've got this! They're like action flicks! Except with loot! *No plot *No cinematic story telling or character development (just nonstop action) *They make tons of money corporate executives want *Corporate executives are interested in making money, but are too stupid to understand what a video game (much less a MMO) really is *By making comparisons with an established industry, you can pretend to lend credit to your MMO ideas *One company has a virtual monopoly on what consumers get *I'm just going to start pulling stuff out of my ass now *MMOs and movies both overcharge for the highly desirable yellow products (gold, popcorn..) *People write articles on how they're correlated!
You see, that's a "traditional" rant of the old industries "but, the game has no plot. so it's also no real art!" blah, blah... But actually, all forms of entertainment you could ever think of, are subsets of what games are. Including those with a plot.
The point is, that a plot is the natural opposite of freedom in games. And there's no way to circumvent that. But that is ok. Because plots in games are partially besides the point. And the point is to create a specific experien
Sooo... are you arguing that MMOs do have plots? I think you're arguing against a point I never made (in other words, you are agreeing with me that these games do not have plots).
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.
Oops that $1.1 billion was for all of Blizzard. WoW only grossed around $250-300 million which makes the submitter's comment even more patently absurd.
I have a question about these numbers. What is the net profit on MMO games vs movies (especially the movies that are related to MMOs where there are comparisons to be made)? I realise that TFS is talking about gross, which is completely different, but I'm just wondering if net profits (not counting the Hollywood Accounting that claims that box office smashes lose money) are showing MMOs to be quickly catching up if not surpassing movies. The challenge here, though, is to get some meaningful lifetime numb
The only way I could possibly interpret the claims are that they are using the ratio of investment:profits per game/movie--still ridiculous because you can't invest 50x more than wow (in new games) and expect your profits to grow 50x.
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.
You are handily forgetting the important fact that movie ticket sales are an ever decreasing source of revenue for the film industry.,
Films usually make more on DVD/BluRay than they do in theater now, not even including pay per view and cable distribution. So quoting only box office sales is a big no-no.
I love articles like this. It is classic Slashdot, elevating something popular mainly only in geekdom to some kind of broad-market status that simply does not exist. For example - World of Warcraft has 11.5
And what's really great about slashdot is that it is also classic slashdot for people like you and others to come in with figures and good information and very correctly point out that the claim is BS.
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.
Somehow I cannot get used to the idea of calling best selling videogames such as "Wii Fit" (20m+ copies, 2b+ revenue) a "blockbuster". Next thing we know, people will be talking about "blockbuster" Barbie doll dresses or blockbuster Lego Kits.
I will always love movies, because sometimes I just want to watch a story and not participate. Just like I'd rather read a book than write my own.
Some interesting predictions in the article though. One thing they should recognize is the power of the indy developer. Look at how the movie industry has moved to embrace the indy film industry, if only because it shouldn't cost a 100M dollars to make a good film and get a good return on investment. All parties win.
I couldn't get through the page fest to check if they made the one parallel that really matters: movie execs would love to "lease content" to you the way MMO's do. That's what they want to be the future.
A movie is a story; a game is a place you go. Too much story in a game makes the game a "track ride", where you ride along the plot track, mostly doing drive-by shootings. This has been the curse of most movie-licensed games.
Fortunately, the game industry has gone beyond that. Most major games are now large-area free-play games. There are plotted things to do, but you're not locked into the plot. You can start up GTA IV and just tour Liberty City if you like. Try that with early Star Wars games and
Do the MMO's (never played one) allow players to set up challenges and situations for other players? Can they build dungeons/space stations/oil rigs for others to go through.
The motion picture and television industry is cyclical. Which is why you see so many remakes, clones and sequels. But it has been willing to embrace every popular fictional genre.
The premise of most online games tends to read like a "Mad-Lib" generated from the stock elements of D&D, Stars Wars and GTA.
The open world allows you to disconnect from the storyline - but then its back to same old grind.
Advancement in the game is measured by the body count. Smarts and skill count for less than the time you h
I don't know why... (Score:4, Interesting)
They (you know, "they") don't tie the two industries together in a video game.
Login to "Hollywood World", pick your sim. Have them go on sets, act, thrash hotel rooms, act strange on Letterman. Get fat, get too skinny. Drink too much, do drugs. Go into rehab. Be "reborn" with a role that makes you relevant again.
Hell, I'd play this game. :-P
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They (you know, "they") don't tie the two industries together in a video game.
Login to "Hollywood World", pick your sim. Have them go on sets, act, thrash hotel rooms, act strange on Letterman. Get fat, get too skinny. Drink too much, do drugs. Go into rehab. Be "reborn" with a role that makes you relevant again.
Hell, I'd play this game. :-P
I beat that game already...
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I think anyone that's played an MMO has...
The only thing it's missing is getting 100 cups of coffee for the film crew in Stage 4.
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They did [wikipedia.org], twice [wikipedia.org]. Like most adaptations that are tied to both industries, they sucked. ^_^
Stay Away. (Score:2, Insightful)
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What is it with that Nintendo 64 James Bond game? People keep bringing it up like it was a revolution or something.
Ever heard of Castle Wolfenstein, Doom or Quake?
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or perhaps you were TOO YOUNG to understand that PC > N64
Or perhaps he had 3 friends to play with, and they were, like, at his house.
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Because you only needed 1 N64. You didn't have to know anything about networking. It hooked up to a TV easily. It didn't have complex controls, which made it easy to pick up.
Hell in college it was a fucking awesome drinking game because it was so simple to play. I want a remake on the Wii, don't change a thing but update the graphics and maybe a level or two.
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Speaking of college, I was a freshman at the height of Goldeneye's popularity. You'd see an N64 hooked up and people playing it at parties. And I mean real parties with kegs, and girls, and fun drunken stuff. The only other games I've seen with that kind of popularity among the non-gamers are Wii Sports and Guitar Hero. That's where Goldeneye was popularity-wise. A lot of people forget that for a very brief time, normal folk were playing an FPS on a regular basis and doing it in a social setting.
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Ever heard of Castle Wolfenstein, Doom or Quake?
You're responding to a post discussing the tie-ins between games and Hollywood. Where's the movie tie-in on the three games you mentioned?
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Doom has already been done [imdb.com]?
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Similarities between MMOs and films - Huh? (Score:2, Interesting)
My prediction is that by 2020 films & their ilk will have all but disappeared, like lithographs in the age of photographs, or 16mm in the age of video. etc. etc.
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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
That analogy doesn't make sense (Score:2)
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It wasnae meant to sonny.
"Wasnae"? What in the.. *squints*
Holy Gods, he's typing in Scottish! :O
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I disagree. Simply moving to digital "film" format will keep the genre alive.
Like I stated below in a post, some people like to listen to/watch/read a story instead of participating in it. Modern movies are IMHO the most well produced entertainment on the market. They have perfected the craft of story telling. It's gonna be a long time until the moving picture format goes away, if ever. In fact, one could argue that modern video games simply borrow from it, continuing the format.
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My prediction is that by 2020 films & their ilk will have all but disappeared, like lithographs in the age of photographs, or 16mm in the age of video. etc. etc.
Wall-E is as technically advanced in its use of digital techniques as anything we have seen.
And yet Wall-E at it's core is a silent movie - and the silents were never projected in silence - but told their stories through music and expression alone. Wall-E is no less deeply rooted in the aesthetics of 35mm film and optics.
The end credits of "Pre
Parallels That Don't Exist (Score:4, Interesting)
With Hollywood operating a fully-functioning, movie-making machine throughout the two World Wars, it wasn't until Asian cinema blasted onto movie screens in the 1950s that we saw really poignant non-English cinema. Akira Kurosawa was perhaps the most influential of these Asian film makers, and his films Seven Samurai and The Hidden Fortress went on to influence a large number of film makers. However, Asian cinema still hasn't caught up to Hollywood in terms of overall, international popularity, and may never surpass the Los Angeles juggernaut.
However, the scenario is different when it comes to video games. Nintendo and Sony - and Sega for many years - have held a tight-fisted grip on the video game world⦠but not so with MMOs. Remarkably, MMO design and development has remained a very segregated sphere with very little crossover success occurring. Still, the MMO industry is beginning to feel the influence of our Asian allies quite significantly, and the buzz around this fall's upcoming release of Aion only proves this point.
The question still remains: Will Asian MMOs ever succeed where their film brethren have failed? I went to our experts to find out. Again, the answers were mixed and divisive along several lines of thought. Rather than preface their thoughts in any way, I'll just give you the ideas of the men, straight from their mouths.
I think a lot of the responses deflated this pretty well even though a few reinforced it. I've been torn apart on Slashdot for claiming Hollywood out performed other country's movie studios (like the USSR) [slashdot.org] so it'll be interesting to see the movie buffs here come out of the woodwork. The fact is that you can't judge a country's MMO successes based on its movie successes. Luckily most of this article doesn't attempt to do that but why ask, "Will Asian MMOs ever succeed where their film brethren have failed?" It doesn't make any sense to me. Compared to 95% of other countries, I find Japanese movies to be very successful. Same with their MMOs. I don't understand this parallel or the differences between MMOs here and MMOs there. WoW has obviously been very successful both in China and the US ... and while Chinese studios may only have one per year debut in US theaters, they are successful in China. Confusing to compare across countries the movie/MMO success stories. Weakens the comparison of MMOs to movies in my book.
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The future of MMOs is already here (Score:2)
We're ahead of the filmmakers' schedule... we've already got a million remakes of World of Warcraft, none of which are as good as the original.
I know I know! (Score:5, Funny)
I've got this! They're like action flicks! Except with loot!
*No plot
*No cinematic story telling or character development (just nonstop action)
*They make tons of money corporate executives want
*Corporate executives are interested in making money, but are too stupid to understand what a video game (much less a MMO) really is
*By making comparisons with an established industry, you can pretend to lend credit to your MMO ideas
*One company has a virtual monopoly on what consumers get
*I'm just going to start pulling stuff out of my ass now
*MMOs and movies both overcharge for the highly desirable yellow products (gold, popcorn..)
*People write articles on how they're correlated!
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I agree, except for the plot thing.
You see, that's a "traditional" rant of the old industries "but, the game has no plot. so it's also no real art!" blah, blah...
But actually, all forms of entertainment you could ever think of, are subsets of what games are.
Including those with a plot.
The point is, that a plot is the natural opposite of freedom in games. And there's no way to circumvent that.
But that is ok. Because plots in games are partially besides the point.
And the point is to create a specific experien
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Sooo... are you arguing that MMOs do have plots? I think you're arguing against a point I never made (in other words, you are agreeing with me that these games do not have plots).
lolwut? (Score:4, Informative)
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.
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I have a question about these numbers. What is the net profit on MMO games vs movies (especially the movies that are related to MMOs where there are comparisons to be made)? I realise that TFS is talking about gross, which is completely different, but I'm just wondering if net profits (not counting the Hollywood Accounting that claims that box office smashes lose money) are showing MMOs to be quickly catching up if not surpassing movies. The challenge here, though, is to get some meaningful lifetime numb
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Every couple of years, the "videogames are overtaking cinema" claim pops up. And every time, it's been wrong.
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The only way I could possibly interpret the claims are that they are using the ratio of investment:profits per game/movie--still ridiculous because you can't invest 50x more than wow (in new games) and expect your profits to grow 50x.
Re:lolwut? (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Parent
Classic Slashdot (Score:2)
You are handily forgetting the important fact that movie ticket sales are an ever decreasing source of revenue for the film industry.,
Films usually make more on DVD/BluRay than they do in theater now, not even including pay per view and cable distribution. So quoting only box office sales is a big no-no.
I love articles like this. It is classic Slashdot, elevating something popular mainly only in geekdom to some kind of broad-market status that simply does not exist. For example - World of Warcraft has 11.5
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Spot on.
And what's really great about slashdot is that it is also classic slashdot for people like you and others to come in with figures and good information and very correctly point out that the claim is BS.
That's why people stick around.
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Notice He left out home video purchases and rentals, around 30 billion IHRC.
Did you mean to reply to GP or TFA perhaps?
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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.
Somehow I cannot get used to the idea of calling best selling videogames such as "Wii Fit" (20m+ copies, 2b+ revenue) a "blockbuster". Next thing we know, people will be talking about "blockbuster" Barbie doll dresses or blockbuster Lego Kits.
games areinteresting but I still like to "veg out" (Score:2)
I will always love movies, because sometimes I just want to watch a story and not participate. Just like I'd rather read a book than write my own.
Some interesting predictions in the article though. One thing they should recognize is the power of the indy developer. Look at how the movie industry has moved to embrace the indy film industry, if only because it shouldn't cost a 100M dollars to make a good film and get a good return on investment. All parties win.
MMO: the Movie (Score:5, Funny)
In a time before time itself, will one spaceship be able to deliver 10 space cows to Jita IV?
The movie that will keep you on the edge of your seat, waiting to level: MMO Grindhouse.
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MMO: The Movie
Act 1. Scene 1.
Ext. Bank, Daylight
The Hero, Heroine, Sidekick and Disposable Guy#1, stand outside the bank, hanging around the mail box.
Hero: LF Healer, for heroic movie then gtg! Have geared tank, DPS! Must be keyed and exalted rep status!
Ext. Bank, Night
Sidekick: Seriously, screw this. Can't buy a freaken heroic run on this server. That's it, when a new MMO comes Im jumping ship.
Sidekick leaves party
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Our heroes leave town to fight the...
CORP POR ...what the hell, dude? I'm the announcer.
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Imagine those lines voiced by Donald LaFontaine when you read it, and for me, it's easy to imagine people lining up at the theaters to eat it up.
The only parallel that matters: (Score:3, Interesting)
A movie is a story; a game is a place you go. (Score:2)
A movie is a story; a game is a place you go. Too much story in a game makes the game a "track ride", where you ride along the plot track, mostly doing drive-by shootings. This has been the curse of most movie-licensed games.
Fortunately, the game industry has gone beyond that. Most major games are now large-area free-play games. There are plotted things to do, but you're not locked into the plot. You can start up GTA IV and just tour Liberty City if you like. Try that with early Star Wars games and
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EVE is run from Bellevue, WA.
EVE Online is actually run from Reykjavik, Iceland (a London datacenter provides the hosting).
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Do the MMO's (never played one) allow players to set up challenges and situations for other players? Can they build dungeons/space stations/oil rigs for others to go through.
"(T)he silver suits at Tinsel Town" (Score:2)
I think I just rolled any eyeball out of joint.
Tunnel vision (Score:2)
The motion picture and television industry is cyclical. Which is why you see so many remakes, clones and sequels. But it has been willing to embrace every popular fictional genre.
The premise of most online games tends to read like a "Mad-Lib" generated from the stock elements of D&D, Stars Wars and GTA.
The open world allows you to disconnect from the storyline - but then its back to same old grind.
Advancement in the game is measured by the body count. Smarts and skill count for less than the time you h