[MUD-Dev] Movies bigger than games? (was Re: Digital Property Law)

[Matt Mihaly]

On Thu, 29 Mar 2001, A.M.S. Martin wrote:

> But doesn't it strike you that this is only the beginning of a new
> period in the gaming industry where merchandising *is* aggressive?

No. Games are at a huge disadvantage to movies in terms of
merchandising. The games industry generates its revenue from a MUCH
smaller customer base than the movie industry. A game costs $30-$60. A
movie costs what, $8? (popcorn and such doesn't matter as we're
talking about box office here. Incidentally though, refreshments sold
in the theaters are not counted in box office totals, and they would
add another 50-75% on average to the box office totals, before any
merchandising).

If a game generates 100 million, it's sold about 2 million copies ($50
each). If a movie generates 100 million, it's sold about 12.5 million
tickets. Some people go see movies more than once, but they do not
account for a significant percentage of movie tickets sold. So with
the same revenue, you're talking about a customer base for movies 6x
that of games.

--matt

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