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

[Adam Martin]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Matt Mihaly" <the_logos at www.achaea.com>
Cc: <mud-dev at kanga.nu>
Sent: Thursday, March 29, 2001 7:51 PM
Subject: RE: [MUD-Dev] Movies bigger than games? (was Re: Digital Property
Law)

> 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.

All valid, except that I don't see how it relates to what I said? OK,
so the games industry has a smaller customer base - why on earth does
that mean publishers cannot become aggressive in getting revenue
streams from merchandising? It doesn't even imply that they won't make
much money - it just indicates that the potential market might be
smaller (but in itself could never be enough to justify a statement
that the (games-related) merchandising market will be smaller)

Adam

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