May 09, 2008

Games Like 'Grand Theft Auto IV' Aren't A Threat To Hollywood, Gaming Experts Say

By Stephen Totilo (MTV.com)

Hollywood execs need not worry about the half-billion-dollar gorilla that has been absorbing a lot of video game players' time. "Grand Theft Auto IV," which sold 6 million copies in its first week, is no threat to the movie industry, according to gaming experts.

Before the latest edition of Rockstar Games' interactive crime drama was released last week, members of the gaming and film industries, as well as the press, pondered whether "GTA" was going to hurt the release of the "Iron Man" movie. Games of "GTA" magnitude don't typically hit stores at the same time as the first big movie of the summer.

"GTA" netted $500 million in its first week of worldwide release. "Iron Man" netted an impressive $101 million, better than expected. So maybe gaming's biggest and baddest aren't a threat?

Video game developer Kellee Santiago of That Game Company doesn't think anyone was considering not seeing "Iron Man" so they could play Rockstar's game. "Is it seriously something any one of us thought about?" she asked. "It seems much more plausible to say, 'Can't wait to see "Iron Man" and then come home to "GTA"!' What's the conflict?"

Wedbush Morgan Securities financial analyst Michael Pachter, one of the most outspoken commentators about the gaming business, also doesn't believe "Grand Theft Auto" was ever a threat to "Iron Man," despite earlier reports. "In the U.S., 'GTA' sold to around 3 million people, while 'Iron Man' was marketed to an addressable market of over 100 million moviegoers," he said in an e-mail. "So 'GTA' impacted 3 percent of the 'Iron Man' addressable market, and probably only half of these people are big enough losers to be unwilling to leave their beloved 'GTA' (when on mission 147) for two hours over the weekend in order to see a great movie. That suggests that the impact on 'Iron Man' box office was around 1.5 percent, too small to measure in any case."

If anything, games can pose a threat to television, explained Brian Crecente, managing editor of gaming blog Kotaku. Movies, he said, are safe. "Going to the movies for most is still viewed as an outing, a special treat. Games are more like television, something to do in your home or on your own."

Pachter said that even as games consume more of people's attention, they're a small distraction from all the other available entertainment. "I don't see games as a threat to Hollywood box office, per se," he said. "I think that games are a part of the total entertainment-consumption experience, so game purchases should be considered in the context of TV watching (including VOD, PPV, HBO and DVD rental), moviegoing, sporting-event attendance, music purchases, book purchases, magazine purchases and even surfing the Web. If we spend 35 hours a week being entertained, and the average person's video game consumption increases from two hours a week to three hours a week over time, all of the other categories of entertainment will suffer by roughly 3 percent. Again, it's difficult to measure, and the consumption numbers I used for illustration are probably too high."

In June, Konami will release "Metal Gear Solid 4," a game that is highly anticipated by PlayStation 3 users and widely considered the most significant exclusive game in the short history of Sony's machine. Even a game of that size, Pachter said, isn't a threat to Hollywood. " 'MGS' will have no noticeable impact on movie attendance," he said. "Its audience are even bigger geeks than the 'GTA' audience, so if they weren't playing 'MGS,' they would be playing some other game." The theory is that hard-core gamers, when not playing one big game, are spending their time playing other games.

Santiago believes that the April release of "GTA IV," which was a six-month delay beyond the game's initially announced release date, really just gave gamers more time to play that game before getting distracted by others. As far as she's concerned, the game really just scored a victory over other games and a good achievement for the game's creators. "If you create all that content, you're hoping people get to experience most of it," she said. "And many players probably wouldn't have, in lieu of finishing some of the other games out at that time. Now, every single person on my friends list (including me) is playing 'GTA IV.' " She added that people just want to experience good content - regardless of the medium its presented in.

So, Hollywood people, gaming people say you have nothing to worry about, regardless of when the big games come out and no matter how big those games may be. Feel better now?