OT: Boy, the grass always IS greener on the other side...

TheHappyFriar wrote on 3/26/2005, 7:09 PM
Ok, it seems most people in the movie industry think things could be better. The example is that video games (PC, console, etc) are starting to sell more the movies, and they are a fraction of the cost to make. They sell great, people want them, and money is pouring in like crazy! Small companies can make big nucks because things are cheap to make & publish! Big companies can make a lot of money by owning big names! The movie industry needs to become more like the game industry!

The only trouble is... game developers see it the other way around. Most see the game industry as comming to a crash. 4 out of 5 games don't make money. Only two (yes two) games sold more then 500,000 in 2004, and both of those games came out in the last quarter. They need a better, more effieient way to push their product. Example: Like the movie industry! They first put them in theatures, then on pay-per-view, then rental & retail. Buy, they're making a fortune on this! Heck, movie studios even push small independant filmmakers/films that would otherwise not make it onto the silver screen! The game industry needs to copy the movie industry!

Don't belive me? Here's the article:
http://www.gamespy.com/articles/596/596734p1.html

What's everyone else think on this? I think both industries have lost their main focus & that's why they feel non-sucessful. Both industries started out because people loved making movies & games. That's not what it's all about anymore. It's more about making a blockbuster & anything less isn't worth it.

Comments

BillyBoy wrote on 3/26/2005, 7:48 PM
Computer games all too often fall into the same trap "action" movies do... all special effects, many have the same cookie cutter look, just another shoot em up, with movies, bad writing, worse acting, horrible directing, worse editing spells disaster. What else would you expect when all that gets combined? Bad computer games don't sell for the same reason people don't go to bad movies. Junk is junk.

News Flash: Business is what its always been about, beating your competition by taking away some of their market share and fattening the bottom line. Show me a company CEO that thinks he and his company is "unsuccessful" and I'll show you for sure a company that IS unsuccessful.

You can do pretty good, if you think you're successful. Take Steve Jobs of Apple (please, I can't stand the guy) he's always been second fiddle to PC clones, yet he never felt unsuccessful regardless. Apples never got past 6% market share and only that much by dumping Apples in school districts. Still Apple carved out a nitch, developed a loyal following, and while they never will be as successful as Microsoft or IBM or any other giant computer related company, they stay in the game. BTW, everyone sets out to make a "blockbuster", or they better or they're in the wrong line of work, whatever they do if they are making a new computer game, a movie, a new car model, whatever. Realisticly, you can only have so many real hits.
vicmilt wrote on 3/26/2005, 8:03 PM
1 - I think BOTH are contemporary art forms - which by definitlon means created by artists.
2 - I think that since the Medici's sponsored Michaelangelo, but insisted that he use theri faces in his religious paintings, the "suits" have controlled the artists - you wanna do this for a living?? you better make some money for your backers.
3 - I think we bear witness to the greatest media revolution since the invention of the printing press (NO instructions necessary to understand a video) and we are all part of that revolution, either as producers (you're on the Vegas forum) or end users ( you do have a radio, tv or computer, don't you?)
4 - I think it has ALWAYS been a struggle to make money - only the good or the lucky survive.... Easy money and quickee profits are a fantasy - right up there with alligators in the sewers and nymphomaniac girls.
5- I think the major movie, music and game manufacturers are facing the greatest crisis ever in the history of marketing and sales via the easy duplicaton of those media on DVD and the internet. Stealing media is easy but it will eventually kill the profit motive that most people work for.
6- I think that based on #5, everyone is desparately searching for a new way to distribute and to make money.
And finally, I think it is easier to make and distribute a video that people MIGHT care about than ever before in history. Until just a couple of years ago, you couldn't do SQUAT without a LOT of bucks.

And I firmly believe that SOMEONE reading this will make the next breakthrough, incredible, exciting, meaningful and imporatant video, that will make the world sit up and take notice (maybe it's you!)- using a $2,000 camera to shoot, and Sony Vegas to edit it on - and I, for one, can't wait to see it!
apit34356 wrote on 3/26/2005, 9:28 PM
Alright Vic, now just step back for a moment about this fantasy thing your "talking" about........ is it the alligators in the sewers or nymphomaniac girls. NAB 2005 newsletter refer to the Nymphomaniac Girls conference was in Las Vegas at the same time as key event to checkout.
Patryk Rebisz wrote on 3/27/2005, 7:33 AM
I'd like to say that every girl i had sex with in the past 6 months was a nymphomaniac girl...

That said the forms are constantly evolving and i think the computer games are actually bringing people back to TV/movie screens. Think of internet games where you have to compete against all those other people. Your perception of "you as a hero" -- notion many movies rely on is crushed as you see you are as week as others in this simulated world. Your ego is "crushed" and you end up looking for its reinforcements in the movies where you always win.

Another interestic aspect is that nowdays people actually get to live-off the hero fantasies. Think of all those "home-made" features you keep seening trailers for. Movies that often will never end up anywhere yet it gave the filmmakers a chance to live off their dream of... making a movie, acting in a movie, shooting bad guys etc. Pretty great time in history!
vicmilt wrote on 3/27/2005, 7:59 AM
... this is a TOUGH crowd.
:>)