During a keynote speech at the CES, Activision Publishing head honcho Mike Griffith boldly claimed that computer games are set to eclipse all other forms of entertainment.
As per usual, the figures quoted are fairly meaningless, effectively comparing apples to oranges, but Griffith proceeded to compare the still-blossoming video games market to the huge century-old monolithic music and movie industries, both of which are struggling to let go of archaic distribution methods.
Citing sales figures for the period 2003 – 2007, movie ticket sales & TV watching slumped 6%, music purchases fell by 12% and DVD sales remained steady. By comparison, video game sales grew by 40%.
Unsurprisingly, the most favourably figures quoted relate to Activisions own stagnating cash-cow million-selling Guitar Hero series, citing such ludicrous examples as artists who feature in the game seeing between a 15% & 843% boost in sales!
Griffith also cites Quantum of Solace as a further example of how games are ‘taking over’…
“The moviegoer is passive whereas the gamer is active and part of the game itself,” he said, adding that anyone who played QoS would spend more than 50 hours in the company of James Bond compared to only 106 minutes if they watched the movie.
Frankly, I’ve got no time for a company that bins games on the singular fact that they can’t whore them out year after year.
Still, it’s good news to hear that our childish past-time is going strong. I just wish the entire industry wasn’t riding high on the Wii, Insert-Instrument-Here Hero clones and World of fucking WarCraft.
<3 Capitalism!
Source – BBC Technology News
