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Blog, The Business: August 14, 2009 : 1:32 pm

Indies Go Solo Part 2 (Video Games)

The other day I posted a link to a New York Times article about indie filmmakers self-distributing, and erosion of the mainstream film market.

The most interesting aspect of this discussion, to me, is the lack of discussion about the role of video games in eroding the film market.

By and large, the movies that sell the most are escapist entertainment. The problem is: movies don’t have the corner on escapism any more.

I can pay

(for a movie, avg. 2 hrs)

$10 for two hours of watching a protagonist leap from one near-death to another ($5/hour)
$25 to buy the Collector’s Edition DVD at BestBuy (after waiting four months for it to release; $12.50/hr, slightly less if you include “behind the scenes,” and I don’t)
$10 to buy the Cheapie On-Sale Walmart edition ($5/hr, but I have to wait a year)

(for a video game, avg 12 hrs gameplay)

$60 to buy the game the day it comes out ($5/hr)
$30 to buy it at cheapie Wal-Mart discount prices (waiting eight months for prices to drop, $2.50/hr)

So I can buy either medium, on the first day of availability, for $5/hr. The difference with video games is: I get 6 times the entertainment at the same rate, and the longer I wait, the cheaper it becomes.

And don’t forget replay value: any game with decent replay value (anything in the Mario franchise, open sandbox games) will last you at least fifty hours. Games with multiplayer capability or ongoing storylines (Halo, the Sims) will go two hundred or beyond. (Do I have to bring up World of Warcraft?) That’s two hundred distinct, original hours of entertainment. How many times will you rewatch a movie?

Most importantly, whatever entertainment I derive from the experience is completely mine. I leap across dangerous chasms at the last minute, not Nick Cage. Any experience, large or small, takes on a larger import, because I am the protagonist.

Escapist movies are, “Hey, audience, watch me do this cool thing!”

Escapist video games are, “Here’s a gun and a map. Get out alive.”

Which sounds more dramatic to you?