Will Grand Theft Auto 4 Hurt Iron Man’s Box Office? This is a question I’ve been thinking about for a while now. When I wrote the post Rant: Sorry Mario, Video Games Will NEVER Overtake Movies last month, I intended to include a section on how a video game release could never negatively effect the release of a theatrical movie. But to be honest with you: I did the math, and the math scared me. Here is my initial thought process:
Grand Theft Auto 4 is projected to make $350-$400+ million in it’s first week of release.
This means that 5 to 6 million copies of the game will be sold.
Polls have shown that the same audience/demographic for video games is also the same for seeing movies in the theater.
If each of those 6 million people chose to play GTA over seeing Iron Man on the big screen, that would be a $41 million hit to Paramount’s opening weekend (I came to this number using BOM’s average movie ticket price of $6.82, which might even be lower than reality)
At first glance, this doesn’t sound good.
BUT the question is: How many GTA4 gamers will choose not to buy a ticket to Iron Man either due to either available time (too busy playing the game) or available money (spent their entire entertainment allowance on the game)?
The more and more I really thought about this question, and the more and more people I was able to talk to about the issue has me solidified my belief that…
a video game purchase is not enough to keep the kids out of the movie theater.
If a movie ticket cost more than $7-$10 (let’s say $60) then maybe consumers would be forced to choose. But right now the price of a movie ticket is not enough to warrant a money spending decision. And most of the target audience (under 30-year old men) understand the concept of the on demand society, and are completely willing to save their game, go to a movie, and come back to play another day. After all, we all need a break (with exception of those nuts playing WOW who pee in cups because they can’t leave the computer for one minute to go to the bathroom).
But now industry analysts are predicting upwards of $100+M for Iron Man’s opening, and if the numbers don’t reach that high the mainstream media might connect the dots that might not even exist (because that’s what mainstream media sometimes does).
No comments:
Post a Comment