Games vs. Movies: The Battle of the Bling-Bling

Console players prefer action games (27.1%), followed by sport simulations (17.6%), racing games (15.7%), FRP (8.7%), beat-em-ups (6.9%), family titles (4.7%) and FPS (4.6%).

Let us now take a look at the ten best-selling games in Japan in 2003. Japan is a world of its own, and you probably never even heard about most of these games. Japanese players are simply not into western stuff, unlike their South-Korean neighbors who achieved an admirable position in on-line gaming communities.

While the profit on the video game market is nowhere near the profit of the movie industry on the world level, some analyses state that it will surpass the music industry in five years. The main challenge will be to maintain the positive development on the existing markets, and to use the full potential of the new markets like South Korea, Singapore, Australia and Eastern Europe.

Development expenses keep growing thanks to the increasing number of people working on game production. The expenses are especially high for MMORPGs as their development doesn't end once the game is published. Unlike making movies, producing a video game is an iterative and incremental process.

The industry has been around for some time now, and the average age of players is now 29 years. Older players have different wants, and if they mean to maintain their profit, the companies will have to seek to adapt to these desires. This means that we can look forward to complex games that will be on a par in terms of their cinematic quality with top action movies. Technically, this process started long ago, and the accelerated hardware development will eventually bring computer graphics to the level where it is hard to distinguish reality from computer-generated images. An equally important, yet heavily neglected element is the script quality. Why, when movies are widely accepted as art, most people wouldn't call video games art? The most obvious reason that comes to mind is that movies have been present for a much longer period, but this is only one of the reasons. Have you noticed how every now and then a low-budget "indie" movie appears and blows away all the high-budget Hollywood competition? Every now and again, it happens with gaming as well - a low budget, previously unheard of studio produces a game that literally astounds us. It's rare, but it does still happen. (I would have to disagree with this. - Ed.)

I know I've presented a lot of information here, but the fact is the line between movies and gaming is becoming more and more blurry with each summer blockbuster that hits the streets. Some would say this is a bad thing for PC purists like us here at ActionTrip, while others would say the advancement of any type of gaming - console or PC - into modern society as an acceptable pastime is positive. No matter what, gaming is here to stay. From the massively overproduced blockbuster titles, to the console mass-production of old favorites, to special features on your favorite DVD to playing Tetris on your cell phone - gamers are everywhere you look, and the world is finally starting to take notice.