A new video gaming record has been set last week when I successfully obliterated my previous personal best on RPG classic Planescape Torment, and finished the whole thing in around five hours... In other news, Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 became the fastest selling computer game of all time, beating not only the revenue stats for the previous record-holder, GTA 4, but also those of most major blockbusters, ever...
Let me give you a few figures:
'Indiana Jones 4' UK box office TOTAL:  £48m
'Michael Jackson This is It' documentary UK box office TOTAL (so far): £5m '
The Dark Knight' UK box office TOTAL: £54m
'Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2' UK gross FROM LESS THAN A WEEK AFTER RELEASE: £47m...
Now clearly we've all been banging on for some time about how huge the video gaming industry is, how much it's worth etc etc. But the thing is that it hasn't really permeated to any great extent into the public consciousness because, even with the success of GTA 4, it was always felt that aside from the odd exception games could never do the kind of figures we see from the super-hit blockbusters.
Well no longer is this the case, for the new COD represents in effect the video game industry's Titanic (the film not the actual ship) - in essence such a runaway financial monster hit that the media will inevitably shine a spotlight once again on the whole topic, and a few more eyebrows will be raised in a 'huh? but i thought games were a niche past-time of a few teenage geeks?' kind of way, before giving way to the realisation that gaming is right up there as an entertainment industry with the long-established giant of cinema.
Whatsmore it is interesting to observe how the gaming sector is following many of the trends evident in the film industry in recent years - for example the divergence between varying modes of production, and markets. What I mean by this is that while the runaway monster productions such as COD and GTA resemble the franchise film-making models recently reinvigorated by Hollywood (Indiana Jones, Die Hard, Batman etc) so too the vast improvements in software and hardware availability means that there is quite a considerable (but financially smaller) sector of DIY independent games being made and distributed either for free, or for only a few dollars/pounds.
The parallels could continue, but really what interests me most in relation to this topic is the question of how big games will become in coming years. After all, cinema audiences have dwindled massively since the post WWII peak years, though of course we still watch plenty of films, though now on a variety of formats. Of course film is huge in every sense, be it culturally, economically or whatever. But it is time to really acknowledge not only that video games are now representing a consistent rival (or partner as is far more often the case - just look at crossovers such as video games adapted to film, or the even more common, films adapted into games), and that it is not inconceivable that in another 10 or 20 years, gaming might completely dwarf cinema/film as both an industry - and a pastime. Seems far fetched maybe, but not so if one considers the statistical trends evident in recent years. Only time will tell...
Dejan Levi
