Hollywood worried that video games sap money from their crappy movies

Posted April 14th, 2008 at 10:43pm

In an interesting piece over at Destructoid, they cite an interview with Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello from The Financial Times in which he states that Hollywood is concerned about the waxing of the video gaming industry. This issue has more recently come to the fore as whisperings around Hollywood demonstrate some tension that the release of Grand Theft Auto IV, which coincides with the release of summer box office blockbuster Iron Man, will put a dent in profits for the film by keeping moviegoers at home playing games. I've heard this concern discussed around the web lately and the off-the-cuff joke that always seems to get made at Hollywood's expense is: Stop making movies that suck and maybe you won't have that problem. It's sort of a tired joke now and it's been applied so liberally to the discussion that its mostly lost its teeth. This puts me in a bit of a difficult position because, when I think of how to reply to Hollywood's concerns, my first and last response is: Stop making movies that suck. Yeah, it's been said. Yeah, it's a pat answer. Yeah, it's a cliche. For those reasons I am reluctant to say it again, but one must call a spade a spade: Overpriced formulaic movies with rehashed plots, predictable endings and only modestly competent actors which will only arrive on DVD (and, thus, Bit Torrent) 6 weeks later are much of a lure to get people to the local Googleplex. I would play

electronic arts, financial times, hollywood, iron man, John Riccitiello
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