Media Companies and Videogames: In the Wall Street Journal

Big thinker Allan Yasnyi e-mailed today to make sure I'd seen this WSJ piece on the on-again/off-again relationship between big media companies and the videogame business. (I hadn't.) The relationship is apparently on again, in a big way.

From the piece by Merissa Marr and Nick Wingfield:

With renewed zeal, traditional media companies have begun building their own videogame businesses again. For years, they outsourced development of games based on their television shows and movies in licensing deals with big games publishers. Now, the media companies want a bigger piece of the fast-expanding games business for themselves.

They see the videogame business as an opportunity for significant growth, especially compared to their more mature, traditional businesses such as television and movies. Box office revenue inched 4.0% higher last year, in large part because of ticket price increases, while home-video sales declined 3.2%, according to Adams Media Research. In contrast, videogames are the fastest growing sector of entertainment, with sales in the U.S. rising 34% last year to $8.64 billion, according to NPD Group Inc.

"The only growth business now and for the foreseeable future is interactive entertainment," says Strauss Zelnick, chairman of Take-Two Interactive Software Inc., the New York-based publisher of the Grand Theft Auto series of games, and a former movie-studio executive.

For Thursday: Set-Top Box Reviews, Upconverting DVDs, and Player-Developed Games

- NY Times columnist David Pogue evaluates four leading Internet-connected set-top boxes, and gives the $300 Vudu the highest overall grade. (Others included in his survey include Xbox 360, Apple TV, and TiVo.) Pogue also makes some good points about the limitations imposed on all of the boxes by studios:

...[N]o matter which movie-download service you choose, you’ll find yourself facing the same confusing, ridiculous time limits for viewing. You have to start watching the movie you’ve rented within 30 days, and once you start, you have to finish it within 24 hours.

...What would the studios lose by offering a 27-hour rental period? Or three days, or even a week? Nothing. In fact, they’d attract millions more customers. (At the very least, instead of just deleting itself, the movie should say: “Would you like another 24-hour period for an additional $1?”)

Then there’s the fact that to protect their cash cows, most studios don’t release their movies on the Internet until a month after they’ve been available on DVD.

- NY Times reporter Saul Hansell talks to an electronics retailer who says that until the cost of Blu-ray players drops below $200 or $150, most consumers will still be happy buying standard-def DVD players that upconvert, producing a very nice looking picture from a garden-variety DVD.

- This feels important, somehow: Microsoft allowing players to develop their own videogames and share them with others via Xbox. A vidgame twist on YouTube?

The DGA's Digital Day: Leave no trace...

I'm sure the DGA's Digital Day is great if you're a Director's Guild of America member: panels on 3-D, visual effects, videogames, editing, and pre-visualization.

But if you're not a member, you're not gonna find out much about what transpired there... there's hardly any coverage of the event each year. (My pitiful blog entry about the 2005 event is the third result on Google when you look for "DGA Digital Day.")

This year, you get a photo montage of the participants, with captions, from the DGA Monthly magazine. (Last year, there was a slightly more thorough treatment in the mag.)

I met Michael Apted, president of the Director's Guild, at the Consumer Electronics Show this January. Really nice fellow.

So Michael, why not help out the young filmmakers who are future members of the DGA, and put some video/audio/blog posts on the DGA site about what happens at this great event?

Sunday/Monday links: Cellphone entertainment ... Blockbuster picks Blu-ray ... Digital cinema overseas

- Interesting piece in yesterday's New York Times about producing content for cell phones. Much of the focus is on ESPN's efforts.

Funny how everyone mentions the small screen as being the main limitation of working on a cell phone -- for me, it's the slow or stuttery frame rate.

- Blockbuster Video says it'll carry primarily Blu-ray high-def discs from here on out. From Forbes:

Since late 2006, the movie rental company has offered both formats at 250 stores across the country. Both formats were given equal billing, but Blockbuster soon realized that Blu-ray outsold its competitor by 70%.

Blockbuster will continue to rent the HD DVD titles it already offers and may expand its HD DVD inventory in the future but, for now, the company has placed all its chips on Blu-ray.

I still am not sure this is the HD DVD death knell everyone will assume it is. (I certainly can't remember the last time I was in a Blockbuster, and the one near my gym closed last year...)

- Variety has a report on the digital cinema roll-out in Europe.

- My Boston Globe column yesterday covered the use of artificial intelligence in videogames.

Brash Mission: Turn Films Into Hit Videogames

Whoa: a new firm, Brash Entertainment, just raised $400 million in funding. Brash's strategy is to create hit games from movies, TV shows, and music franchises. Here's Variety's coverage... GamaSutra...and here's the Wall Street Journal piece.

The Journal's Nick Wingfield writes:

[$400 million] is a whopping sum in the games business, where attempts to create major companies are rare because of tough competition from an array of well-entrenched publishers and developers like Electronic Arts Inc., Activision Inc. and others. Brash says it has cut deals with five major Hollywood studios, licensed 40 film properties, including Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.'s "Saw" horror series, and is actively developing 12 games.

Brash's bet comes as at least one big company -- EA, the world's largest games publisher -- is increasing its development of original games and lessening its dependence on Hollywood properties, which can come with high licensing fees and other restrictions.

But Brash believes the growth of the games market has created room for a new player, particularly one with a special emphasis on translating movies into high-quality interactive entertainment. To make a mark, Brash will have to demonstrate it can consistently make top-notch games, rather than the hastily pumped-out titles that have tarnished the image of movie-based games in the eyes of consumers and Hollywood executives.

"Across the board, they [movie-based games] haven't met industry expectations," says Mitch Davis, chairman and chief executive officer of Brash.

Here's the official Web site. The founding team includes the exec producer of '300' and Davis, who was recently CEO at Massive, an in-game advertising firm that Microsoft bought last year.

One of the biggest barriers to actually making good games from movie and TV franchises (and this won't surprise any of you who've worked either in game development or with Hollywood studios/TV networks) is that you don't get the material until far too late in the process. You don't see enough scripts, concept sketches, or rough footage. So either you wind up with a game that appears well after a movie or TV show launches, or you get a half-baked game that doesn't seem in sync with the actual movie or show.

Three from the Times: BitTorrent, Gaming at the Movies, and YouTube Celebs

Feeling glum this morning because I wound up in the middle of the pack last night in the Oscar pool...(though I did manage to get the visual effects and best animated feature awards right -- two categories near and dear to CinemaTech.)

Most of the coverage this morning involves dissections of last night's Oscar-cast. But the NY Times has three worthy, non-Oscar pieces:

- Software Tool of Pirates Gets Work in Hollywood

Brad Stone writes about BitTorrent, the file-sharing service that's trying to go legit. One possible advantage of buying movies from BitTorrent as opposed to other sites could be speed:

In a test of the new BitTorrent store, downloading the film “X-Men 3” took two hours with a broadband Internet connection. Downloading the same movie from Walmart.com took three hours. And BitTorrent downloads should theoretically become faster as more people sign up, since digital copies will originate from nearby computers whose owners have bought the movie, instead of from a central server.

The company, which has received close to $30 million in venture capital, ultimately wants to use its media store to demonstrate how the underlying technology is effective at moving large files around the Internet. It wants to sell the technology to other media stores and to the studios themselves.

The studios hope the new BitTorrent will put a dent in the illegal trading of their content. Thomas Lesinski, president of Paramount Pictures Digital Entertainment, said he hoped the store would win over young people accustomed to free fare. “We look at this as a first step in the peer-to-peer world, to try to steer people toward legitimate content,” he said.

- The New Video Arcade in Spain Might Be the Movie Theater

Doreen Carvajal writes about cinemas inviting gamers in to play against one another on the big screen:

“Forget the pathetic speakers of a PC or television!” screams an ad for the theater, which opened in December and is offering cut-rate tickets at 3 euros, or about $3.95. “Come feel the sound that puts you at the center of the action.”

“We’re trying this concept because there are many theaters in Spain, and admissions are down,” Mr. Martínez said. “So we have to offer new products.”

- New Hot Properties: YouTube Celebrities

Bob Tedeschi profiles some YouTube celebs who are being recruited by other video sites, with promises of pay - or just more promotion. He claims that YouTube "has been stung by the departure of popular acts" like Lonelygirl15. Would any traffic numbers bear that out? Not sure it made much of a dent. But there is a tiny scrap of speculation in the piece about how YouTube may soon compensate creators. Tedeschi writes:

In January, YouTube’s co-founder, Chad Hurley, said the company would in the coming months begin sharing advertising revenue with contributors. The company last week said it would not elaborate on that plan, or on the efforts of competitors to lure its contributors away.

But [videomaker Paul] Robinett said he was contacted by a talent agency claiming YouTube plans to share about 20 percent of the advertising money gleaned from each video clip with the clip’s producer. Mr. Robinett said he could not confirm that claim with a YouTube executive.