Leipzig GC 2006: Midway’s Press Conference

Although the Midway Games press conference at the Leipzig Games Convention featured a few of their upcoming projects like Unreal Tournament 2007 and Stranglehold and Mortal Kombat: Armageddon, the biggest news was an interesting idea: the game industry will outgrow the film industry in terms of revenue.

Why will games make companies richer than movies? Midway’s CEO David Zucker had 3 good reasons:

• Games leverage what movies do well
• Games based on major movie licenses do well (“The Matrix” or “Lord of the Rings”)
• Games don’t do well if they’re based on movies that make less than $300 million in the box office
• Games avoid movies that don’t do well
• Games don’t have the same massive production and marketing costs (although rising costs mean that about 1 million units of a next-gen game have to be sold to break; the average game production budget has soared to $15 million)
• Games don’t have to pay actors and directors huge salaries (the Mortal Kombat characters in the picture above do look like a bunch of underpaid actors ready to riot)
• Games go beyond what movies can do
• Customization and fully interactive worlds offer a more immersive experience
• MMOs, online multiplayer support (like Xbox Live), and similar trends offer socializing and trading

Agree? Disagree? Tell us what you think.

Although the Midway Games press conference at the Leipzig Games Convention featured a few of their upcoming projects like Unreal Tournament 2007 and Stranglehold and Mortal Kombat: Armageddon, the biggest news was an interesting idea: the game industry will outgrow the film industry in terms of revenue.

Why will games make companies richer than movies? Midway’s CEO David Zucker had 3 good reasons:

• Games leverage what movies do well
• Games based on major movie licenses do well (“The Matrix” or “Lord of the Rings”)
• Games don’t do well if they’re based on movies that make less than $300 million in the box office
• Games avoid movies that don’t do well
• Games don’t have the same massive production and marketing costs (although rising costs mean that about 1 million units of a next-gen game have to be sold to break; the average game production budget has soared to $15 million)
• Games don’t have to pay actors and directors huge salaries (the Mortal Kombat characters in the picture above do look like a bunch of underpaid actors ready to riot)
• Games go beyond what movies can do
• Customization and fully interactive worlds offer a more immersive experience
• MMOs, online multiplayer support (like Xbox Live), and similar trends offer socializing and trading

Agree? Disagree? Tell us what you think.