the video game industry is as big as the movie industry and will soon be
larger than it.  The article below describes these changes and what all
this new cash means.  with all this money pouring in, it is regrettable
that more of this cannot work for blind persons.

kelly

from the Los Angeles times


Monday, May 10, 1999
COLUMN ONE
Now Video Games Are as Big as the Movies
 As joystick adventures take on a more cinematic sheen, the industry's
sales are expected to blast past Hollywood's box office this year.
By P.J. HUFFSTUTTER, Times Staff Writer

SAN RAFAEL--Jack Sorensen's phone rings. It's another call for help.
     A movie studio executive is trying to persuade Sorensen's software
developers at LucasArts Entertainment Co. to create a computer game based
on his upcoming film. Another pitch. Another "sure hit." And like scores of
calls before, the LucasArts president will reject it.
     "Studios are begging everyone I know to do projects. And we won't
because we don't have to," Sorensen said. "I remember these same
executives, just a few years ago, laughing at the idea of games being as
big as movies. Today, no one's laughing."
     Indeed, the video game industry has transformed itself from a niche
business into a global powerhouse that market researchers say hauled in
about $6.3 billion last year, just shy of the $6.9 billion taken in at the
box office.
     So big has the game industry become that Sony Corp.'s game division
last year contributed the biggest chunk to the parent company's overall
operating profits--more than its film, music or consumer electronics
businesses.
     More important, video game sales are rising faster than those of movie
tickets--even though the actual number of tickets sold is higher. Revenues
in the video game market--which includes software and the console machines
used to play them--have jumped about 12% annually since 1994, compared to
an average 7.5% bump in theater ticket sales. As games continue to
skyrocket, analysts predict that people will spend more on electronic
entertainment in 1999 than at movie theaters for the first time ever.
     "This is not a toy business any more," said Stewart Halpern, a senior
entertainment analyst at the New York investment firm ING Baring Furman
Selz. "This is a complex industry generating enormous revenues and showing
no sign of slowing down."
     Hollywood studios have grabbed the film and TV rights to numerous
software titles, launched their own development teams and started
production on numerous films based on computer games. The industry's love
fest will reach a peak at this week's Electronic Entertainment Expo, the
gaming world's annual extravaganza of excess and technological debauchery,
held in Los Angeles.
     Software developers say that most of Hollywood's old guard still sees
games as a fringe market and is missing the bigger picture. These artists
understand that there's more to the medium than just marketing, in which a
game helps promote a movie.
     Sure, game developers are inspired by--and emulate the storytelling
techniques of--film and television. Yet computer games possess their own
distinct appeal and, in turn, have intensified a generation gap.
     Just as rock music drew cultural lines between parents and their
children in the '50s and '60s, electronic games have created a rift between
many baby boomers and their offspring, who are growing up with joysticks
firmly in hand.
     This division became glaringly evident in the days after the high
school massacre in Littleton, Colo., as the industry and thousands of its
young fans defended the medium while a growing faction of psychologists,
social critics and politicians cast video games as dangerous to America's
youth.

     Young Males Dominate Market
     Kids, of course, get it. No one has to explain to a teenage boy why
the latest Sony Playstation racing title is great, or how the new Sega
Dreamcast video game machine will keep him awake until dawn.
     As the technology matures, so does the generation of players. Today's
average game fan is male and in his late teens and early 20s, according to
industry research.
     These young men, who watch more movies and buy more games than girls
their age, wield a surprising amount of power in Hollywood. They see films
early, usually in the first 10 days after opening day, and can help create
a public buzz soon after the feature's debut. Likewise, they buy software
soon after the title is released, which is crucial to the life span of the
game in the highly competitive battle for retail shelf space.
     "This is Hollywood's prime audience--young people looking for a
cinematic, interactive experience," said Christian Svensson, editor in
chief of MCV, a weekly computer and video game trade magazine.
     The movie and computer worlds tried to marry in the early '90s, with a
slew of partnerships and joint ventures creating a much-hyped merger
between Silicon Valley's technology and Hollywood's marketing savvy. But
the union was disastrous: The corporate cultures of the industries--both
used to full creative control of their products--failed to mesh.
     Still, both sides rushed to cash in on the untapped market. As a
result, scores of titles were released and ultimately flopped.
     Failure sent many film studios sprinting away from interactive
software. At the same time, it forced the game industry, so focused on
improving technology, to reevaluate stories it was telling.
     Adapting techniques from film, game makers began to draw on the visual
and aural tricks perfected by their movie brethren. Take the
soon-to-be-released "Vampire: The Masquerade," an edgy role-playing game in
which players slip into the electronic persona of boogeymen.
     As the developers at Novato-based Nihilistic Software create the game,
they paint virtual scenes with various lighting, and use shadows to convey
suspense or drama. As a game player enters a new area, the music becomes
more foreboding, with heavy orchestral chords that indicate a "dark Umberto
Eco feel," said Ray Gresko, chief executive of Nihilistic.
     Lens flares--that white, fuzzy haze seen in film when the sun hits the
surface of the camera lens--have become more common in games. Yet software
artists don't use real sunlight or glass lenses.
     "It's ironic, because we're dealing in a perfect digital medium," said
LucasArts' Sorensen. "But people can see a flare and think 'movie.' "
     Filmmakers, conversely, are again paying attention to games.
     "Die Hard" producers Lawrence Gordon and Lloyd Levin are developing a
movie based on the best-selling title "Tomb Raider" for Paramount Pictures.
New Line Cinema is set to release "Mortal Kombat III," drawn from the
martial arts game, by year's end.
     Hollywood has snatched up the film rights to dozens of games,
including the violent "Duke Nukem" from GT Interactive Software Corp., the
gruesome "Resident Evil" by Capcom Ltd., and several action-packed titles
from Activision Inc. The deals are still on, even amid the post-Littleton
backlash against violent games.
     Refusing to succumb to the fate many authors face when books are
turned into films, game publishers are retaining tight control over their
intellectual properties. Eidos Interactive, maker of the "Tomb Raider"
series, has final approval over Paramount's film script and the casting of
Lara Croft, the pistol-wielding buxom heroine, say executives.
     Eidos also dictates what Croft can--and can't--do on screen: no
nudity, no smoking, no profanity and no sex scenes.
     "The reality is 'Tomb Raider,' as a game, does $150 million to $200
million a year for us," said Paul Baldwin, vice president of marketing for
Eidos. "Lara Croft is our cash cow, and we can't afford to have her dragged
through the mud with a bad film experience."
     Most aggressive among Hollywood game players is Sony Corp. Long the
world's leading consumer electronics maker, Sony's core business is being
transformed by digital electronics--particularly games.
     "Software is king," said Kazuo "Kaz" Hirai, president of Sony Computer
Entertainment of America. "You can have the best technology, the most
advanced box in the world. But without the applications, that box will only
collect dust on the retail shelves."
     Sony hopes to tap the game market with its Playstation 2, which will
be released in the United States next year. It's the first game machine
able to deliver graphics that until now could be produced only by high-end
computers.
     The brains of the box allow the graphics of a game to be as detailed
as those seen in the movie "Toy Story." Further blurring the lines between
game and movie makers, the as-yet-unpriced Playstation promises to let
software developers take the graphics and digital models used in a film's
visual effects and drop them directly into a game.
     "Philosophically, we're seeing a convergence between the two
industries," said Chris Lee, the Sony executive charged with turning games
into films. "In practice, though, what's happening is the game companies
are starting to assert their power."

     Egos Grow Along With Sales
     This realization of newfound power is paying off for many of these
game moguls of the millennium. They are frequently young, smart and rich,
and some like to emulate the lives of their movie brethren with late-night
parties and high-tech toys.
     A recent after-hours bash at the Computer Game Developers' conference
in San Jose, for example, possessed all the trappings of stereotypical
Hollywood excess. The ubiquitous velvet rope. An aloof, muscular bouncer
flipping through his clipboard, eyeballing the guest list. Teeming masses,
desperate to get into the sweaty nightclub.
     Those making their way inside were a cool clan of software developers
and technical engineers who, once mocked as gear-heads, now are revered as
digital deities. Among them was game developer John Romero, worshiped by
"Quake" fans because he designed the top-selling series.
     "Do you know who I am?" asked Romero, smiling slightly as colored
disco lights danced across his black mane. "I am a god."
     Egos abound in this landscape of toys and testosterone, where the
people behind the games are gunning for the spotlight. Musician Tommy
Tallarico, a cheeky self-promoter who writes soundtracks for software, is
known for dressing up in animal-print suits and hiring strippers to disrobe
at his speeches.
     Yet for every Romero and Tallarico, there are hundreds of other
developers shunning stardom. John Carmack, the programming genius behind
the violent "Quake" series, is painfully shy. Higeru Miyamoto, creator of
more than 60 Nintendo game titles that have brought the company billions in
sales, is rarely recognized.
     "Bold or shy, no one wants to be perceived as a dork. It turns people
off," said Cliff Blezinski, 24, a designer at Epic Games. "It's one thing
to be known among gamers. But if the public knows who you are, you can
demand a better deal with the game publishers."
     Game developers work in teams, spending long hours in darkened rooms
laboring on their titles. Publishers pay an upfront fee to developers, who
receive a bonus if the game sells well and the publisher recoups its
initial investment.
     Cash incentives to make a successful game--say, a $25,000 bonus when a
game sells more than 200,000 copies--are common. So are lucrative film
licensing and merchandising deals.
     But competition is fierce, say analysts, as about only 10% of the
games released last year made a profit.
     "Sony's great, but the rest of the movie world always treats us like
second-class citizens, despite the fact that we make them so much money,"
said Andy Gavin, 28, chairman of game developer Naughty Dog. The tiny Santa
Monica company created the Universal-produced "Crash Bandicoot" titles, one
of the best-selling series of games for the Playstation and Sony's
unofficial mascot.
     Though industry watchers admit that developers like Naughty Dog
command less respect than their film counterparts, few are sympathetic to
the social pecking order.
     "The Naughty Dog guys all drive Ferraris, Porsches and high-end
Mercedes," said MCV editor Svensson. "The respect will come in time."


VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List.
To join or leave the list, send a message to
[log in to unmask]  In the body of the message, simply type
"subscribe vicug-l" or "unsubscribe vicug-l" without the quotations.
 VICUG-L is archived on the World Wide Web at
http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/vicug-l.html