At the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Media, Communications, and Entertainment Conference, Activision-Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick has stated that he expects his company to start selling the cutscenes contained in videogames separately to users within five years. Kotick believes that the quality of cutscenes as found in games like Starcraft II are of such high quality that customers would be willing to pay for them separately. Rather than paying for an entire game, the company would edit together the cutscenes of a game into a full film and sell this film to users at a price of $20 to $30.
Kotick’s specific statements can be found after the jump.
If we were to take that hour, or hour an a half, and take it out of the game and we were to go to our audiences, who we have their credit card information a direct relationship, and say to them ‘Would you like to have the StarCraft movie?
[…]
Within the next five years, you are likely to see us do that. It might be in a partnership with somebody or alone, but there will be a time where we’ll capitalize on the relationship we have with our audience; deliver them something that is really extraordinary and let them consume it directly through us instead of theatrical distribution.
[…]
My guess is unlike film studios that are really stuck with a model that goes through theatrical distribution and takes a signification amount of the profit away, if we were to go to an audience and say ‘We have this great hour and a half of linear video that we’d like to make available to you at a $20 or $30 price point,’ you’d have the biggest opening weekend of any film ever.
No Kotick, just NO. Only taking the cutscenes doesn’t tell the whole story of the game. Just stop with your money grubbing schemes, Activision already has enough money.
I think I will clarify this a bit more. If you are going to do a cut-scene movie, then you would have to add more content into the movie besides the hour and a half you so propose. Really if you are going to make a movie then make it a full-fledged original movie that references the things that happen in the game. I guess you just want to sell that Cut-scene/behind the scenes disk that was in the Collector’s Edition of Starcraft II huh?
Seeing as cutscenes only punctuate moments in a narrative, this won’t work. And seeing as most games have a shitload more than 90 minutes of cutscenes, this won’t work.
Selling a cut-scene film for potentially 1/2 the price of the actual game and more than a typical movie…good luck Bobby.
If this was anyone but Kotick, I suspect most of you would be more willing to consider the positive aspects of the idea. But because its Kotick, some of you aren’t even willing to consider the possibility. You just snap back that ‘greedy kotick’ wants to gouge us more.
I think the pricepoint is a bit high – 20-30 for a cutscene movie is a bit much and that there would definitely need to be some reworking and some additions to the cutscenes to ensure a cohesive story… but I think its a really cool idea to have the ‘game’s story’ be told through a consistent cutscene and have it available separate from the game.
Nope, I would still snap back at whoever tries to sell the cut-scenes for cash. The player is rewarded with the cut-scene after getting to a certain point in the story. Also the cut-scenes only give so much of the story, so combining them into a movie wouldn’t work as the rest of the story is contained in playing the game.
Now if they made a movie that was a prequel or sequel I would be interested for story sake (see Dead Space Downfall, FFVII Advent Children, Resident Evil Degeneration; all decent but not stellar, but I got a kick out of them, but wouldn’t pay full price for any of them).