Lately, movie critics have been blaming their lack of movie revenue on videogames. My opinion is that it is a bunch of crap. I think that videogames have no, if very little affect on movies. There was just an article posted by Gamespot about how Grand Theft Auto might affect the launch of Iron Man the movie. Also, people have been blaming their loss of movie revenue on Halo. A good example was when Halo was released; it sold $170 Million dollars in the first day, and by the weekend, it sold $300 Million dollars. That weekend, movie executives were blaming Halo for their drop of 27% revenue. In money terms, they made $80 Million dollars that weekend.

But when it really boils down to it, did Halo really affect movie sales? Absolutly NO! I'm no expert, but I think that the numbers of either non-gamers, or casual gamers greatly outnumbers the hardcore gamers that wouldn't stop playing Halo until they beat every last drop of it. My point is that casual and non-gamers wouldn't let a videogame keep them from leaving their house to see a movie. I think that is pretty stupid of movie executives to immediatly point blame on a videogame because it was greatly more sucessful than their movie. Then it just becomes a game of pointing fingers, I think that it is very child-like of somebody to do that. This could also bring me to the point of blaming childhood violence on videogames, but that is a different story.

My next point- So why did the movies do so bad on that particular weekend? Well, haven't people noticed that movies just plain suck nowadays? It's hard to find a really good movie that's worth your $20 dollars, and usually $30-$40 dollars if you are taking a family. This brings me to my next point; isn't going to the movies pretty expensive? Are you kidding me!? The price of taking a family to see a movie used to be so much less than it is now. Now, like I said, it is about $30 to $40 dollars to take a medium sized family to see a movie. Also, these costs include the usual food that you buy at the concession stand. But with the cost to go see a movie, do you really want to risk your money on a mediocre movie? I'm sure that I don't, and it is hard to find a movie that it worth a good $25 dollars to see, and more if you have a family. Even me, I sometimes wait for a movie to come out on DVD because it will only cost me about $5-$7 dollars at the movie rental store.

This is why I think that the movie revenues have gone down. Not because of really sucessful games like Halo, and soon-to-be blockbusters like Grand Theft Auto IV. It is lack of the quality of movies these days and the cost to go see one. That is really where the issue lies. I could garantee that if the movie executives somehow lowered the price to go see a movie, and there weren't as many mediocre movies on the market, the movie sales would go up again.

I'm really tired of people blaming videogames for all of their issues, VIDEOGAMES ARE NOT SCAPEGOATS! How about you look at the real facts of what it is like to spend $30 dollars to see a mediocre movie that absolutly was not worth that kind of money, and stop whining and pointing fingers at videogames because they are becoming a very sucessful and common market. You should know better, and after all, you've been around a while, there's a new kid on the block.