Dharma Bum

Mass Effect has been out for three weeks. In that time, it has sold 1,000,000 copies. With regular and special edition SKUs, that translates to over $60,000,000 in sales. Halo 3 recently passed the five million copies sold mark. That is well over $300,000,000 in sales, with the more expensive SKUs, including one that retailed for $129.99, profits may be as much as $400,000,000 – $420,000,000. And it ain’t even Christmas yet.

Comparing the game industry and the movie industry this year, the game industry made more profit. With Hollywood lobbing crappy propaganda films and botching the major franchise releases, and also Fred Claus, it has been a rough year for movies, and this is not the first time this has happened. But you look at the amount of competition to break into Hollywood versus what it takes to make it in the gaming world, and it is disgusting, but they both mostly cater to the same audience – 12 year old boys. Maybe the video game industry is on a bit of a bubble, as the MMO craze may end up being a fad, and there are no doubt missteps to be made with major sequels to established titles. But still! Put down $15,000,000 for development – and get literally twenty times that on your investment… Halo is it’s own animal, and that doesn’t happen every time. But it’s like every single successful game is the budget equivalent of The Blair Witch Project. No doubt there are and will be flops, but my mind is just blown by these big, beautiful numbers.