Increasingly the world of video games and movies are merging with the latest video games now include more involved multi-layered storylines, lush "cinematography", even many big name actors as voice talent and now BIG BIG box office. The NYU-Tisch School of the Arts (where I also work and teach film) has recently started a Game Center right along side their renowned and well-established film school - same floor even.
As a casual gamer I've been blown away by titles like Metal Gear Solid and the Call of Duty franchise (which I'm pretty sure I'm now gonna need therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder from just the few hours I've played so far. More than once I've had to turn it off and take a break from the intense action on-screen).
Witness this NY Times article which cites how Call of Duty: Black Ops has just set a world record for the biggest 5 day sales of ANY MEDIA - that's movies, music or video games by generating $650 million in worldwide sales in 5 days. That means no title of any genre has ever made more money faster and that's damned well worth paying attention to.
While I don't think a videogame will ever surpass the total box office of say a blockbuster movie like Avatar or Dark Knight in the near future. The day may not be far off as videogames are now learning to milk money from secondary markets like downloadable extras. (FYI- The previous record holding title was Call of Duty: Modern Warfare)
The other figure worth noting here is the cost of the average game at about $50/unit and the amount of time spent engaged with that media - upwards of 20-30 hours for the most popular big titles.
Maybe time to change that big budget action script into a game script, eh?
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