If you haven’t yet recognized video gaming as one of the core entertainment/cultural platforms of this decade, take notice. A single game that went on sale at midnight last night may well hit $100 million in sales within its first 24 hours on the market. For a little perspective, that’s about 25 percent more than the total annual operating budget for Lincoln Center…compressed into a single day.
Halo 2 already had pre-orders of over 1.5 million units, and is likely to smash opening box office receipts of even the biggest films (the current number one at the box office, The Incredibles, racked up a mere $70 million in its entire opening weekend…chump change).
The point here isn’t just shock and awe (although there should be plenty of both…one forecaster suggests that worldwide sales of PC game, video game, and portable game hardware and software will reach $31.6 billion in 2009). Rather, I’m wondering out loud about the untapped potential of this media platform as a stage for creative inquiry, experience, and production.
These powerful media machines are sitting in millions of homes. What would it take to commission or produce even just a tiny trickle of non-commercial creative product to fill the void? And what would an exceptional artist do with the medium, if given the tools and the time?
STORY UPDATE (11/11/04): As it turned out, Halo 2 generated sales of about $125 million in its first 24 hours, exceeding initial estimates of $70 – $100 million. That’s more than the combined annual budgets of the New York Philharmonic and Los Angeles Philharmonic.
