{"id":588,"date":"2004-11-09T09:03:33","date_gmt":"2004-11-09T17:03:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp\/2004\/11\/the_stage_we_cant_ignore\/"},"modified":"2004-11-09T09:03:33","modified_gmt":"2004-11-09T17:03:33","slug":"the_stage_we_cant_ignore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/main\/the_stage_we_cant_ignore.php","title":{"rendered":"The stage we can&#8217;t ignore"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If you haven&#8217;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&#8217;s about 25 percent more than the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.guidestar.org\/controller\/searchResults.gs?action_gsReport=1&#038;npoId=671243\">total annual operating budget for Lincoln Center<\/a>&#8230;compressed into a single day.<\/p>\n<p>\nHalo 2 <a href=\"http:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2004\/11\/08\/commentary\/game_over\/column_gaming\/index.htm?cnn=yes\">already had pre-orders of over 1.5 million units<\/a>, and is likely to smash opening box office receipts of even the biggest films (the current number one at the box office, <i>The Incredibles<\/i>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/apps\/news?pid=10000103&#038;sid=aa97P4gr1Y5A&#038;refer=us\">racked up a mere $70 million<\/a> in its entire opening weekend&#8230;chump change).<\/p>\n<p>\nThe point here isn&#8217;t just shock and awe (although there should be plenty of both&#8230;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.dfcint.com\/news\/prsep222004.html\">one forecaster suggests<\/a> that worldwide sales of PC game, video game, and portable game hardware and software will reach $31.6 billion in 2009). Rather, I&#8217;m wondering out loud about the untapped potential of this media platform as a stage for creative inquiry, experience, and production.<\/p>\n<p>\nThese 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?<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><i><br \/>\nSTORY UPDATE (11\/11\/04): As it turned out, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.freep.com\/money\/tech\/techbuzz11e_20041111.htm\">Halo 2 generated sales of about $125 million<\/a> in its first 24 hours, exceeding initial estimates of $70 &#8211; $100 million. That&#8217;s more than the combined annual budgets of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.guidestar.org\/controller\/searchResults.gs?action_gsReport=1&#038;npoId=615104\">New York Philharmonic<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.guidestar.org\/controller\/searchResults.gs?action_gsReport=1&#038;npoId=339852\">Los Angeles Philharmonic<\/a>.<br \/>\n<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you haven&#8217;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&#8217;s about 25 percent more than [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-588","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}