(eyeball time: 3.0 minutes but you might read faster…unless you give yourself a.d.d. hyperlinking your way through this)
prince of persia
the dea skinny on what’s happening:
http://www.disney.go.com/Disneypictures/princeofpersia
prince of persia, the $200m us movie released on may 28 was rapidly panned and summarily dismissed in david denby’s recent uberkultur “pass the grey poupon mustard please” movie review in the new yorker magazine for being a simple, mechanically-executed video game on film. “parkour.” cool reference. duh. that is the whole damn idea. and, yes, it didn’t “pop” with opening weekend box office numbers of only $30m us. but it has already grossed $220m us worldwide so far. so what? it is a giant movie plug for the popular game series namesake franchise from ubisoft games. in this context “art is just a guy’s name.” this is business. to pan the movie is to completely miss the point of the producer’s objectives: to sell multiple trans-media licensing deals into a much larger gaming market than just the ” blockbuster” feature film market. and we have two other words to explain why it is important: “jerry bruckeheimer,” the legendary hollywood film and tv producer. and, well, another word: “disney,” as in distribution.
the stakes:
billions of dollars. simple. we get that there have been many blockbuster franchises built in the past from “starwars” to “the matrix” and everything in between and many had moderate attendant video game success at best in many cases (although cameron’s ubisoft video game “avatar” has flopped thus far but with film box office like its film counterpart, who cares?). but those were feature film-content driven plays, not game-centric and video game-industry driven.
there is history here. years ago, “lara croft tomb raider” was one of the first popular games to be translated into a feature film series with angelie jolie playing lara in her specially constructed bustier. so let’s look under the hood at the lara croft numbers: the feature films did roughly $430 in box office alone but the video game is still being played by some fanatics long after the movie screens have gone dark for lara on a daily basis, for hours at a time. that is the beauty of a game franchise. dwell time. persistent experience. repetitive experience. locked “eyes-on-me” eyeballs for hours at a time.
but that was then and this is now. today the feature film industry is dwarfed by the video game industry, when online and “free to play” is included, and is conservatively guesstimated to be a $60b us worldwide industry in 2009. also keep in mind that the entire US film industry is only $40b us. That’s 1/5 the size of exxon oil’s annual revenues ($200b us/annum). so film is a small industry which gets a huge amount of attention. in fact, from jerry bruckheimer’s perspective, it is a mere product segment of his global business.and that is why jerry bruckheimer is jerry bruckheimer and disney is disney.
what is interesting about prince of persia, despite its poor opening bo numbers, is that represents an open hollywood acknowledgement, once again, that the video gaming industry will ultimately be exponentially larger than the traditional feature film industry. and the licensing deals associated with cross platform gaming deals will be huge involving product placement, complex licensing, marketing and product sponsor tie-ins and multiple revenue streams. and these go across what we call “persistent context channels” – content venues which get consumed multiple times over time. while movies get viewed once, on average, video games are played multiple times over a period of years. and that is why jerry bruckheimer is a smart and very successful producer: he is creating trans-media product and advertising venues across and number of channels for advertisers, product brand managers and well as gaming technology platform players like pcs, sony playstation3, mircosoft’s xbox 360, and online.
the dea takeaway:
if you are a content developer in film or television it is obvious you should look for trans-media content opportunities based on already proven game franchises. although many transplants have failed (e.g., microsoft’s “halo“) picking properties which have deeper character potential with deep game play will succeed more than mere game play features. but the bigger opportunity is platform licensing deal tie-ins. while it is unlikely you will get a piece of the game platform revenues, there are many product placement and webisode potential tie-ins. especially with tv series and a multi-channel platform for distribution like hulu.
if you are a video game producer, start thinking like think like a movie producer and pitch projects to the feature film world. but focus on franchises that have a shot of succeeding since so many have failed.
if you are a hardware platform manufacturer, it is a no brainer to license content for your platform but think film and gaming and online. what games can you license which take full of your platform’ s gameplay, video codecs, engines and distribution networks (net based) which can also leverage net sites and tie-ins to other promotions and platforms? finally, and this is counter intuitive, don’t look for exclusive deals. look for content that will be licensed across your competitor’s platforms as well. think “coopetition.” come on, you read the harvard business review and know what this is. this will provide you with safety within a larger content ecosystem. it’s how many fish leverage coral reef systems. be a fish.
if you are a brand manager or advertiser…well…this is a target-rich environment, to say the least. there are multiple. cross-promotional opportunities both large and small across the spectrum. and you too can become a producer like jerry…propose a film/gaming franchise to your brands. that how coca cola and ford developed “american idol” after all…it was an advertising brain child that drove it from day one.
for more information, please contact us at 512.825.6866 to discuss the issues more fully and the specific impact & implications to your business. it’s free!
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