Activision wants to sell you game cutscenes for $20 to $30

Matthew DeCarlo

Matthew DeCarlo

Posts: 5,271   +104
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Sharpen your pitchforks. Speaking at a conference in California this week, Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick revealed long-term plans to sell video game cutscenes as full movies. Kotick believes titles such as StarCraft II have such impressive in-game cinematics that they could be edited together as one lengthy video and digitally distributed to fans for, get this, $20 to $30. That's about half the cost of a new game and more than DVD or Blu-ray films.


What's more, after downloading the video directly, an "extremely high percentage" of viewers would want to watch it again in a theatrical release, according to Kotick. Such a model would be superior to traditional film studios and would top box office records, he said. The executive didn't share anything too specific, but he did say that Activision is likely to give this a shot sometime within the next five years -- whether partnered or alone.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/40303-activision-wants-to-sell-you-game-cutscenes-for-20-to-30.html

 
How about giving these away as a download to all the loyal fans who are already overcharged for the game, instead of trying to milk your customer base dry.
 
Why would they attempt to do this?? The video will just get uploaded to youtube or better yet strengthen people to download via a torrent. For $20 I would....
Why can't those corporate people understand, their target demographic are people in middle school, high school, and college. They don't have the money and certainly know how to get digital media for FREE!!!
 
Uh, you're wrong guest. First of all, I'm an avid game player and I don't remotely fall into the middle school, high school and college group.

Secondly, it seems that group has plenty of money for the hippest (expensive) clothing, MP3 players, iPads, cars, beer, etc. BUT...they also know how to steal games, movies and music on the Internet with complete anonymity.

So try not to insult us all and claim you're too broke to buy games and you're FORCED to steal them.

As far as selling game cut-scenes as a movie, I have my doubts. They're not meant to be spliced together as a hotel, but are deliberately designed to enhance gameplay. Not sure how that will pan out.
 
The greediness of Activision never ceases. This is just another reason that I'm glad I haven't bought SCII or CoD:MW2 (or any of the other games in their respective franchises actually).
Oh how I wish the Diablo franchise was produced by any other company...
 
Bobby should really understand that there is a line, and it's a thick line, between a resourcefully creative businessman and a disgustingly cheap jerk.
 
So what does this mean? Is Activision going to eliminate all cut-scenes from new games and make us buy separate content in-order to get a full story? Or are they just going to take already made cut-scenes from games and expand upon them for fans? If this is going to be the former I will likely stop buying anything Activision related. If it's the latter it depends what they offer in extra content that actually makes purchasing this worth it. But I highly doubt an "extremely high percentage" of users wants to pay a third time to see a game in theaters.

Chazz said:
That guy never ceases to amaze me. It's such a shame that blizzard teamed up with them.
Click to expand...

From my understanding it was Vivendi the owner of Blizzard who bought Activision to merge the respected game divisions to form a new company (Activison-Blizzard) and have majority stake. So I doubt Blizzard really had much say in the matter.
 
ahahaha looks like activision is already crackin that whip on blizzards art team, get your resume's ready they'll be hiring.
 
Nothing really new here... Probably had a "brainstorm" when he was lighting his Cuban cigar with a $50 bill and saw a commercial for the Halo Reach movie - basically game cinematics, fleshed out into an entire movie title, from what I can gather. Interesting concept, could be a nice tie-in, but the price point is so ridiculously out of touch with the reality of the economy and target market, it's a bit laughable. Gamers will go out and buy a new game, not drop it on crap they can watch if they play again.

Now, make it something like a $5 to $10 bonus content thing if you own the game, or included in the Collector's Edition of the game, something like that... Then we might be on a better track. But, to just buy it outright without owning the game, it should be priced (at the worst) identical to a movie - not a penny more.
 
you mean the cutscenes that half the time i would rather just SKIP to get on with the game? those cutscenes?
 
seronx said:
princeton said:
There's no such thing as 16.2 or even 7.2. It's 7.1 and 16.2 is barely close to any existing setup, closest to 10.2
Click to expand...

http://www.the-home-cinema-guide.com/image-files/setting-up-surround-sound-06.jpg

http://www.the-home-cinema-guide.com/setting-up-surround-sound.html

16 speakers and 2 subwoofer is not consumer yet
Click to expand...

Do you have any idea how uncommon those types of configurations are. If 16.2 isn't for consumers why would they bother supporting it. Your arguments don't have any foundation or reason.
 
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