The only thing that has any value in the world is time, and to represent that, we use money… so if there is a perfect example of this relationship I think it’s Halo3 – being the root of Halo-itus it’s sucking both time and money (GN) from the pockets and lives of it’s players and those associated with them… To me, this presents an interesting question… Can we still afford to ignore games… anywhere…
In light of the posts that I had a while ago about the investment required of a user to really get into a game and how it’s really not something that is easy for the average Joe to do while managing life (though it was so easy when we were young :(), Halo’s success and the sickness that keeps players up nights and missing work is something that is seemingly unique to the game. It’s a video based narrative that unfolds in a way that hooks (addictively, but not really) the player into the world. It makes the player care about learning about the world (arguably using ideas like ZPD) – even if it’s just to frag the next noob that pops up.
Movies can’t do this, they last a couple of hours, books – even Harry Potter – lasted at the most a couple of days for readers/consumers to digest, but games are far stickier. So even though the $170M USD (what about $169M CND ;)) take home is impressive, it’s the spin-off in terms of time that is the real kicker. Movies and the like make it up in merchandising, and Halo3 is no slouch there either. Some things to think about.
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