Comments on: Just What is Innovation Really Worth?

By: nihohit

nihohit — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 09:43:45 +0000

yeah. Inflation, stronger buying power, more money in the average household, etc. All of the terms that make me happy I never learned economics.

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 16:36:21 +0000

I think what Niholit is saying is that the dollar amounts *may* not be correct. Are they adjusted for inflation?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_value_of_money

By: spitfire

spitfire — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 20:01:52 +0000

Good question, Omari. I do think there’s a lot of people who do read reviews, but then again, I think there’s more game consumers who don’t than do.

In some ways, I think that games journalism and reviewing can be a little bit of the tail wagging the dog.

By: Omari Akil

Omari Akil — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 17:23:22 +0000

Very good points. Assuming everything you have presented is true, why do we need reviewers at all? If they don’t have a strong reflection on sales and the people who actually read them are only of the slim minority who pay close attention to games and the industry, why is their main argument a necessity to appeal to the general public?

By: spitfire

spitfire — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 17:20:17 +0000

niholit, my method is actually sound, considering that the original complaint is that Apocalypse now is somehow “more innovative” than other more “mainstream” films.

So when I compare Star Wars total lifetime take to Apocalypse Now, we can see just how relevant to success innovation truly is (if we assume that the innovative film-making in Apocalypse Now is more relevant than the innovation in Star Wars, which is evidently what the original author’s complaint is).

As far as the original Indy film not making as much as the fourth, it really doesn’t have anything to do with dates. It has to do with this innovation thing. I think we can say that there’s more innovation in the original movie than in the fourth, and yet the fourth made more money because it’s been so mainstreamed since the first.

But yeah, in general I disagree with comparisons to films, for the most part. There’s good comparisons there in terms of general blue sky issues like innovation and consumer attach rates for genres and ideas, but I hate hearing comparisons between film storytelling and game storytelling.

By: nihohit

nihohit — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 09:01:59 +0000

Sorry to nitpick, but in order to compare box office success, you’ll have to compare a movie to its peers at its time – of course the first indy didn’t make as much as the lasst – because the economy was diffrenet. of course “a new hope” made lotsa money – it kept selling through the years, while only the first profits would’ve been relevant to the sequel, or really affected by the critics.
I’m not saying I disagree with what you say (also, I pretty much disagree with the whole comparison between games and movies, ever in general and between a game made after thirty years of gaming and a movie made after almost a hundred years of film) , just commenting on your method.