In the final part of my blog series about video games, I want to bring up a point that we haven't really talked about iand it applies not only to video games, but every medium of narrative that we've discussed throughout the semester. That point is, drum roll please...:
Video Games sell like hotcakes.
Whenever people see a sequel to their favorite game series, they all go out and buy it. Take for example, Halo 3. It had $170 million in profits the first day alone, and more than $300 million in the first week. At the time, it held the record for the most selling IP on the day of release EVER. Now for a recent example, take Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. It now holds the record that Halo 3 once had, with $550 million in sales in only five days, $310 of which was from the first day alone.
I'm a bit curious as to why we didn't talk about sales at all in the course, it could have added another layer of knowledge as to why people like medium X more than medium Y. For movies, The Dark Knight broke all possible box office records while it was in theaters. For books, The Bible is the most sold book in the world (and most stolen, ironically, but that's for a different class.) For music I don't know of any specifics, although I'm sure The Beatles are up there somewhere. Basically, it would've been an interesting side of things to look at.
Don't Forget
America isn't the only nation that goes crazy over video games.
World of Warcraft has a large proportion of its users in China.
Dragon Quest IX moved millions of copies within a week of its release in Japan.
Also in Japan, PlayStation 3 sales spiked noticably the instant a deal became available with the PS3s bundled with a certain Gundam video game.
And then there's Europe...
Twilight
I can answer this: take a look at the new number 1.
If we just consider those top two spots, I think you've got a pretty clear demonstration of why sales figures aren't that reliable a measure of quality or analytical merit. Now, I'm not trying to be an anti-Twilight snob, since I haven't read any of the books or seen any of the movies. But the critics seem to agree that Dark Knight is a better use of one's time than Twilight.
Since I have actually seen Dark Knight, I can say there's plenty of compelling storytelling there to talk about. I suspect that a discussion of Twilight would have to deal with the problematic gender representations of the characters or the (according to some people) utter lack of compelling storytelling. Both conversations would be productive, but neither is an automatic consequence of either's box office numbers. Make sense?
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