The Worst Thing About The Biggest Money-Making Entertainment Category

hey there it’s David H Lawrence the 17th
and if I were to ask you just off the
top of your head what do you think the
highest grossing entertainment category
is what makes the most money out of all
the different options that we have for
entertainment would you say morning
shows radio morning shows they make a
lot of money but no that’s not even
close even though people like the top
top morning show hosts make you know
around fifty million dollars a year they
still don’t make nearly as much money as
the the highest grossing how about
television network television cable
television nope they make a lot of money
but no they’re not the highest-grossing
what about professional football
professional baseball professional
basketball soccer nope not even close
how about tentpole movies like Avengers
and now you’re getting closer but no not
that either number one category and
here’s a chart from statista on it the
number one category is videogames the
top three lines of the top three
videogame grossing games of all time
Grand Theft Auto 5 at number one Red
Dead Redemption – at number two they
made about a billion dollars in their
first week of release now it took
Avengers which is on the bottom lines
took that a lot longer to make a billion
dollars it got there
but here’s the big difference there’s
two big differences for us as performers
number one the budgets for big films big
blockbuster films are a lot bigger then
the budgets are for video games they
don’t need to be very big for video
games because of the nature of how video
games are produced and for us as
performers the real dark side of
videogames is you go in you work for a
day and then if the video game is really
popular and really successful and those
billions of dollars are made on it you
see nothing extra in residuals because
video games is one of those areas unlike
big films commercials you know
productions
cable network television things like
that where if things are successful and
they’re used a lot more you get
residuals you get paid more as a
performer you share in the success of
those productions and it kind of feels
like the video game industry in general
has spent a long time not promoting the
people that work in video games yeah
there’s occasionally people here and
there that you know video game fanatics
just really love but they don’t promote
them the way say ABC or NBC or the BBC
or ITV for in the UK would promote the
fact that a star is going to be in a
television show or the way Marvel would
promote the way a star is going to be in
a film or the way the NBA or the NFL
would promote a Steph Curry or a Tom
Brady or the way you know FIFA would
would promote Messi or Ronaldo or you
know there’s this star system in almost
every category of of performance that is
designed to help that category market
their stuff they do it for a reason
because it helps make them more money
and it really feels like video games
have come to the conclusion they don’t
need that they don’t want to build stars
because then stars would be demanding
more money you know and they may pay
stars big dollars I was involved in a
video game that that helped me buy this
condo
it was not because I did a lot of the
voices and I did do a lot of the voices
but it was because I was a producer and
I was a writer and I was an audio
developer and producer for though for
the audio side of things a game called
Saints Row and you know I saw firsthand
what it was like to work with a studio
and work with a publisher how low the
budgets were I think the budget for the
original Saints grow was like
twenty-eight million dollars that’s
nothing for a film but for a video game
that was a lot back in the day there was
2006 and then they went on because they
know how to market they went on to make
a hundred and fifty
million dollars in the first first three
days first day first three days it was
the first three days because it you know
it was launched on a Tuesday and they
were 150 million in the black within a
few hours
so they don’t need to go to the extent
of providing ongoing participation for
the people that are involved in fact
when sag after went on strike a few
years ago they basically said you know
we really don’t need you the Secretary’s
down the hall would love to voice video
games and the coders would love to be
involved and the fans would love to be
involved we can find people who will do
a credible job without resorting to
stars to people that really know what
they’re doing when it comes to
performance we don’t need you and I’m
not sure that’s true but certainly
they’ve built an incredible business
around that attitude and that attitude
of being we don’t need to develop stars
we don’t need to market with stars we
don’t need stars the games are the stars
and I wonder how you feel about that I
wonder how you look at the business how
you look at as a performer the idea of
working on a video game for hours and
getting a few hundred dollars
potentially blowing out your voice and
then if the game is successful not
participating what are your comments on
that maybe it’s like well that’s just
the way it is you know maybe you’re a
video game fanatic and you’re like I
don’t care I’m not gonna go buy a video
game because you’re in it or because
somebody’s in it let me know in the
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YouTube will play it for you I’m David H
Lawrence xvii I thank you so much for
watching and I will talk to you tomorrow.