Katzenberg: Video games hurting 'overall home video market'

by Alexander Sliwinski { Feb 27th 2008 at 5:30PM }

Variety's video game blog Cut Scene reports that during a conference call yesterday with analysts that DreamWorks Animation CEO and industry veteran, Jeffrey Katzenberg, partially blamed video games for the paltry performance of Shrek the Third on DVD. Now, let's ignore for five seconds that the third Shrek film was a soulless shell compared to the other installments and take note of a mega Hollywood player like Katzenberg joining the chorus that video games are to blame for an industry's slumping sales.

Don't feel too bad for DreamWorks, it stands to gain a nice chunk of change from its licensing deal with Activision for games based on Kung Fu Panda and the sequel to Madagascar. There is also a second Kung Fu Panda game slated for release in the fall tied to the DVD release. As much as there are mumblings of video games cutting into other media's revenue, Shrek the Third's DVD sales are easily blamed on it being a mediocre film -- but nowadays blaming video games is so much sexier.

Tags: dvd, katzenberg, variety

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Mr Khan @ Feb 27th 2008 5:34PM

I would think Netflix is doing the bulk of the damage. I'm the only person in my family who likes to actually buy movies, and my parents scoff at me when i do, I get them just because i'm a pack-rat

John McPoop @ Feb 27th 2008 7:28PM

@Khan

I think thats certainly part of it. IMO a bigger factor is programs like Hand Brake used to rip DVDs, Buy 2 get 2 DVD sales at Game stop and Movie Gallery and the biggest culprit is BIT TORRENT downloads. Another one is movie streaming sites like watch-movies dawt net or surfthechannel dawt com. I can watch a brand new movie in theaters the Saturday after a Friday release. Sometimes the same day or earlier.

I think games plays a SMALL part. The bigger problem is certainly illegal downloading and streaming outside of the country and beyond the scope of American law. And like I said why buy a new movie when you can get 4 used for the price of 1 new in a B2G2 sale at a movie shop.

Alejandro @ Feb 27th 2008 5:39PM

Yeah, let's blame videogames because a bad movie didn't do well.

Marty @ Feb 27th 2008 5:49PM

Exactly what I was thinking. If Hollywood started producing movies that were worth watching, maybe we'd put our controllers down and do so.

Joppe @ Feb 27th 2008 5:51PM

The movie industry behaves like a small child who just broke something.
It wasnt me! It was the dog/my sister/the flying pink moose!

BigD145 @ Feb 27th 2008 6:22PM

I second that. I haven't seen much good come out of Hollywood in the last 20 YEARS.

343 Guilty Fart @ Feb 27th 2008 6:29PM

Oh noez!! Some rich guy isn't getting richer!! Call the police, call the national guard, call the president!

glutto @ Feb 27th 2008 5:40PM

So video games are more entertaining than movies.

What will Hollywood do about this, I wonder...?

eugene @ Feb 27th 2008 5:59PM

Well, since the studios seem so sue happy these days, maybe they'll sue us for renting movies now.

"Renting a movie from netflix is just like stealing it for a couple of days, stealing is stealing!"

Korova @ Feb 27th 2008 9:36PM

Lol, eugene.

I dont think that he is blaming VGs like VGs are gonna get punished. He is just making excuses, really.

Todd @ Feb 27th 2008 5:42PM

Video Games and digital delivery are the advanced plastics to the movie industry's arcane wood mill.

And really Shrek the Third? Doesn't that pretty much validate his argument for the opposition?

Curtis the Claw Game Master V2 @ Feb 27th 2008 5:43PM

Maybe if the movies coming out were worth buying I would buy them.

Roto13 @ Feb 27th 2008 5:45PM

Let's say, for just a second, that's he's right and it's all games' fault...s. Instead of bitching, he should try to come up with a way for movies on DVD to be more appealing to buy than video games. Competition rocks. Even if it's cross-industry. xD

Crono (NDF - Knight of the Old School) @ Feb 28th 2008 12:12PM

Hollywood has always stuck me as an industry that would rather bitch than adapt.

cduran01 @ Feb 27th 2008 5:45PM

Shrek the Third was a horrible movie....

Rentals and pre-owed DVD sales probably have more to do with less people buying DVD's. Also pirating may have a hand in that too, but from my end I don't see that at all, In my house we buy tons of DVD's (almost always new, very few pre-owned). Lately we've been increasing our Bluray collection (though I assume they count those in DVD also).

Mystic @ Feb 27th 2008 5:46PM

I watch GOOD movies once (and not that shit that's #1 at the box office week after week). I don't buy movies because I don't watch them again. Also, I like playing games more than watching movies. And I only watch funny TV shows.

Batzarro @ Feb 27th 2008 5:46PM

I laff. Ha.

rasgueado @ Feb 27th 2008 5:48PM

Heaven forbid that people should be doing *anything* else except watching movies.

Organic_Shadow @ Feb 27th 2008 5:49PM

So catching up to it is hurting it?

ThornedVenom (Patapornographer) @ Feb 27th 2008 5:50PM

It's not because your old "creative" formulas used to work that it means that they're not having a fair chance to play on this Media Entertainment turf.

You can only blame yourselves.

PS: I also wonder if poor DVD sales is linked to the fact that the HD format war had only been resolved recently.

Joppe @ Feb 27th 2008 5:51PM

So they give their licenses to crappy games to hurt the gaming industry?
I smell a conspiracy here...

DangerMouse @ Feb 27th 2008 6:03PM

It's like Sony selling CD-Burners with music software and then telling you later that it's illegal to backup your own music.

deaftly @ Feb 27th 2008 5:52PM

Maybe because movies have been sucking total ass for..... hell I don't know, too long!

farfisa @ Feb 27th 2008 5:58PM

Yeah, I gotta blame "Shrek the Third" for poor sales of "Shrek the Third."
Actually, I wanted to leave in the middle of Shrek II, but they wouldn't let me off the plane.

Nick the Hero of Canton @ Feb 27th 2008 6:00PM

"Shrek the Third was just what it took to put DreamWorks Animation back in the green again. DVD sales of the animated sequel accounted for $179.4 million in revenue during the fourth quarter. Total revenue rose to $290.2 million with net income of $94.1 million. It was, said CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg, "DreamWorks Animation's most successful year since going pubic." Comparison with the year-earlier results was difficult since the studio wrote down $109 million following disappointing ticket sales for its 2006 feature, Flushed Away."

Source: IMDB

Now, if you ask me, those are some pretty fucking impressive sales figures, especially for such a terrible movie.

DangerMouse @ Feb 27th 2008 6:01PM

Boo fucking hoo.

That's business. They made so much money, that it's hard to see positives when they don't top what they did previously. Hip Hip hooray for the corporate way.

Trickob @ Feb 27th 2008 6:09PM

I'm surprised that no has pointed out the irony of this statement from dreamworks in that all of the video games with the "shrek" license have sucked ass...

The Artist formally known as Jesus @ Feb 27th 2008 6:28PM

I enjoyed Shrek 3..............

Mr.ESC @ Feb 27th 2008 6:33PM

It wasn't that bad, oh wait it was I mean compared to 1 & 2, Shrek the Third was awful.

Same is true for Spiderman 3.

Now that FF2 was good but the truth is that I rarely feel like watching a movie twice, especially the same year and by the end of the year is in cable. Only LotR was the only movie I bought in DVD

The Artist formally known as Jesus @ Feb 27th 2008 7:06PM

I also enjoyed Spider-man 3

ThornedVenom (Patapornographer) @ Feb 27th 2008 7:19PM

THERE IS NO GOD

AoE @ Feb 27th 2008 8:29PM

The Artist... you are Hollywood's wet dream apparently.

Crono (NDF - Knight of the Old School) @ Feb 28th 2008 12:15PM

I also enjoyed spiderman 3. I didn't think it was the best or anywhere close to the best, but it was still an above average action movie.

erac3rx @ Feb 27th 2008 6:28PM

Um, maybe Dreamworks' sales are bad because everything they do is either a sequel or a DIRECT RIP OFF of someone else's idea. The ones they have Spielberg do are often original, but the rest are ripoffs that *mysteriously* arrive in theaters 6-12 months after their inspiration. Just from memory:

Antz, a ripoff of A Bug's Life
Prince of Egypt, a ripoff of Mulan
Shark Tale, a ripoff of Finding Nemo
Deep Impact, a ripoff of Armageddon
Madagascar, a ripoff of Lion King franchise

and so on...

Mr.ESC @ Feb 27th 2008 6:41PM

Antz, a ripoff of A Bug's Life -Yeah
Prince of Egypt, a ripoff of Mulan-Eh..Wait,what?!
Shark Tale, a ripoff of Finding Nemo –They copy the aquatic style but is not a direct rip-off.

Deep Impact, a ripoff of Armageddon-Yeah, I didn’t know Dreamworks did that movie.

Madagascar, a ripoff of Lion King franchise-Wrong sir,wrong.

Madagascar was pretty original; this was a case of inverse roles. Disney actually rip-off Dreamworks with that sh*t fest Wild life. Wild life was so full of fail I couldn’t stand 30 minutes of it.

Nick the Hero of Canton @ Feb 27th 2008 7:10PM

Actually Wild Life or whatever had been in development far before Madagascar. I think it was originally pitched to Disney in the 90s.

Void Munashii @ Feb 27th 2008 6:31PM

I blame TiVo for my lack of buying DVDs now. I just wait for the movie to show up on HBO or Showtime, TiVo it, watch it, and find it's usually not even watching a second time let alone buying.

On the rare occasions when I do buy DVDs now, I find they sit there in their shrinkwrap for a long time before I ever actually watch them. I've still got movies I bought last year that I've not watched.

CB @ Feb 27th 2008 6:31PM

If they keep belittling video games, aren't they just pwning themselves by making crappy movies?

Squirrel3D @ Feb 27th 2008 6:46PM

Maybe if hollywood stop forcing trash after trash down our throats, full of political messages, forced sex scenes, glorfiying pimps, hos, drug dealers, etc etc....then they'll shut up about videogames messing up their business, and people will flock back to the theatres.

Mal F4cti0n @ Feb 27th 2008 6:50PM

Videogames are the reason that the stock market is down, we couldn't find WMDs in Iraq (though we found plenty of boom-booms), my parents got divorced and my girlfriend got pregnant.

Synner @ Feb 28th 2008 3:29AM

"and my girlfriend got pregnant."

No, that one was me.

ba-dump

JimyD @ Feb 27th 2008 6:56PM

Shrek 3 was okay for a pay-per-view movie but definitely not worth buying. Blaming video games for the poor DVD sales of a very average movie is simply stupid. The Board of Directors at DreamWorks might want to check what's in their CEO's coffee mug since I don't think "delusional" is a side-effect of caffeine.

Chase @ Feb 27th 2008 7:09PM

I don't think that video games should be put to blame because the movie companies are putting out some crappy movies right now. The ratio of good to bad movies that come out on DVD are at the very least 1:15. Or more, because I have to wait a month or so before some good movies come on DVD again.

John McPoop @ Feb 27th 2008 7:22PM

I don't know. I did not read the article or anything but I can say that I still watch as many movies as before. The main reason I don't buy as many now though is because I can go to watch-movies dawt net and stream all of them for free or just simply download them of Bit Torrent. And if I really want to splurge I either buy a TV show on Apple TV (iTunes) or just pick up a Blu-Ray/HD DVD (stuff like Planet Earth)

As far as regular DVDs go I only buy them from places like movie gallery or game stop with a buy 2 get 2 type of deal.

I haven't bought a brand new regular DVD in about 2 years.

ManekiNeko @ Feb 27th 2008 7:15PM

Am I supposed to feel sorry for this guy? It's called competition, Jeff. Learn to live with it.

John McPoop @ Feb 27th 2008 7:18PM

I am sure Porn is still OK

MikeG @ Feb 27th 2008 7:32PM

How about the movie just wasn't very good? Shreks 1 and 2 were great. Shrek 3...not so much.

kbomb1upc @ Feb 27th 2008 8:36PM

Video games are bad... "they kill my father and raped my mother"

(01) @ Feb 27th 2008 9:25PM

My question is, when will film execs and studios realized that maybe there's a direct corilation between the QUALITY of product and the SALE of that product. Probably around the same time that people stop buying shit like Britney Spears, Shrek 3, and Crusin', so I guess never. Sad day.

Azrael4h @ Feb 27th 2008 10:39PM

New DVD releases are too expensive, and very, very rarely is there anything but crap on them. I do buy a good bit of movies, but they're usually 20+ years old. The few newer ones I buy are the 1 cent DVD specials and buy one get 3 dozen free stuff. In otherwords, I'm not out anything buy buying it if it's crap, and I can send it to my ex-wife as a form of punishment for existing.

Have Elf... you bitch.

I do watch movies again if I like them.