The Numbers

I was in SFO last week and hooked up for a conversation with a developer friend after my meetings, etc.

Among the many topics discussed, he raised some concerns about our industry's lack of "sharing" numbers. (Further conversation defined 'sharing' as 'widely available numbers through sharing/leaking/research/analysts/etc'). The conversation was precipitated from a discussion of Valve's disclosure of some numbers last week, the coverage of which didn't discuss some of the titles/genres that haven't fared as well on Steam (some titles that have been released on PSN, WiiWare, etc, are rumored to have fared far better than on XBLA's 

I pointed to VG Chartz as one example of how people are making some numbers available (whether released or reverse-engineered in the case of XBLA titles).

As a comparison point, he pointed me to the AWESOME site, The Numbers, which covers the movie industry and has just about every data point you'd ever want to pull.

He cited this as an example of a different attitude to sharing numbers within Hollywood. I beleived it was a symptom of supply and demand. Bigger industry, more demand for the numbers, more people figuring out ways to make money off covering that scene. I think we'll get there over time, though a change in attitude could possibly accelerate it.

Now, as a cleansing sorbet: a couple tidbits off this site:

For those that continue to beleive this crazy notion that games are bigger than hollywood (less beleived these days), I offer the following:

GTA 4 was projected to do as much as $400M. Some claim WoW as the biggest with perhaps $1B in lifetime revenue.

Titanic did $600M[corrected from B] in box office receipts. Wall-E did $112M... in DVD sales... in two weeks.

Oh, and the top grossing *franchise* of all time? James Bond at almost $5B dollars WW gross to date. Narrowly beating out Harry Potter and Star Wars. I did my bit by going to see Quantum of Solace last night.

We are clearly still a spec on Hollywood's radar. For now...