As you probably know from the last hundred or so articles about the very big business of video games, they're no longer a niche market.  The biggest titles routinely outgross Hollywood movies, and major motion picture studios are beginning to tailor their releases so as not to conflict with the street dates of huge video game titles like Halo and Guitar Hero.  More and more, video games are being treated like movies:  the scripts get more complex, the special effects get more elaborate, the money gets bigger, and release dates become more important.  There's one way in which the two industries aren't exactly the same, though, and that's in the way they pay their actors.

The bigger video games get, the more they begin to attract brand-name Hollywood actors to do voice work.  Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto franchise pioneered this, getting big stars like Samuel L. Jackson, Peter Fonda and Ray Liotta to provide the voices of characters in previous installments.  This time around, with the critically acclaimed and best-selling Grand Theft Auto IV, they went the opposite direction, hiring a cast of relative unknowns to play Eastern European immigrant Niko  Bellic and his rotating cast of friends and enemies.  But one thing has held true, as the New York Timesrecently reported:  unlike with television, film, and all other media, actors in digital media receive no royalties or residuals for their work.  As a result, Michael Hollick (who plays Niko Bellic, and received $100,000 for a little more than a year's work) finds himself starring in the most popular entertainment product in America -- and isn't getting a single dime more than he was originally paid.    It's an unusual situation without an easy solution, and Hollick doesn't blame Rockstar -- he blames the Screen Actor's Guild, which hasn't been especially forward-looking in its negotiations over digital media.  Indeed, if predictions of an actor's strike this summer come to fruition, it's likely that, just as with the writer's strike earlier this year, digital media royalties and pay rates will be the central issue.  Meanwhile, Hollick and thousands of actors like him will have to suffer through getting no royalties for their video game work, regardless of the product's success.

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Saying that 2008 is an interesting time for visual media is an understatement. As an art form, filmmaking has never been more accessible. Making a movie is cheap and distribution is only a Youtube account away. It’s interesting then to watch the growing trend of successful theatrical filmmakers looking to other mediums, specifically video games, as a new avenue of not just business but expression. Peter Jackson’s working on multiple projects within Microsoft’s omnipresent Halo franchise, Steven Spielberg’s developing three separate games for Electronic Arts (the first of which, Boom Blox for the Wii, you can check out here), and Dan Ackroyd and Harold Ramis have beaten the ravages of aging by turning to games for a third Ghostbusters. Now George Miller, of Mad Max and Babe fame, is getting in on the action.

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It's no secret in the entertainment industry that video games see themselves increasingly as competition for movies — and so does everyone else.  They're beginning to get big-name casts like movies; they have big budgets, heavy roll-out dates, and a rigorous seasonal competition like movies; and as storytelling becomes more immersive and graphics become more realistic, they begin to resemble the moviegoing experience more and more — only when you play a game, you're in the movie in a way you can't be with an actual movie.

Beyond that, video games are starting to make money like movies — or even better.  With less overhead cost, fewer production headaches, and no filming locations, a video game costs less to make; the industry hasn't yet been crippled by high-cost front-loaded deals for big-name actors and directors; and a very successful video game rollout can produce as much revenue or more than a blockbuster film.  It's no surprise that, after years of dithering about whether or not to make a third Ghostbusters movie, Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis decided that the third installment of the franchise would in fact be in video game form:  it would be cheaper to make, they noted, and allow them a lot more freedom for character development and a longer, funner script while at the same time making the fancy special effects magic better and cheaper.

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While the Screengrab typically restricts itself to the realm of non-interactive cinematic pursuits, we think this teaser trailer for a new Highlander property is just the sort of entertaining genre nerdery that deserves special notice.

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