Quote:
Originally Posted by kane
To me it seems like if you improve the movie-going experience with nicer theaters, better screens and better sound you would think more people would want to go. Also the increase in the the number of movies released should increase the overall number of ticket sales. But that is not happening. The studios are making more movies, spending more on marking and spending more on the theaters themselves just to tread water.
When you look at the numbers to me it seems like it is one of two reasons. A. People would rather just wait and buy/rent it on DVD or B. they are downloading it and getting it for free.
So to me it appears piracy has had an effect. It can't be proven, but when you are making more product just to sell the same amount something is wrong down the pipeline.
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Well I cannot speak for everybody of course, but for me personally, I do not even remember when it was the last time that I visited a movie theater because I was actually interested to see some particular new release. To me it is simply an event, a day off, it doesn't matter much what they're showing.
I'm still going to see movies about as often as I did 15 years ago, which is pretty rarely but this isn't the point. What matters is that they sell about the same amount of tickets to me that they did 15 years ago.
As to the new experience from better tech that should attract more people, that also doesn't sound too convincing to me. People usually do not know any better and cannot fathom there's the room for improvement technology wise. The main reasons why they're going to see movies must be the same that were decades ago - to have a day off, to vent, to spend quality time with family and friends. New tech might bring some short time gain in the amounts of movie goers (such as the Avatar did with their 3D thingy), but overall I think it doesn't affect movie going much. The same way HD didn't bring any increase in selling of porn memberships or downloads of clips.
And one more factor, could it be that home theaters that are becoming increasingly common nowadays also affected movie ticket sales, probably even more than piracy did? Unlike old fashioned sd tv which couldn't come even close to real cinema experience and viewing it couldn't match going to a cinema as real family event, home theaters in theory are alsmost as good and could be a replacement at least sometimes. What do you think?