Quote:
Originally Posted by kane
I would actually say they sell me fewer tickets now than they did 20 years ago. When I was a kid and lived at home or had roommates I went to the movies almost every weekend. Part of it was just to get away from everyone and get out of the house and part of it was that I was young and it was something to do with my friends. Now I am like you. I rarely go to the theater. I really have to want to see a movie otherwise I wait for DVD and watch it at home especially if it is a heavy drama. I don't want to sit in a theater with a group of people chewing on food and sounding like a heard of cattle while I'm trying to listen to the movie. If it is a big action flix, it is cool because it is loud enough you can't hear the other people.
I think there are likely many reasons that ticket sales are stagnant and home theaters as well as how quickly movies are released on DVD are likely part of it. I was just going off a few people I know. For example I know a guy who never goes to the theater and downloads anything he wants. He doesn't think there is anything wrong with it. This is a guy I have known my whole life and back when we were kids we all went to the movies a lot together. Now he still sees a lot of movies, he just downloads them all illegally and no matter what argument you make he has some kind of rational for what he is doing. I'm sure he is not the only one doing that. When you see a list like this that shows the top ten most pirated movies this week there are a few movies on there that are still only in theaters. I would think that is having some affect on the box office sales. |
I understand what you're saying, but are you sure they're loosing ticket sales because of your buddy downloading illegally? Maybe they're loosing DVD/digital sales, if he has simply lost interest in visiting theaters, the same way you did. DVD and digital sales are nowhere near the amounts they should be because of piracy, there's no argument about it. It's ticket sales where I'm not so sure.
We're all changing habits as the time goes by, that's natural, do you think that wouldn't have happened with both you and your buddy if not for piracy?
With those piracy charts, I'm also not so sure if they're directly connected to the box office. People have limited amount of time and can only visit movie theaters so much times/month or year. No matter what they're showing there and how interesting it is, I cannot go to see 10 new releases when I only have time for 5 because I have other things in life to do too. But I may wait for a DVD release and buy it when it comes. So those charts may once again reflect lost DVD/digital sales rather than ticket sales.
But those are all theories of course based mostly on personal perception. My main assumption is that people go to movie theaters ONLY because it is an event, which isn't based on anything but speculations. If there's a substantial amount of movie goers that are actually interested to see some particular movie, then of course piracy would have at least some effect on ticket sales too.