Just like in movies, not all scenes in a video game may make in the final product that you play on your computer or from your home entertainment console, and just like DVDs those deleted scenes from video games may still reach consumer eyes. Game maker Activision is considering releasing a compilation of all the deleted scenes of its StarCraft II game into a big “movie”–letting users view the full story of the game, and charge $20-$30 for that privilege.
The idea may seem crazy, but according to Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick, it’s part of the storytelling, albeit at half the price it costs for the actual game. Speaking at the Bank of America Merilly Lunch Media, Communications, and Entertainment Conference, Kotick says, “”If we were to take that hour, or hour and a half, and take it out of the game and we were to go to our audiences, who we have their credit card information a direct relationship, and say to them ‘Would you like to have the StarCraft movie?'”
Kotick says that this new model would beat out movies in opening weekend, and perhaps be a new form of entertainment that consumers are willing to pay for:
“My guess is unlike film studios that are really stuck with a model that goes through theatrical distribution and takes a signification amount of the profit away, if we were to go to an audience and say ‘We have this great hour and a half of linear video that we’d like to make available to you at a $20 or $30 price point,’ you’d have the biggest opening weekend of any film ever.”
Activision will be offering this cutscene movie sometime in the next five years.
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