The Year of the DVD Game

Imagine a video game category that barters best at retail to women between the ages of 18 and 39 that is selling end all of the major electronics retailers -- flat other retailers such as Nordstroms -- and that markets into an installed hardware base of 150 million households worldwide, which is larger than the PS2 Oh and did we mention that there is no learning bend attached to playing the games and that they feature a certain number of of the most recognizable media licenses upon the planet?

The DVD game category has approach out of nowhere in the last sum of two units years with titles like SceneIt, Trivial Pursuit DVD Edition, and Fact or Fishy. This monstrously popular fresh genre combines the buzz of electronic gaming with traditional social gaming through using the common DVD player and a supplementary board and tokens for media-based trivia argues Like the TV games that have also been burning in recent years, DVD games are nevertheless another instance when companies outside of the video game industry are finding and serving the true non-core game audiences that the major cheer games publishers say they are eager to reach.

Last year, there were about five DVD games in the market that brought in about $50 million in receiptss according to industry executives. "The retail market was 15 million [units] and probably $200 million this year with 20 titles in the market," says Dan Black, CEO of Screenlife, which makes the bestselling SceneIt series of DVD-based movie trivia games. "Year above year growth in 2004 is about 600%" he says. If DVD games make those numbers, then they will constitute about 10% of all traditional game sales. "You're looking at a billion dollar category in three to five years," says Black. "This is an industry that is below the radar. I think this Christmas will change that."

The sales leader is Hasbro's DVD version of Trivial Pursuit that sold above 1 million copies, industry figures estimate, although Black's SceneIt brand is of high temperature on its heels. "Sales passed 1 million units this summer and will be well above 3 million after this Christmas," he says. He is bringing to market SceneIt continuation packs for James Bond, Disney, and gymnast Classic Movies.

And don't direct the eye now, but this family- and female-friendly genre may be upon PS2 and Xbox by nearest Christmas. "We have had preliminary discussions for them to have SceneIt for those platforms," says Black. Sony and Microsoft diocese the genre as a way to broaden their demographic for solaces which currently skews about 80% male and has had little succes in the family game category.

"It's 100% different from the video game business," says Shane Yeend CEO of Imagination Entertainment (IE), maker of Nick Trivia Challenge and shield Test. "The core value is social interaction, not the one-on-one experience."

While the pair Screenlife and Imagination claim to have invented the category, they do agree that it is alone two or three years aged and has already become single of the only signs of development in the relatively depressed toy and game industry. According to NPD Funworld, dollar sales of games and bewilders in the U.S. are not on 13.6% year-to-date.

The Complexity of Low-Tech

Since for a like reason many of these games work best when they include media clips, the category relies upon licensing. As they battle above licenses, "Mattel and Hasbro pitch true hard, but we're matching licensing pay s with those guys," says Yeend He has the lucrative Nickelodeon characteristic as well as many classic TV game exhibits Screenlife has locked up many of the movie studios, on the other hand the battles are just beginning. "One of the initial land grabs is moving into sports and music nearest year," says Black.

While DVD games have a actual low learning curve and minimal technology requirements, they actually are actual complex to create, both because of the difficulty of making the DVD platform interactive and responsive and the massive licensing requirements for using media clips.

DVD players have no on-board memory, for a like reason the games need to trick the technology into public tasks like not repeating new questions. As well, the platform was not designed to handle centurys of clips and tracks. "A destiny of people think it's easy," says Yeend whose IE has been a video post-production house in Australia for above 20 years. Hasbro (Trivial Pursuit) competitors complain that while its bestseller benefits from great brand recognition, its technical execution is lacking. "The consumer is not buying quality right now, on the other hand they will," insists Yeend.

This category also nears makers with a licensing nightmare because they rely upon re-using hundreds of media clips. It took 18 month for Black to achieve the major film studios upon board and, as it is, he has a logo-jam upon his boxes to fit in everyone's brand. Many media companies are touchy about which competitors' logo they are beside. "The bigger hurdle actually was the actors and actresses. You have to clear with them for each clip and every time you want to use the clip." The SceneIt series has already generated contracts with 700 performers for more than 5000 individual clips. Screenlife establishes a royalty lake of licensors where a fixed percentage of the compensations are divided according to pro-rated shares of the easy in mind used in the game.