Press releases
Hobbits win battle of video game film heroes
20/09/2004
The characters from the Lord of the Rings movies have narrowly beaten James Bond, to become the most popular film action heroes in video games.
A massive nationwide survey of over 155,000 games fans has revealed that one in five (20%) own a Lord of the Rings game, compared to 19% owning a Bond title.
The survey was carried out by GAME – Europe’s leading video games retailer – to compile a list of the top 10 most popular game-film licences. It marks 26 years since Star Wars became one of the first ever film-game franchises to be released for Atari’s VCS console in 1978, closely followed by ET and Indiana Jones.
The information in the top 10 has been taken from GAME’s unique Reward Card database, which currently has over 5 million members.
The vast amount of information available to GAME concerning video games is believed to be the largest and most detailed in Europe.
The oldest franchise in GAME’s list (Goldeneye on the Nintendo 64 console) stretches back as far as 1997, also the year when the Company’s Reward Card scheme was launched. The data was taken from customers’ shopping habits, based on a combination of amount spent and frequency of purchases since the inception of the scheme.
- Lord of the Rings – 20%
- James Bond – 19%
- Spider Man – 18%
- Harry Potter – 16%
- Final Fantasy – 15%
- Enter the Matrix – 13%
- Star Wars – 12%
- Resident Evil – 11%
- Tomb Raider – 10%
- Star Trek – 7%
Falling just short of the top 10 were more recent game-film brands such as Shrek, Toy Story and Black Hawk Down. According to EDI*, 5 of the top 10 biggest cinema releases in 2003 were made into video games.
The news comes as the traditional ‘summer blockbuster film season’, draws to a close, which this year has seen films such as Shrek 2, Spider Man 2, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, I-Robot and Thunderbirds on general release during the school summer holidays.
Anna Macario, Marketing Director for GAME said “The cross over between games and cinema is increasing all the time. Not only are video games being made to be released at the same time as films at the cinema, but it’s the trend is occurring the other way around too, for example the release of films like Tomb Raider.”
“This demonstrates not only the increasing importance of video games, but also the advantages for companies and brands of using cross-media promotional and selling techniques. Brands such as Enter the Matrix, Tomb Raider and Star Wars have benefited from multiple revenue streams by marketing and selling films, DVDs and video games.”
“Essentially consumers are now able to experience brands such as the ones in our top 10, through more entertainment channels than ever before.”
The next big film franchise tie in will be in mid-October, with the release of Disney Pixar’s Shark Tale, out at the cinema and video games available to buy on Xbox, PlayStation 2, GameCube, GameBoy Advance SP and PC-CD Rom.
* Entertainment Data International, part of the Nielson Group
Notes:
- There will be a PlayStation 2 (PS2) console in 1 in 4 households by Christmas 2004
- The video games industry is worth over £2bn in the UK – it’s worth more than cinema admissions
- Games console prices are at an all time low – (PS2 is £104.99, Xbox is £99.99 and GameCube is £79.99).
About GAME
GAME is Europe's leading specialist retailer of computer software and video games. The Group currently operates from over 390 stores in the UK and Ireland, 40 GAME stores in Sweden and Denmark, over 90 CentroMAIL stores in Spain and around 60 GAME stores in France. It also offers an on-line shopping service.
For further corporate information log onto www.gamegroup.plc.uk, and for the new look on-line store log onto www.game.net.
| For further details please contact: | Simon Soffe / Lisa Artemis – GAME PR Dept |
| 01256 784442 / 784512 |
