Teenagers Lose Interest In Going To The Movies
from the why-bother? dept
While the movie industry is likely to blame the drop in theater revenue this summer on things like file sharing, it appears that most teens aren't going to see movies because the movies aren't very good - and they have other options for their time. Many kids find videogames to be a lot more compelling, and would rather spend their time playing them, than spending $10 on a movie. Which, of course, brings up the issue of price: the price of a movie keeps going up, and they're adding more and more commercials (often telling people who have already paid that they shouldn't pirate movies). Meanwhile, the price of DVDs keeps dropping, and the additional features make it worthwhile for many to just wait until the DVD comes out. That doesn't mean they won't go to the movies at all. After all, it is still a social experience. But, if they're going to spend so much money, they want to make sure the movie is good. And, thanks to the internet if a movie is bad, word spread quickly. Once again, it comes down to an issue of the industry not having much respect for its customers, and its customers are finally voting with their dollars to go elsewhere if the product has no quality.
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"lack of consistent quality this summer"
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I used to go to the movies A LOT - up to about a year ago I was going at least once a week, often to 2 films at a time.... Then the prices went up to $10 a film.
Excuse me, but you can *buy* a DVD for $7-20 and loan it to all your friends, or rent 30-odd a month from Netflix for $20 and watch it with a houseful of people!
I went to see T3 at the weekend (matinee so I paid $7) and it was pretty bad, the first trip to the cinema for me since Harry Potter 1 I think, probably the last as well, until Star Wars 3.
Of course the MPAA will be blaming fileshares and DVD copiers, but we really know the truth - the movies just aren't worth $10 (plus popcorn/soda) per person to see!
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Pirated Movies?
In the time it takes to download a movie I can drive up to Blockbuster, rent a movie, drive home, and watch it. And I think the rental probably costs less than the blank DVDs I would need to burn it.
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Re: Pirated Movies?
I've gotten them to fit on a regular old CD. The quality is terrible, and the downloads take upwards of 12 hours, but if you're extremely dedicated, or bored, it's very possible to do it.
Is it worth while?
Honestly, I would rather wait until block buster or in demand cable has it.
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Re: Pirated Movies?
Furthermore, although the file types associated with pirated movies can be read by most DVD players you don't need to burn them to a burnable DVD, you can just burn them to ordinary CDRs (usually about 2 or 3).
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Re: Pirated Movies?
The tech level I'm talking about isn't too high end. I'm assuming the level to be about equal to your average teenager's cobbled together Quake-station with a decent video card and dsl.
If you know where to look (not just shooting blindly on KaZaa) you can download a pirated movie usually the day it is released, sometimes up to a week before and it'll take you about a half hour. Again, the quality of the pirated film depends on knowing where to look. Lots of people try to pirate movies, but only a small chunk do a quality job of it, usually by doing a direct video transfer of the film itself.
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