http://my.spill.com/profiles/blogs/medal-of-honor-and-marketing

This is an interesting audio blogcast, in the last third they start talk about the marketing of games, and saying there is a JV mentality where the videogame industry has an inferiority complex that makes them inspire to want to be a like a movie.  They mention how some of the best games don't even have scripts and the push to say "it is like a movie" works against games.

Over $100 million to make games.  Red Dead Redemption cost $300 million to make?

Sorry, I have a thing against listening to audio blogcasts at work, so I am going off of your summary only.

First, Red Dead Redemption is a masterpiece and possibly Rockstar's finest work to date yet and is worth every sale. Red Dead Redemption is that damn good. It irks me that the budget for any game can break the $100 million mark. I just don't know how it does?

Second, I agree games are definitely trying to be like movies. This is evident in both Western and Japanese games, but most pronounced in any game made by Hideo Kojima or SquareEnix. In the West, Modern Warfare 2 is the closest you can come to feeling like you are in an interactive movie. Bad Company 2 which has the better multiplayer in my opinion tries, with it's single player, to create a movie experience but fails.

Where this "games like movies" mentality amongst developers originated is unknown but is shown in every Final Fantasy game, most pronounced in Final Fantasy 7 and it's subsequent CGI film. It could have started earlier in Western PC games such as Wing Commander or it may be a side-effect from movie games such as Star Wars on the SNES.

Whatever the cause, this mentality where every other game developer is a wannabe Spielberg needs to go. Attempting to make a movie out of your game just causes you to focus on the less important stuff (cutscenes, voice acting, graphics and on) at the expense of the single most important factor, gameplay.

I did not fall in love with Super Mario Bros. because I was thinking wow, they are going to do an atrocious movie with John Leguizamo a few years down the road! I fell in love with video games because of the gameplay. Cutscenes are a nice addition, like extra dipping ranch for a bucket of hot wings, but they are not the main reason why I came to the table in the first place.

man how could take two spend 300 million on Red Dead, it would of made it back, but GT4 cost 100 million. 

wonder how much La Noire is costing, 500 million

oh GT5 will cost 1 billion to make 

You got a source for that?