If I went to boxofficemojo.com or something right now, I could find the specific budget and worldwide gross of THOUSANDS OF FILMS.

However, in the video game industry, you would seriously have to bleed this type of information out of the creators. Often times, the response is merely vague backwards talk that fans/gamers have interpret endlessly to make sense of. For a medium that has the tendency to harp so much on being just like film, it certainly has not been as public.

Look at NPD. A company that is supposed to be North America's leading sales tracker and most prominent source of information has pretty much rescinded all the information they used to give out every month to the public. Sure, they charge for their "services" and include important data in their results...but I don't see the point. Film has no NPD as far as I know.

The most annoying part is probably Title Localization, but that is another story.

I'm truly in the dark here so any type of explanation is much appreciated.

Maybe it's because gaming is kind of a new medium compared to music and movies that have been created a hundred or more years ago. Sure the digital music and dvds and vhs are relatively as old or younger than video games but the whole industry itself has been around longer.

We need wikileaks (or some equivalent) for the Gaming Industry. GAF used to be sorta useful for that, but as all things, they've been too draconian on that front. Because you're right, we really don't know who lost money or made money except for vague reports in the Quarterly Reports. It would be nice to know exactly what each game cost vs how much it grossed in a given timeframe

Video game isn't nearly as popular as music or movies, and will never be if the Industry continues the in the way it is.

Video games are quite certainly as popular as movies are.  Especially in North America, though I can't speak for Europe.

If I wasn't lazy, I would link that graph from the Nintendo quartely report showing people's aproove and use of video-games compared to other medias.

That is certainly a good question, but I like to think of the industry as being shy, not secretive.

No it isn't.

It is a little old, but I think the point stands.  Note that growth in video games from 06 to 07 would have been driven by the release of the Wii and PS3.  That growth is not sustainable, it is cyclical.  We are nearing the end of the generation now, so video game revenue will either be stagnant or in decline.

Then you also need to remember that video game revenue includes consoles (which are hundreds of dollars) and games (which go as high as $60).  Music and movies are much cheaper, and therefore represent many more smaller purchases.  So that video game revenue is coming from a smaller pool of people then music and movies.

Given how bad PS3 did in its first couple of years, and how this gen didn't boom until 2008, id like to see data up to at least 2009 before that chart is taken as gospel.

For once I actually agree with Seece on this one. 2008 was too huge to be left out of the equation.