Box office sales are low, video game sales are high, and all the Hollywood executives are trying to figure out how to beat the Internet and get people back into movie seats. But it is not likely to happen unless a big change is made. So what do you do? You combine gaming with a movie theater experience. TimePlay Entertainment Inc. has just recently put into production technology that will allow moviegoers to play interactive games during the pre-show of a movie.
Moviegoers will be able to play games on a 3.5-inch touch screen device the size of a PSP. Each seat will have a unique IP address and is all connected by a tethered arm to the seat. The device currently will support 70 players in a theater. So now when they show that ad sponsored trivia game on the screen you can play along and see results transmitted back on the big screen and the smaller screen at your seat. And of course you can buy food with the game screen. Each unit will have a easy way to take your money via swiping your credit card. You know we are lazy and will swipe away and have someone bring us food instead of getting up to get it. Other items for sale will be mobile games, ring tones, and cell phone wallpapers.
The software designers at TimePlay believe that adding new interactive features to the movie-going experience will help increase ticket sales. But why hasn't Hollywood looked at the content that it's producing. If you make bad movies then people get jaded and would rather buy a $3 bootleg from 125th St. in Harlem than waste $10 at the movie theaters. The Hollywood studio industry has forgotten that going to the movies is a social experience. It’s a first date, a night out with the girls, and an escape from the ills of society. We want to see pretty pictures and places that we might not be able to get to normally. But to attach a PSP-like device to my seat at the movie just so you can make me fatter and take my money quicker is LAME!
If you're going to bring gaming to the movie then make the movies interact with the gaming device. Make us use it to help solve clues, or vote on situations on how the movie should continue on. Let us vote on which annoying cheerleader we want Jason to chop up first. Make it a real interactive experience. Give us something so that we will go back to the theater several times to try to make the outcome of the movie different. Keep your marketing ploys and give us real entertainment.
Article comments
1 - Anon
sounds good to me.. but, how many actual theaters will have this? and how long is it going to take to get these things wide-spread?
2 - common_sense
Quote: "Hollywood executives are trying to figure out how to beat the Internet and get people back into movie seats."
Hmm... Here is an idea, lower the fucking ticket prices! Not everyone can afford to go spend $8-10 or more for about 1-3hrs of entertainment every time a decent looking movie comes out. This has really lessened the movie going experience. Adding a crappy trivia game with other people in the audience is not something that would really help the cause.
Also, I don’t know about anyone else, but I wouldn’t want some jackass from the refreshment stand interrupting the movie by walking through the isles looking for some lard-ass that was too lazy to go get their jumbo-sized popcorn and large drink themselves. This whole idea seems like a big waste of money to me, money that could be put to much better use.
3 - noto
When I read the link to this page I thought it meant that games characters and story lines would be in theatres soon. I was sadly disappointed when I read the article. I dont think that the trivia thing might be fun, maybe a good ice breaker on the "first date" scenario mentioned above. But selling more shit to us in the seats is kinda sad. The funny(and again sad) thing is... people will buy popcorn and sodas from it... so it's hard to blame them.
If they want the internet psychographic back in the seats they should try some story lines geard to them, enough with the bullshit wedding planner, couple getting married at parents house. It's all crap. We need some action. I dont play games as much as I used to but I'd go to watch a movie about say... Diablo 2 storyline, with some action... or a Splinter Cell game, nicely advertised on this page ;). Shit, I've never played World of Warcraft, but I'd probably go see that movie too...
"I get better runs in my shorts" Dodgeball, now that was a good movie.
noto
4 - someoneelse
This is a horrible idea. What will this do?? Drive ticket prices up MORE to provide the money to pay for this garbage.
If I want to play a PSP at the theater whiel waiting for a movie to start, i'll take my PSP to the theatre.
The cost way outweighs the benefits.
But also, please don't make the movies interactive and provide you with multiple solutions or whatever. Can you imagine the people picking a different outcome being pissed when they don't get their way, then they go back and they get outvoted and have to see the same one again, but paid twice this time?
And the costs of producing that movie that is interactive, having to write stories with multiple plot lines, film something 13 times in different ways, the time involved? That would also boost ticket prices through the roof. Actors would go on strike due to them not getting an extra 30 million per picture for the extra work.
This is a bad idea all around. Leave the personal screens out of the theaters and just make good movies again. Lower ticket prices. Those should help a little.
Either way, nothing is going to change that much. People want things for cheap. Movie theaters don't have the best experience alot of times. There just isn't mucht hey can do.
5 - Space
Better movies = better movie ticket sales.
Stop making rehashes of the same tired shit.
6 - Korlock
I think that this whole idea is f***ing rediculous. hollywood should die and rot
7 - Talamare
lmao thats jus sad
if they want to make more money stop paying the actors so much
they dont need 20mil just to say a page worth of dialogue
here do this
cut the salery of the actors in half
give half of that half (a quarter) to the writers
and the other quarter to the theaters so they lower the prices,
the writers are the one that should get paid more that might iccite people to write newer creative things, otehr then the replayed bullcrap over and over again
whoever wrote the ending of dodgeball should get paid double to write up more awesome things like that
and how 'common sense' said, how bad would it suck to have some guy walkin thru the walk ways during the movie, not to mention the extra work that the guy who works there has to do, and that it will work against america in the long run as we get more and more pathetic... "argh i cant walk 100 feet to buy 'fat me up' chocolate bar, can you get it for me."
as its been said multiple times this is a dumb idea, and as its been said before the costs will outweigh the gain
yea even if they do apply this and people start flocking in, it will be short lived, and then people will start stealing, breaking, pranking the machines, not to mention the higher upkeep to keep every machine running smoothly
8 - LeoLeoTheIII
heh...wow...i wonder how much did hollywood pay to the guy who thought of this idea...because its genius JUST GENIUS, I MEAN TRIVIA MAN, WOW!! MOVIES CANT GET ANY BETTER WITH TRIVIA IN IT...so lets say hollywood makes a really REALLY boring movie and people are gonna just flood into the movie theaters because theres trivia? Or, hmm, lets go buy a can of pop, better yet, lets spent 10 more bux on a movie so we dont have to pick up the can of pop ourselves! Whats wrong with hollywood today? Im not the one to say raise or lower the admission fee in theaters since that depends on the income of the theater, if not enough people come they will definitley lower the price. Back to hollywood again, are they gonna make those touch screen psp trivia thingys for EVERY theaters in NAmerica? I think not, hollywood dosnt have that kind of money, neither do local theaters installation fees and maintnence fees for one theater itself wud eventaully lead the theater to bankrupcy, so holylwood make more epic movies thats worth paying, like LOTR and all problems wud be solved.
9 - Manon Maru
Why do I get the feeling that these armrest devices are just going to make movie tickets even more expensive? And as to buying wallpapers and ringtones for our cell phones...does anyone else feel that owning a cell phone is getting to be much like owning an animal....your never done paying for it.
10 - chackwicked
dude, all the kids will vandalize those things