Which is more impressive to you?

[Dave]

OK, so whilst this may be out of left-field for the Cigar Lounge, I would love to see how other people react to something that has really got my brain working at a rapid pace. This is a question about media and which achievement is more impressive compared to the other. This conundrum is brought to you by the announcement that Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is one of very few games to break the $1 billion mark, alongside the announcement that James Cameron's "Avatar" has achieved the same feat. What is very surprising is that, a $1 billion piece of entertainment is very hard to come by and generally, we are lucky to have one piece of entertainment pass that milestone. However, 2009 was a good year to be a gamer or a movie-goer and two very different types of media have passed that milestone at almost the same time. This thread, is to examine which one is more impressive.

Let's look at the facts.

Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has been on the shelf for a little over 2 months and has reached a huge milestone in a media type that is becoming more and more accessible to the population at large. What was once a close off group of nerds has become so much more with cross-over titles like Call Of Duty becoming more prevalent in the mainstream of media. Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 was basically the must-have item last Christmas and I cannot possibly count how many I sold on a personal level. It swept the boards at the Spike VGA's and for good reason. The game was massive and lived up to a lot of the hype that preceded it with great, adaptive multiplayer and a compelling story to boot. The discussion rages on two months later as to whether it deserves all of the credit it receives and you can find that in the Video Games and Technology section/

Avatar is in exactly the same boat. It has broke the mould for what a compelling movie can be. I recently watched this movie and I can tell you that it deserves every penny it has made. It is a fantastic achievement and has almost passed the milestone set by Titanic as the best selling movie of all-time. This is a tremendous achievement truly. However, cinema is a much more widespread genre of entertainment and is definitely more accessible than the video games market, if not more lucrative. Yet, I cannot take away from what it has achieved in such a short period of time.

So with that in mind, which do you think is the more impressive?

I personally think that it is Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Not because it is a better piece of entertainment but because of what it has done in a limited market.

What do you think?

 

[FromTheSouth]

I would vote for Avatar here. You may say that Call of Duty is in a limited market, but millions of people have next gen consoles, and at $60 a pop, it takes a lot less copies sold than it does tickets sold to achieve a billion dollars. Avatar has been labeled and relabeled and picked apart. Critics were not the biggest fans, and it is kind of pigeonholed into the sci-fi market. It was a difficult sell, even with the McDonald's marketing machine, whereas COD was universally praised, the sequel to a huge selling game, and a critics favorite.

 

[Lancer]

I would have to say that Avatar has impressed me more. With the many forms of entertainment encroaching into film territory (iPods, DVDs, DVRs, PCs, and namely video games), it's harder to gain an audience in this day and age with a motion picture. You have to leave the house and go spend money to see it, where there are many convenient and cheap ways to entertain yourself from home.

And like Wes said, everyone knew Modern Warfare 2 was going to be good, even before it was released. And it delivered in a market where it is easy to please your audience, in my opinion. On the other hand, Avatar has been praised, ripped apart, etc...which makes it all the more impressive that it has earned $1 billion and counting.

 

[Supernova]

Avatar, definitely. Call of Duty is a very good game but not something people will remember as amazing, which for better or worse (depending on your opinion), Avatar probably will be. Avatar has divided opinion more than MW2 did and it's still taking in lots of money, and also MW2 i like 6 times more expensive than a ticket to Avatar, so it's easier for it to make more money.

 

[Lee]

I'm going to go with Avatar, it's an 'original' story and has smashed records. CODMW2 is a sequel of a sequel of a sequel of a sequel of a game that ripped off Wolfenstein. So Avatars is the most impressive as it has been totally fresh, whereby COD's has been gradual.

 

[Dagger Dias]

I'd say that Avatar has impressed me more than Modern Warfare 2 has because Modern Warfare 2 is a more popular entry in an already established series, whereas Avatar is a brand new story and is already the 2nd best selling movie of all time after only ONE MONTH. That is beyond impressive. At first I thought that it would be a stupid movie, from what I saw in the trailers anyway, but the amount of money that Avatar has made in such a short time speaks for itself, and that was what finally convinced me that I had to go check it out.... well, that plus the fact that I hated Titanic and want to lend Avatar a couple of dollars towards dethroning Titanic. I'm definitely more impressed by Avatar because it's done better than most of us probably thought it ever would, I honestly hope it continues to do well and break more records.

 

[Razor]

I didn't like Avatar. Just didn't. However, I have to admit that what they've done is more impressive.

Call of Duty sold over a billion dollars of merchandise? Cool! However, that's at $60 a game. That's what, 166,666,666.666667 games? (And yes, I used the Microsoft Calculator just now. I'm not that super intelligent.)

Avatar gained a billion dollars in revenue? Assuming the overly generous $15 a ticket, that's still 4 times as many items sold, or 6,666,666,666.668 tickets. Ignoring the heinously evil number, that's a whole lot of fucking movie tickets.

I don't like the Avatar. However, that can't blind me from acknowledging that that bitch as made some money and sold some tickets...and accomplished a much greater feat than COD. Get Money Get Paid seems to fit well here.

 

[lghikas]

As much as I love CoD: MW 2, which is much more than Avatar, I just can't get passed Avatar. First I never bought into the hype before and after I saw the movie. But to become the 2nd highest grossing film worldwide, and could possibly over take Titanic. Now don't get me wrong it's impressive but I don't think it's that impressive as people seem to make, because of inflation. I believe through Box Office Mojo, owned by Amazon and IMDB, it stated with inflation, which imo to do a real account for ranking highest grossing films, ranked Avatar 32nd domestically(It is currently 3rd domestically) not nearly as impressive.

The main reason I picked Avatar is because I have no idea what CoDMW2 would be when adjusted for inflation. Would it still break the highest entertainment record?