Katzenberg: Video games hurting 'overall home video market'
Variety's video game blog Cut Scene reports that during a conference call yesterday with analysts that DreamWorks Animation CEO and industry veteran, Jeffrey Katzenberg, partially blamed video games for the paltry performance of Shrek the Third on DVD. Now, let's ignore for five seconds that the third Shrek film was a soulless shell compared to the other installments and take note of a mega Hollywood player like Katzenberg joining the chorus that video games are to blame for an industry's slumping sales.
Don't feel too bad for DreamWorks, it stands to gain a nice chunk of change from its licensing deal with Activision for games based on Kung Fu Panda and the sequel to Madagascar. There is also a second Kung Fu Panda game slated for release in the fall tied to the DVD release. As much as there are mumblings of video games cutting into other media's revenue, Shrek the Third's DVD sales are easily blamed on it being a mediocre film -- but nowadays blaming video games is so much sexier.
