Sharpen your pitchforks. Speaking at a conference in California this week, Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick revealed long-term plans to sell video game cutscenes as full movies. Kotick believes titles such as StarCraft II have such impressive in-game cinematics that they could be edited together as one lengthy video and digitally distributed to fans for, get this, $20 to $30. That's about half the cost of a new game and more than DVD or Blu-ray films.
What's more, after downloading the video directly, an "extremely high percentage" of viewers would want to watch it again in a theatrical release, according to Kotick. Such a model would be superior to traditional film studios and would top box office records, he said. The executive didn't share anything too specific, but he did say that Activision is likely to give this a shot sometime within the next five years – whether partnered or alone.