Disney Fuels Addiction For Money and Uses Star Wars Video Games As Gasolime

I never know what to get my sisters for Christmas, but my brother is easy: video games. It doesn’t even usually matter what video game it is, as long as at least one of his friends or cousins has the same game, and they can go online and play multiplayer together for hours on end. It’s a $50-75 Christmas investment, which can be painful for college students like myself to watch that much money go into my brother's present, but I like thinking that I give the best gifts out of the kids in the family. 

If it’s a particularly popular game, like Star Wars Battlefront (2015) was just this last Christmas, we may not see my brother resurface for weeks...which, admittedly, I may benefit from, but Jake may not.  

I don’t judge him for liking video games so much. I like them, too. I’m not nearly as good at first-person shooter games, but I can definitely keep par with Mario Kart or Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Those games, though, aren’t often the problematic games. Jake tends towards the big-money games: Halo, Call of Duty, and as I just mentioned, Battlefront. All Xbox and Play Station 4 games are expensive, but these massive, blockbuster, soldier-with-constant-action games are the ones that break people’s banks and overwhelm their personal lives.

Parents and experts have become increasingly more aware of and concerned for the growing numbers and symptoms of youth spend more and more time in front of a large, loud, violent and anonymous screen and less time with personal human interaction (http://www.addictionrecov.org/Addictions/?AID=45) -- which is bad, considering today's mental health crises and developmental disorders. 

Kids and teens use these incredible 3D worlds as a substitution for real-life connection (http://www.addictionrecov.org/Addictions/?AID=45), throw tantrums when the games are taken away, (http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/addiction/features/video-game-addiction-no-fun), and lose the motivation for anything else in their lives: homework, sports, music, eating, sleeping.

Approximately 8.5% of children who play video games (which are about 91-97% of all children in the U.S.) (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/16/survey-97-percent-of-chil_n_126948.html) can be considered chronically addicted (http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/06/health/video-games-addiction-gentile-feat/index.html)

And while this is going on, EA, Bioware, and other game developers are sitting around a large, white table, thinking of new games, new downloadable content (DC), new advertisements…more, more, more sources of income. Milk it ‘til it dies, and then take the leather and steak.

I think that some game developers – and sponsors, carriers, brands, etc. – have gone to lengths of catering their products around what they think people will buy and become addicted to – or, in more specific phrasing, I think that Disney is using Star Wars (the games, the movies, the entire franchise) to drain money out of people whom they have molded into not being able to resist.

This theory is mostly based on my skepticism of the huge success of both the movie and the game. While early ticket sales for Star Wars: The Force Awakens “broke IMAX records at $6.5 million” (https://www.ama.org/publications/MarketingNews/Pages/the-history-of-marketing-star-wars.aspx#sthash.ZX6mrqvZ.dpuf), Battlefront (2015) “has reportedly sold 12 million copies since its launch in November,” generating approximately $660 million in revenue as of January 4, 2016 (https://uk.news.yahoo.com/star-wars-battlefront-ea-sells-095739583.html).

Along those lines, let’s also talk about how the timing of the release for Star Wars: Battlefront (2015) just so happens to perfectly coincide with the premiere of the latest Star Wars movie, The Force Awakens (2015).

I think it is a little funny how, when I Google “Star Wars Success”, the first title that pops up is “Star Wars 7 Passes Avatar at US Box Office”, and right beneath it is “GS News Update: Star Wars Battlefront Has Sold 13 Million Copies?!” (http://www.gamespot.com/star-wars-battlefront/).

Critics explain that the reviews for both the movie and the game have solely relied on the fandom support, and play off of each other for their successes (http://www.investopedia.com/articles/markets/122915/electronic-arts-buy-right-now-ea.asp?partner=mediafed). Battlefront (2015) is kind of an evil-genius way of extending the life of Star Wars income, “as it will give fans an opportunity to remain in the Star Wars universe while not watching the movies.” I would add onto that to say that the movies are a mirrored opportunity for the consumers of the games to grow more invested in the worlds that the games have created; therefore, “as long as the Star Wars movies continue to deliver, which likely they will, the demand for Battlefront games will be high.”

The game and the movie walk up to your doorstep hand-in-hand as they ask for your money, hand you some cocaine, and leave you to zone out in front of your TV for the next millennia.

Worse than cocaine, video games are extremely accessible. Anyone can walk into GameStop or Target and put a few thousand dollars’ worth of consoles and games into their carts – and that’s not even including the extra fun stuff, like headsets, plug-ins, and plush toys. NPD even coined the phrase for “Force Friday” (September 4, 2015), during which weekend, every $1 of $11 spent “went toward a Star Wars toy” (https://www.ama.org/publications/MarketingNews/Pages/the-history-of-marketing-star-wars.aspx#sthash.ZX6mrqvZ.dpuf). 

Then, when you go home and plop down onto your couch, you can buy even more stuff. I like to call these things “gaming lunchables”, because even though the buyers know they’re spending money on caloric waste, they love them…and, everything seems to end in “-bles”: collectibles, unlockables, downloadables, and so on.  

Lucasfilm kind of invented the idea of over-marketing through fandom with the first trilogy. “Over the 38-year span of the Star Wars’ lifetime, Lucasfilm has licensed $20 billion worth of goods. The saga’s brand consistently finds a place in the top five licensed toy brands each year, according to NPD Group. Today, companies like Campbell’s and CoverGirl are harnessing Star Wars’ marketing power, creating Star Wars-themed everything, from canned soup to eye makeup.” (https://www.ama.org/publications/MarketingNews/Pages/the-history-of-marketing-star-wars.aspx). Since the latest The Force Awakens and Battlefront, I myself have even gotten trapped in the Star Wars aisle at Target and been tempted to buy a remote-controlled BB-8, or a child-size Lego Ty-Fighter.

Mostly, I am concerned for the direction of where video games are going. It is arguable that the Hollywood film industry has turned into nothing more than a moneymaking entertainment business, and I think that video games are en route to surpassing film – and any other mode of entertainment – by means of exploiting their consumers’ addiction to them. I fear that Star Wars is sending that trend into hyper drive with Battlefront and The Force Awakens at the wheel.