Iron Man v Grand Theft Auto, The Real Deal

While vying for similar audiences at the same time, "Grand Theft Auto IV" bested "Iron Man" by about $300 million in their respective first weeks on the small and big screens. The highly anticipated video game about immigrant gangster Bellic drove away with over $500 million, while the movie about Marvel billionaire superhero Stark blasted off with over $200 million worldwide (Yahoo! News).

Am I on glue or have the press completely lost their minds? Are people really comparing the sales of a game selling for $59.99 to $89.99 each to movie with an average ticket price of $7? (if you read on the article they even compares the sales to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows)

Let us now sit down and compare Apples to Oranges.

I understand that there is very little going on in the entertainment industry right now to write about. The economy is in bad shape, we are suffering through another revenge of the sequel summer, and very few artists are doing anything to excite the desperate bloggers and journalists who have deadlines, but this is not a story.

Let's assume that everyone bought GTA at the lowest price (which they didn't), then 10,002,000 copies sold compared to 28,571,428 tickets at the average ticket price. Hmmm...

• 10,002,000 for GTA at the lowest price

• 7,143,877 for GTA at the average price of $69.99

• 28,571,428 for Iron Man

Now, I know these are nor accurate numbers. Brian and I only paid $5.50 each to see Iron Man, but the moral of the story is more people experienced Iron Man than GTA.

I now return to my original point: How is this a story?

There is absolutely no reason we should be comparing receipts for two products that are not in the same market and when one of the products average cost is 10 times higher than the other. Apples and Oranges.