Movie revenue is dropping for the same reason buggy whip sales decreased with the deployment of engines. Movies are a dead medium walking. Interactive beats mindless observation.
The mpaa wont go down without taking a handfull of civil liberties with it though.
Sort of how the appearance of music and movies let to the inevitable demise of books?
I don't think your argument holds. I'm an avid gamer and I still enjoy good movies, TV shows and books. Interactive media are not suitable for all types of storytelling.
That said, there's only a certain amount of time each person can spend on escapism. If gaming is occupying more of that space it is intrinsically encroaching on other forms of entertainment. Ebert is notorious for writing off the gaming industry, so I'm not surprised it wasn't mentioned in this article.
I'm not sure that profit is relevant here; you would have to look at revenue or (even better) head-counts of moviegoers. My understanding is that domestic (US) ticket sales peaked in 2002 at 1.58B while revenue continued to rise until 2009 due to rising ticket prices. Source:
Anyway, my original point was that if you assume aggregate leisure time has changed little over the last decade -- it's impossible to ignore competition from other entertainment activities vying for the same space -- especially when you've got absolutely meteoric growth in the gaming industry.
The mpaa wont go down without taking a handfull of civil liberties with it though.