Thinking a lot about art these days; not that that's unusual, mind, but some things have happened in the last few weeks that have brought the old question back to the fore front.

Those catalysts, other than the usual social morass, are the releases of Iron Man and Grand Theft Auto 4, and in a lesser capacity the demo for The Bourne Conspiracy which I just turned off for good.

I've been trying to lock down my opinion on GTA 4 into a few easily digestible sentences, but I can't quite hack it yet, so for the sake of this argument know that I think it's awesome, and important.

Scary, I know. I'll get back to that.

GTA came out Tuesday, and four days later Iron Man was released wide in theatres to a general belief in the movie industry that the sales of GTA would adversely impact Iron Man's gross. The evidence of this being the low ticket sales of the Ben Stiller/Farrelly Brothers "comedy" The Heartbreak Kid following the release of Halo 3. Kotaku seems content (pleased, really) to call this a myth considering how well Iron Man did, but it made me think about the divide between indie games and film.

Now I don't study film or gaming, but I do read and think about what I play and watch, (Obviously) and despite the easy-to-make comparisons between the two mediums, they really could not be more different. It is possible to take a video camera and make a movie; people do it all the time, but grabbing a Super 8 and trying to make something like Transformers for a budget of, say, Everyday Shooter is laughable, so indie filmmakers stick to making character dramas or easy comedies; essentially theatre with a moving eye and a cheap soundtrack and arguably capturing the very essence of film.

Cheap games don't work like that; indie game developers and modders face a labor of love similar to that of indie filmmakers, but with a generally narrower goal and budget, and just like the movies face distribution and licensing problems unless they can get a publishers attention.

So in one week, we have two highly-anticipated releases from both industries. GTA 4 was going to make money, a shit ton of it, regardless of it's quality; it's the next installment in a beloved and controversial franchise, the first on a current-gen system, and was developed by a team of people who know their work inside an out. Iron Man had a similar pedigree and, although the character doesn't have the same place in the public consciousness, superhero movies sell like hotcakes regardless of quality. (Especially in the first weekend) So we're staring at a tectonic battle between two juggernauts of money-making opportunity, and what happens? They both make money, and they're both pretty damned good.

Now Iron Man isn't perfect, but it is ridiculously entertaining, occasionally elevating itself to a higher form on the shoulders of its actors. While GTA is a more complex beast, when distilled to their cores both properties have a major thing in common: A team of talented, driven artists, experts in their fields, endeavoring to make the best product they can.

Both parties are certainly lucky; they were given time, and money, and many, many opportunities to cheap out but the fact that these two Blockbusters are able to actually produce a piece of effort worth experiencing more than once (In my case, for GTA, over fifteen hours worth of gameplay so far, twice the length of most modern single player stories) is really brightening, and ever-so-slightly diminishes my zeal to smash the obsidian ceiling looming above us and just start climbing the damn ladder.

Because, really, ignoring for once all the grime of the city and the world, watching Robert Downey (Fucking) Jr crack wise in a suit of armor painted the color of his hot rod after blowing up a tank with a missile the size of my finger, and then biking home in time to catch the sunset ride into Manhattan listening to Droppin' Science really does make everything okay.

But then it's time to come out of the bucket.