Okay.
We call this kind iof movies here often "Autorenkino", because it's directed towards a very small audience and features often movies after stories or so written by authors. Another term is "Kulturkino", where "kino" means "cinema".
In the last 10-20 years, big cinemas ("movie palaces") were spreading fast, meanwhile smaller, art oriented cinemas closed down more & more. I was kind of shocked, as I was in Cologne last saturday, and I saw the "Lupe" being closed. It had been open so many years ...
But that has partly top do with German economy : People are becoming more & more poor, and unemployment is the greatest problem Germany has faced ever (after WWII).
So, people don't have that much money anymore in their pockets and what do they prefer : Blockbusters. Not art-oriented kino.
Since "Kulturkino", as I like to call it, is being sponsored by the parts of the government (ministry of culture, I think), this is rather independend, which leads to movie-makers making almost anything they want. The drawback ist, that this is rarely seen, due the fact a) it seems sometimes too weird to people, or "too higbrow", so to say, b) isn't shown in movie palaces (the big movie palaces seem to be against it like - a saying here in Germany says "the devil fears the holy water". I've NEVER EVER seen a movie that's "typical" for such a small art oriented cinema in a big "movie palace".
Now, with the government having its own problems duue to the economical crisis within Germany, there is fewer money the ministry for culture andd similar offices spend.
I've read the article at the link, and I must agree. Games are considered not "important" enough rioght now to be called "cculturally important" somehow.
In a Star Wars related forum I've wrote a small "article" about German's economy right now. I'm including it here, although it's rather off topic, to help explain what I wrote above.
Yes, Walmart is selling their shops to Metro, a big conglomerate of different warehouses, among others the Kaufhof, Real and Metro itself.
The market is hard here, especially considering the greatly suffering economy of the country. Exports go incredibly well, but the economy within the country suffers greatly from people who simply don't want to buy.
Among other compertors are Aldi and Lidl, whixch we call here "discounters" in terms of food. They mainly sell food for very low prices, and to a small extend non-food, too.
The overall problem is, that people are trying to save money. They simply fear an uncertain future.
It had began with the invention of the Euro. Some capitalists tried to exploit the changing course of Deutsche Mark (DM) to Euro, which is 1 Euro is word almost 2 DM. So, they thought they could "use" this to increase the prices by one simple trick : Keep the prices. 1:1 . In fact, that meant that people who decided to pay these prices actually payed double the money for less. Or so it seemed them.
Not all companies tried to exploid that, of course, but enough to disturb the faith of consumers greatly.
Now, everything is expensive. 10 Euro - which are basically around 20 Deutsche Mark - melt away like ice in the sunshine.
Psychologically, this means to the consumers this : Keep your money ! Or you will be poor sooner than you like !
This overall feeling among consumers led to a feeling of keeping money - not buying stuff anymore.
And that led to many many many shops closing, in the end, and an increadibly increased rate of unemployed people, currently about 4 Million, which is insanely high for Germany.
So, the obverall inland economy is suffering greatly. People have no money, and the few they have they don'Ät want zo spend because they fear they won't have enough when they're old.
Winners of this situation (yes, there ARE winners !) are the discounters. They sell for so low prices they are able to attract many, many people. And the people get used to these low prices ! So others have to cope - with low prices, too. And some companies cannot afford that.
That is what has driven Walmart out of Germany's market. These low prices the people only want to have, because a) they are used to them and b) they fear they won't have enough for their future.
Our far most biggest problem right now is unemployment. No jobs, no money to spend, no more shops, thus no more jobs.
Or, to put it into other words :
Job -> Money income -> money available to spend -> into shop -> shop gets increased income by increased sales -> can employ more people -> more jobs -> more money income -> more money to spend ...
This circle is currently being heavily broken here. No jobs, no money. No money, no jobs.
Even worse, companies that are even increasing thir profits by thousands and millions fire people ! Less employees -> less money to give away for salaries -> more profits for the company.
But what they don't see is : No jobs, no money, no money, no jobs ... The companies which are "dumping" employees right now will l0ose in the long run.
Another very bad point is the increase of energy prices. We have some very notorious energys companies which do know only one word : increase prices !
This increase price for water, current, oil and gas even steals more money away from the pockets of the customers !
No money, no jobs, no jobs, no money ...
This is the worst time of German history in an economical sense. It's just plain ugly.
That's one factor among many why collectors are having a hard time here in Germany. Energy prices and food prices eat away so much there isn't too much money to spend for collecting anymore.
That's the most precise description of Germany's economy I can write in English right now.
Alrik
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