IMHO it doesn't matter. The issue is, that the costs of a video playback software, even if is costs several $1000, is dwafed by the cost of creating actually a video for your game.

Are those prices per platform, per game? Or just per game? [edit] You might want to clarify this on your blog/poll.

[quote name='Ashaman73' timestamp='1344417972' post='4967312']The issue is, that the costs of a video playback software, is dwafed by the cost of creating actually a video for your game

most of the videos could be created via engine cut scene editor or video grabbers like fraps[/quote]I think what Ashaman meant is that the cost of making content is much more expensive than video-player licensing fees (at least on large commercial projects).

e.g. The last game cutscene that I worked on took 6 weeks and had 1 art-director, 3 animators, 1 lead-artist, 1 texture-artist, 1 lighting-artist, 1 effects-artist, a few 3d environment artists, and me as a graphics programmer, which adds up to somewhere between $60k to 100k -- to make about 45 seconds of footage.
So large commercial game companies can definitely afford Bink's expensive license fees, when compared to these costs!

Meanwhile, let's say that integrating an open source video playback library might take a programmer a week on PC -- $30/hour * 40hour week = $1,200 to create the most basic playback software... which is dwarfed by the above costs of content production.