[Infowarrior] - Movie Studios Purposely Crippling Rental DVDs

[Richard Forno]

Movie Studios Purposely Crippling Rental DVDs In Misguided Effort To Get People To Buy

from the taking-away-features-is-not-a-strategy dept

What is it about the entertainment industry that actually makes them think that it's a smart move to take features away from consumers? They seem to focus on building business models by pissing off as many people as possible, and then wondering why those people seek out alternatives. Case in point, visual77 points us to the news that movie studios are increasingly offering up feature-limited DVDs for the rental market, and then encouraging you to buy the DVD itself if you want all the features. As Consumerist reports:

Consumerist reader Joseph brought this to our attention after he spent $3.99 to rent the DVD of Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World from Blockbuster. When he went to the disc's main menu and attempted to watch the Blooper Reel special feature, he was greeted by a screen telling him: "This disc is intended for rental purposes and only includes the feature film. Own it on Blu-Ray or DVD to view these bonus features and complete your movie watching experience."
This is the same thinking that leads the studios to seek to have rental places delay movies for a month. The entire business model seems to be centered on creating artificial scarcities that piss off people. Is it really so difficult for the industry to realize that they can make more money by adding value and actually delivering what people want?

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101209/16561912221/movie-studios-purposely-crippling-rental-dvds-misguided-effort-to-get-people-to-buy.shtml