Digital Joe #30

Battlestar Galactica.

Digital Joe
FIRST ONLINE Oct 4, 2006

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There are people who find certain four letter words to be offensive and vulgar. Personally, I´m not one of them. Of course, they have their own place and time. I wouldn´t condone anyone using one of these "naughty" words during a church sermon or a funeral, but in a bar with a bunch of friends? Why not? There is a word, though, that I find much more offensive than any "colorful metaphor" (as Kirk and Spock would call them) in existence.

Wanna know what that word is?

Parents, avert your kids eyes. Kids, I don´t want you to repeat what I´m about to write in any way, shape or form.

Ready?

Okay.

"Exclusive."

There, I said it. I hope ya´ll forgive me for polluting your minds and computer screens with, perhaps, the most vulgar of words.

(For the record, an "exclusive" in terms of DVD´s is any freebie a store attaches to a disc in order to drive people to their store. Recent exclusives include plush toys, free bags of popcorn, free iTunes music downloads and bonus discs.)

It´s vulgar because it discriminates against certain people, namely the ones who can´t be at the store when it opens at 9 or 10 am to get the exclusive. It discriminates against the working people, the ones with obligations during the day, the ones who can´t drop everything and push the eBay crowd out of the way to find the exclusive. (Did I just take a shot at the people who hoard certain releases and put them up on eBay at horrible inflated prices? Take a look at the recent "United 93" fiasco. Or "Batman Begins" from last year. Hell, "Jarhead" and "Munich". Take a look at those releases on eBay and you tell me what the issue is here.)

Now, we all know from previous discussions that I am anal retentive when it comes to my media library. It´s just the way it is. I like to have the biggest and best edition available in Region 1. Give me the choice between a 2-disc set and a single disc "bare-bones" movie, I´m always going for the 2-disc. I´ll even make a special trip to certain stores in order to pick up their "exclusive" discs.

Such was the case a couple weeks ago (September 19, to be exact) when "Battlestar Galactica Season 2.5" came out. One retailer-who shall remain nameless-included, as an exclusive bonus disc-the recap show called "The Story So Far". Now, I have Season One and Season 2.0. There´s really no need for me to seek out this disc. Chances are I´m never going to watch it. But the principle of the matter is I wanted my library to be "complete" (remember how we had that conversation last week?).

Anyone who knows anything about exclusive discs knows they are not packaged with every single set in a store. OH NO! That would be much too easy. Instead, there is usually a minimum sets packed with the exclusive per store. I don´t know what the number was for this specific release and, quite frankly, I don´t care. It really doesn´t matter. The fact of the matter is I went to my usual big box retailer looking to get this release with this bonus disc. I couldn´t find a bloody one on the shelf.

Sure, there were plenty of sets left, but remember when I said they weren´t packed onto every edition in the store? You have to find the sets with the special little sticker on the front signaling the bonus disc is included. I looked through the six or seven copies sitting on the shelf and found buttkiss. (That means "zero" for anyone not versed in Jason-speak.)

Mind you, I didn´t go shopping the Saturday after the set was released. I was at the store at 7 pm on release day. And all the freaking "exclusive" sets were sold out. What a crock, I thought to myself, as I stormed out of the store, pissed beyond all belief. I simply couldn´t believe it. You mean to tell me that in the course of 9 hours, a cable science fiction program had sold every single set of half a season with the extra disc? God forbid I couldn´t make it to the store on Tuesday night. What if I had to wait until Wednesday or Thursday?

Luckily, I have several of these brick and mortar retailers within a half hour of my house. Plus, it just so happened I was going to pass another of these stores in my travels for the night. That store only had a handful of sets with the exclusive disc left on the shelf. So my library is complete.

For now, anyway.

My fundamental problem with exclusive discs (and the ubiquitous "Limited Edition" bullcrap, but that is a discussion for another day) is the following: why should a consumer have to run to a couple different stores in order to get what they want? Why purposely withhold a featurette, a recap show, previews…whatever from the set proper in order to give one retailer a leg up on another?

Yeah, yeah…I know the retailer pays for the extra content in the hopes that the consumers who come in for one product will pick up others. Regardless of the motivation, it still sucks for the consumer.

Basically, what the studio is saying is that Retailer X and Retailer Y get sub-par (or incomplete) product while Retailer Z gets all the material available. What is a consumer supposed to do? Try to hunt down the exclusive disc? Say "screw it" and just get what they can easily find? Not buy it at all?

This entire situation (and this by no means is the first time exclusives have been a pain in the ass to find) makes me fearful for some of the upcoming Collector´s Edition movies. "X-Men: The Last Stand" streets October 3 in the standard single disc iteration and then in the single disc plus comic book edition. Ten bucks says I´m going to have the same problem with this one that I had with "Battlestar Galactica".

An argument can be made that Mr. Average Joe consumer won´t know whether or not they are missing a disc. I agree completely. Most of the people out there don´t care if they get any kind of exclusive or not. But there are people-the fans-who care a great deal. I´m one of them. When an exclusive is attached to a set, why can´t those be held by a store associate, with a sign on the shelf telling the consumer to look for an associate if they want whatever the bonus is?

Is it more work for the store? Hell yeah. The alternative? Have consumers pissed off at you and risk having them bad mouth you to their friends. Ya know, there is STILL a little computer printed sign underneath the three "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" releases stating that there are no extras on the single disc version, only the double disc. It remains to this day the funniest thing I´ve ever seen on a shelf tag. Are people too stupid to even look at what they´re buying? No other release I´ve ever seen contains this disclaimer.

If the exclusive isn´t packed with the DVD, then have a supply of them at each register and have the cash jockeys hand them out when the consumer pays. If they can offer a credit card, magazines and product protection (none of which the consumer wants or needs), then they can take another 10 seconds to make sure the person in front of them gets what they came in for.

Above all that, though, one of the simplest things that can be done is stopping with these idiotic exclusive discs. Go ahead and have your little plush toys, the key chains, the lithographs, the special cases as exclusives. Other regions get all the content in one package without having to hunt for a damn sticker in a store that got one half of one copy. It´s absurd. End of story.

I guess there is another answer to this whole thing, one I´m not terribly fond of. We-and I-can simply stop caring. Somehow, though, I don´t think that´s going to happen.

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