Network now...NEWS
A Remedy for Inventory Loss?
The Entertainment Merchants Association has proposed an anti-theft system that would require videogames and DVDs to be activated at retail before they are usable.
The non-profit trade organization explained on Monday that, if the proposition would be approved by retailers, DVDs and games would ship to stores in an "inoperable state" to be then enabled at the point of sale.
EMA and its partners also want to have the ability to activate and deactivate the technology at will.
Such tech, which inventory loss professionals call "benefit denial technology," has the same premise as security tags that deploy permanent dye if forcibly removed from a piece of clothing. In effect, these systems "deny benefit" of stolen goods to thieves.
EMA's system, dubbed "Project Lazarus," will undergo lab testing and pilot projects in 2009. "If all goes well, companies will be able to make decisions on whether to implement benefit denial technology for DVDs and video games by mid-2010 and undertake a widespread launch in the fourth quarter of that year," said Mark Fisher, VP of membership and strategic issues at EMA.
The organization estimates that in 2007, retailers lost over $300 million to inventory losses of video and videogame products.
EMA held a Benefit Denial Summit in late September, which included major retailers, video and game companies, including Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Target, Sony Home Entertainment, Paramount, Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, EA, THQ, Activision, Ubisoft and others.
The companies helped the EMA develop minimum standards for video and game benefit denial technology that aim to assure a system would be transparent to the consumer, take up no extra time at retail checkout, have no interference with on-disc tech, and possibly have a "visual cue to activation" on the packaging.
If anything's going to encourage piracy it's insanity like this, if they're going to make it hassle to buy legit DVDs or software then pirate bay is going to be swamped.
Sounds extreme, the minute publishers play this card is the day i stop playing games and buying DVD's.
Odds on they get this instated, and then get a giant backlash as thousands of legitimately bought games stop working.
This strikes me as a particularly stupid scheme. All the game stores I know don't have discs in the on-shelf cases anyway. So, it's not the end consumer stealing games, it's someone in the supply chain - who'll have access to the activation technology.
I really hope that publishers will realise that screwing over your own customer base is not the way forward.
This is a very good point, although as I recall HMV - one of the UK's largest entertainment retailers - does in fact leave their games, CDs and DVDs sitting on shelves, packed, wrapped and ready to be stolen. While GAME and Gamestation, and even supermarkets, have learned that such a policy is completely dopey, other retailers continue to do so.
And the number of times I've seen hooded maniacs legging it down the aisles of our town centre, with bags of stolen Need for Speed boxes and fat security guards trailing behind them, is both laughable and sob-inducing at the same time. If even Sainsburys and Tescos can manage to put empty boxes on shelves, why can't HMV? Probably because they'd need to hire more staff, as the queues there are long enough as it is.
I think it's more down to the fact that HMV don't have as much storage space. They fill up the shelves with product to get it out of warehouses and such. Could be wrong though..
Any system which operates under the initial presumption that I am a criminal is likely to alienate me as a customer. Stores which implement such a system will certainly lose my business. I can think of no benefit I might have from this system as a consumer. It reminds me of the ridiculous packaging put around CDs and DVDs to reduce shrinkage, which are just as likely to result in injury while attempting to extricate the goods, leave gummy spots on the jewel case, and result in unnecessary garbage and waste. This is why I buy music and movies from digital distribution channels (if I buy them at all). Similarly, I no longer shop at clothing stores which clamp anti-theft devices on their merchandise. Alarms going off at the door as I walk between the security pillars with my just purchased goods? Good bye and good riddance as well.
I suspect that this system, if implemented, will drive consumers to other retail channels (mailorder such as Amazon, which just introduced their "Frustration-Free Packaging" - think about this in the context of games), online distributors such as Steam, and BitTorrent.
On a side note, it was my understand that a large portion of shinkage, if not the majority, is due to products leaving by the back door rather than the front.
Maybe the discs are locked into the case with the jaws of life until the retailer scans it, and then the case retracts its nasty incisors & canines?
Hmm this will be most interesting as 4thVariety puts it, thanks for the laughs 4thy!
This is actually very similar to the technology on some dvd "rentals". In an airport you can rent a movie that expires 48 hrs (just an example) after you first watch it. I had a similar thought though.... in the period that the dvd is active is it possible to rip the movie? That is something to think about.
If they can get it to work it sounds like a good idea to me. This can only stop people from physically stealing the discs though. If they deactivate it when you buy it can't people just use DVD shrink and put it on the internet?
Blasphemy? Madness? Sparta?
So the system consists of an object that does not occupy any physical space, yet it can write some information of activation on any disc media that normally can't be written on. The same magic device can even delete that information, basically turning any disc into a rewritable. The information on the disc then magically interacts with the packaging to indicate its state without actually being read.
Now I got it, they break the disc in half and the clerk at the counter glues it back together with the patented magic glue. That's gotta be it.
Whatever they had when coming up with that 21 item list, I want it too.