Disney's Disposable DVDs Deemed Duds

An anonymous reader writes "It looks like disposable DVD's are headed the way of the dodo bird. Consumers (ahem, customers) in several markets are rejecting the $7 self destructing flexplay discs. Some stores have decided to stop selling. According to the stores, 'Customers aren't interested in paying more than $6 for a limited-play DVD when they can pay $2 at the video store. Even with a $2 late fee, it's cheaper than buying a disposable DVD.' and 'he hasn't seen one customer purchase an EZ-D, though some of them have been shoplifted out of the store.'"

Comments

duh

[jester42]

That's an easy one for any marketing genius. Just raise (ahem adjust) the prices for rental videos and people will be happy to buy those.

Commercials

[Chagatai]

I always got a chuckle whenever I saw a Disney commercial advertising a particular movie on VHS or DVD, where they would swear that this was the absolute last time you could possibly buy a copy of the film. "Buy your limited silver-plated collector's edition 2000 version copy of Cinderella now, before it goes back in the Disney vault forever! We mean it! It won't be coming back in two years as a special gold-lithographed edition, we swear it!" It makes me wonder how they could advertise these self-destructing DVDs...

"Get your limited copy of Beauty and the Beast now! And we do mean limited! This film will expire in two weeks and after that you will have to wait until we rehash this film and sell it again in another two months! Don't even think of renting a copy from Blockbuster, because we own them, too! This film will only last in your memories!"

Seriously, though, here's the amazing truth: people like buying crap that doesn't break. Imagine if your copy of Detective Comics #27 spontaneously combusted after 60 years of age. Who would want to collect and read that?

Re:Good.

[adrianbaugh]

Agreed. The only thing issuing limited-life DVDs will accomplish is it will make the general public much more familiar with DVD ripping tools. If someone buys a DVD and it'll only play once then it's not going to take long for them to decide that that single play is going straight to DVD:Rip or the hard disk so that it can be watched repeatedly.

Of course, that's only if titles are only released in such a format: if there's a choice, consumers will just ignore the self-destructing option.

New Line got it right with the Special Edition LoTR DVDs. They're lovely products, well packaged with high quality extras (and don't self-destruct ;-)).
People will happily pay for something like that: they will be far less happy at movie companies that treat them like scum who can't be trusted with the content they're so graciously permitted to view.