Exclusives, Schmexclusives...

It hasn’t affected me yet on anything I wanted to buy, but it’s a disturbing trend that DVD sets (movies and television) keep popping up with “special bonus” discs at different retailers. There’s even a website you can find via digitalbits.com that is trying to keep track of all the different bonus discs and locations. Why aren’t these “bonuses” included as standard on the DVD’s? I don’t want to have to run around to only certain stores to get the ‘complete’ material. In fact, I won’t. Screw the ‘bonus.’ I know stores are trying anything these days to get your dollar, but the continued trend of exclusives is disturbing. Once a store gets an exclusive, they can put whatever price they want on it and you can’t do a damn thing about it. There is no competition to drive a fair price. Two cases in point: the 4th season of ER on DVD, and the Garth Brooks collection at Wal-mart. ER’s 4th season kicked off with a live show done twice – once for the east coast time and one for the west coast time. Warner Bros decided to only include the west coast version on the season set. Well, after some pushing, they decided to included the east coast version as well – but only as a bonus available at Target only. Now, it’s great that they smartened up and made both episodes available, but the point is WB screwed up and should have made both shows available on the set that would be sold everywhere. Now, I don’t want the 4th season of ER, but if I did, I’d be upset that I have to go to Target to get the complete season. Not to mention the fact – where the hell am I going to find a Target store in Canada?! Still not sure about the Garth Brooks deal with Wal-Mart. After watching an interview with him describing the process and how the deal wound up wasn’t plan A, I can understand a bit better what he did. When you’re not getting much support from the usual suspects, and a huge company like Wal-Mart steps up, you do what you see fit to get your product out. However, I can understand why other retailers were threatening to pull all Garth product from the shelves. This is sure to sell, and they don’t get a crack at it. Now for me, all I want is the disc of previously unreleased material, and I don’t feel like being forced to go to Wal-Mart and buy the whole box set including material I already own just to get it. Now, having heard that part of plan A was to release that disc separate in time, I’m in a holding pattern to wait and see if that is still part of plan B. Time will tell. Bottom line – I’d rather miss out on a few “bonuses” than be forced to play their game of run around to try to find the right ‘exclusive’ location. Besides, my rate of DVD / CD purchases has recently dropped below the Mendoza line, so it’s not like it matters much…