Yet another sample of how media & entertainment treats its customers as they were enemies.:

In gaming community, a (single) game has its natural life span aka. "play it through couple of times with different settings" and after that one is willing to recycle the game and purchase something new (=part of the money from the previous recycling).

Ok, some of the companies such as Electronic Arts ("EA" or www.ea.com ) are now targeting to make it next to impossible sell the game that you own with a "creative" concept that game DVD would include only short version of the game and "coupon" to add rest of the content which buyer of the used game would need to purchase by buying these coupons.

I understand that game industry as well as others are suffering and truly struggling, but maybe it would be time to streamline the internal operations and come from 1980`s to 2010+ instead of attacking customers with "revenge due obsolete operations".

More details from (and other places):

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/eas-project-ten-dollar-explained

Hint:
There are certain quite innovative concepts within software industry to address these kind of problems BUT the companies involved in just must change 1st!

Directions of customer loyalty? Redifining the concept becoming mandatory?

How many loyalty program cards, bar-codes, key-rings etc You have already? Would you like to have yet another plastic card or what so ever?

Did you know that Wal-Mart stockpiles Pop-Tarts and beer before hurricane hits the Florida's Atlantic coast?

Why "loyalty program" term has become "filthy" and it is being redefined as "customer engagement"?

What do you feel and expect? Should loyalty programs become more social networks oriented and dynamic.... Nomadic Loyalty Networks, where customer dynamically agrees what kind of loyalty network serves his/her needs best and service or product provider partners affiliates dynamically based on season, trends or what so ever adds value to customer?

More customer involvement needed?

Yet again! Music (media) industry shows its true ways

In addition to treating consumer as a criminal and making consumer life as difficult as possible, they have finally been caught "pants down" stealing from artists. What kind of "organized mob" can make a heist of $6B without being caught?

See further details from:

http://www.lawyersweekly.ca/index.php?section=article&articleid=1077

or just Google another source.

At the same time, thank the higher influence, that this robbery by industry is being controlled and for example mobile ring-tones will not be charged every time the phone rings:

http://mashable.com/2009/10/15/no-ringtone-royalties/

Good bye Viacom!

Nobody asked me when I stopped purchasing (yes, buying with money from legal stores) more than 100 CD's a year why did I do that, why do I buy no CD's anymore? I have 3 CD/DVD JukeBoxes from Sony stacked and there are still free slots for CD's that I have not been buying.

I have never pirated or stolen music, I just don't have time enough to copy bitstreams etc. Well, why did I stop buying? My answer is that the industry started to treat me as a criminal and added "features" that had an impact to my experience (e.g. copy protection that prevented playing the CD with my car audio). So, seller started to treat me as an enemy and as a criminal, and I took my money and walked away.

Now Viacom is doing the same with most recent Google/YouTube judgement. US, as a country, and entertainment industry, like Viacom, are shooting their own leg with actions like this.

Good bye Viacom. I take my money and walk away, again... Don't blame potential pirates, blame Your own attitude towards (or against) Your paying customers!

cheers,

-jari