by LeiaOrgana » Tue Nov 05, 2013 12:52 am
@Omnidroid - It's the nature of the beast, unfortunately.
We have been fortunate so far that with the exception of the TRU stuff everything else has been a timed exclusive, and not an exclusive-exclusive. The Target Series 2 pack seems to be exclusive, but at least you can get the stuff in packs elsewhere.
With video games and films retailer exclusives have become the name of the game. Only, usually it's worse. For example, most big games that come out have bonus packs for each individual retailer - so if you want a certain set of bonus levels/skins you have to go to one retailer, and if you want another, preorder from another. It's maddening - you literally would have to buy like 4 or 5 versions of the same game to get everything. Most of the time the stuff later becomes available for anyone to download for a charge, but it's still maddening.
The worst is with films. The latest Star Trek film, Into Darkness - had a HUGE backlash. Huge. Basically, instead of making one set of discs that had the film and the "extras", they spread it across like five different retailer exclusives. It was absolutely ridiculous. You would have had to spend over $100 to get every version if you wanted to see all the extras created. This has happened before with small things, like little 10 minute featurettes (like "get a bonus disc with 3 little 10 minute behind the scenes thing if you buy at Target), but this time there were so many, and they even held back what is considered vital content like the director commentary - which you can only get on the iTunes version. That's just unheard of that they did a commentary (considered by collectors to be the main meat of most extras) and made it an exclusive.
So, we actually have it pretty good - so far. The only shady thing to me is the TRU Race to Space pack, but that's all made up of their exclusives, anyway. At least the content will be available everywhere - it's just when. I actually don't mind so much that if you want to get a certain character early you have to go to BBuy or Wal-mart or Target - as long as it's not online only. I hate that - because then you get stuck paying shipping, which makes a $13 figure $20+. Hopefully the Ralph and Vanelope will be available in store, like Woody was.