Movie Store (Mis)adventures I

Originally published here.

I had two incidents this week which really annoyed me. Both of them relate to DVDs.

Today it was a run-in with a new manager at my local video rental store. About nine months ago, I signed up for their new "Ulimited Rentals" plan, which costs $29.95 per month. I can get out four VHS cassettes or DVDs at a time and return them whenever I like without getting any late fees. This works out at around $1.00 per day for as many movies as I can watch. With no late fees, I think it's a pretty good deal.

I go to return the first two DVDs in a series and get out the next two. I arrive at the counter with my two new DVDs and hand over my membership card.

"You can only get one of these out", says Mark (as in "Hi, my name is...")

I give him blank look. What's he talking about?

"You havn't returned another New Release yet", he says. "You know you can only have two New Releases out at a time, right?"

"Uh, no, actually," I say. "I just returned the two new releases I got out yesterday."

I realise I can't speak with enough enthusiasm to give the words "new release" capital letters like he can.

"If you got those two out yesterday, then you had three out. You're only allowed to have two."

This guy is really starting to annoy me. I've been going to this video store four or five times a week since I went on the "unlimited" plan. All the regular staff call me by my first name and I call them by their first names too. I can easily spend twenty minutes talking about movies with them whenever I go in there, and I've never head of this limit on new releases before ----- because nobody ever told me. I've been taking out two or three or four new releases for nine months without any problems.

"That third one isn't a premier new release, though", I point out in the hope that this whole thing will go away. I don't need any hassles today.

"No. You can get out one Premier New Release and one New Release, or two New Releases and two 3 Night Hires, or..." he drones on.

The sections in a video rental store are just like the categories used in the cinema releases: there's Premier New Release, tied to the Opening Weekend. These are the ones you see on all the posters located in very prominant places on the shelves. Their popularity works the same way as the cinema releases - all the people who really want to see it watch it as soon as it's available.

From there a movie goes into it's regular run as a New Release. It's a "new" movie and you still pay a lot to watch it, just like you do with regular cinema tickets.

Then comes the 3 Night Hire section, where a cinema would be running Two-For-The Price-Of-One or 1-Adult-Plus-Free-Popcorn deals to milk a little bit more profit out of the film.

Right at the bottom of the chain is the Weekly. A Weekly DVD is to the rental store what a Premier DVD release is to the movie studio: The Cream. All the costs have been recouped, a tidy profit has been made and all that has to happen now is to keep the movie moving for years until someone wants to watch it. From here on, it's pure profit.

My unlimited plan is like those SuperSaver cinema booklettes where you get a 40% discount if you buy ten tickets at a time.

Mark is now pointing to a helpful poster (which wasn't there yerterday) showing what I'm allowed to take out at any one time. It's a beautiful little diagram with a matrix of all the possible combinations of rental DVDs I'm allowed to borrow.

I don't absorb any of it.

"Do you know who let you get those two New Releses out yesterday?" he asks.

"No, sorry" I reply. (It was Tim. Tim an I both like Sci-Fi, so I don't want to get him in trouble).

"Well, you can only get one of these", says Mark.

I can tell he's not going to let me have the second one, even if I ask nicely. So I take one home, pick up the third new release (which was crap anyway) and take it back to the store.

"Do you still want that second New Release?" asks Mark.

"No, I just decided to make two trips here today for the hell of it", I think to myself. "Yeah" is what actually comes out of my mouth.

As I leave, I start wondering why I should keep that idiot in a job by guaranteeing the store $30 in revenue every month. I could quite easily spend the money upgrading to an ADSL2+ net connection and just download the movies I want to watch.

Then I remember all the other staff there are really cool and how much I enjoy chatting with them. I'd really like to continue those relationships, but at the end of the day, it's all about time and money and I just wasted 40 minutes of my time on the second trip. I switched to the Unlimited Plan because it was supposed to be easier, but where Digital Rights Management annoys me online, Physical Use Management annoys me just as much in the real world.

A few more incidents like that and I may just stop being a good customer.