Wreck It Ralph (Four-Disc Combo: Blu-ray 3D/Blu-ray/DVD + Digital Copy). On sale at Amazon (as of the time of writing this article) for $39.99. Normally? $50.
Disney, and other big film studios, need to listen up. This is not how you get people to start using your digital releases. You packed in a digital copy? Cool! Oh, I can stream it from any Ultraviolet compatible service, like Vudu? Great! Wait, you’re charging me how much extra!?
The battle has been “if I own the film, shouldn’t I own the CONTENT, and not the format?” People don’t want to take part in Wal-Mart’s disc-to-digital program because they feel they shouldn’t have to pay for something they already own. There has been and still is reluctance in the move to Blu-Ray because you’re re-buying everything. Moving from VHS to DVD was easy – there were many obvious benefits, and the prices came down quickly. But if I buy a movie for $15-$20, I expect to see that little sticker that says “Free digital copy included!” But something is happening with this insanely over priced Wreck It Ralph release.
This box includes the Blu-Ray 3D and the Blu-Ray versions of the movie… which for some reason aren’t on the same disc. Then a generic DVD, and a digital copy. Note that the digital copies generally do not include any bonus content that will be found on the disc versions, and, that much like your movie theater experience, your discs will be loaded with trailers and BD-Live content advertising other Disney properties before, during, and after your movie watching experience. Exactly what the hell am I paying fifty dollars for? If you want to make 3D catch on, if you want to see digital distribution take off so that you can save money with more limited physical releases in the future… the way to do it is not by gouging the consumer – it’s by making those things perks for buying current-generation packages.
3D comes back every few years, this latest round really seemed like it was going to be the one to work, but it still hasn’t stuck. Film studios love the idea, because it affords them an additional level of anti-piracy. But 3D still hasn’t taken off. So why are you charging me $10-12.50 for a disc of your stupid blurry movie? Especially for a CGI film – it’s not like it took additional cameras and advance capturing technology – it’s a render!
I’m sorry, Disney. I had high hopes for Wreck It Ralph, and for the future of Disney – I thought they might be starting to get it. But their exclusive Disney digital format is a pain (just go with Ultraviolet, like everyone else, please?), and the unbalanced pricing structure is just absurd. It’s just not going to work out like this. I hope you see your problems and change, down the road, Disney.