Keep It or Trade It? Mass Effect 2 (XBOX 360)
Keep It or Trade It? Fallout 3: GOTY Edition (XBOX 360)
Keep It or Trade It?: Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth (DS)
Keep It Or Trade It?: Final Fantasy 20th Anniversary Ed. (PSP)
Keep It Or Trade It?: Dragon Age Origins (360)
According to the latest report from the Entertainment Merchants Association
Publishers universally supported adoption of benefit denial technology if and only if retailers commit to openly merchandising the video game category, and if costs are identified as reasonable compared to potential benefits.
What does this mean. Benefit Denial is the concept of placing some type of restriction on an item so that a thief would lose the benefit of use while a legitimate customer would not. Types of benefit denial technology include Dye packs at the bank that mark stolen money, and a similar dye marker found in those big plastic tags attached to clothing at major Outlets like J.C Penny. If the clothing is removed from the store without paying or if you try to forcibly remove the tag the dye leaks and ruins the clothing. On the software side anyone with Windows has to pass a Benefit Denial check when they Activate Windows or Office.
Why do this? Because according to a study the EMA did they think they can increase revenue by 6 BILLION a year by doing this.
Now how do they plan on implementing this on consoles? Through Point-of-Sale activation following the Lazarus Standard.
No DRM scheme, including Windows Genuine Advantage, Activation of Gift Cards at the Register, or cd key has ever stopped thieves. It may have slowed them down for a few hours, but patches and work arounds can be found on the net with a simple google search. Gift cards had the best shot since all the DRM happens at the store and the consumer is none the wiser. This is one of the points of the lazarus standard, but the only way to cause benifit denial on a console is to either 1. A cd key is generated at checkout needed to start the game when first played. 2. All consoles must be hooked up to the internet for activation.
Here’s why this won’t work.
Point 1. CD key generators are common and easy to create. So this will not stop thieves.
Point 2. Most people never take their console online. Most of the country is still on dial-up. Modern consoles do not accept dialup connections. If internet activation is required most of the country will not be purchasing your product. And just like with Windows activation. The thieves have found cracks that turn off the activation requirement.
I think the lost sale due to theft is secondary to the real reason for such a system. To kill gamestop and the used game market. It’s widely known that the media companies hate used sales as they receive no revenue from it. I actually would not be surprised if they use the same system as with the WiiSpeak attachment for Animal Crossing. It came with a one time use only cd key. Only one key ticket is made for each retail box. Lose it, or if the factory forgot to put on in the box. Your out of luck as Nintendo does not have a list of “extra” keys to use. Your only recourse ( for the average customer) would be to buy a new one. Nintendo eventually relented after backlash over the issue affected sales.
This was really a combination of Points 1 and 2.
UPDATE: Apparently Half my post is lost in the internet so I’ll just summarize what was lost. Only mod chip makers will see increased revenue as customers say fuck you over DRM bullshit like they did with SPORE.
