Retailers call for 'benefit denial technology'

Retailers have always had a variety of antitheft measures for games, from locking them in giant plastic shells to stocking shelves with empty boxes and keeping the real goods behind the counter. Those methods apparently aren't sufficient for the Entertainment Merchants Association. The industry trade group is now calling for development of yet another theft prevention tactic.

The EMA yesterday introduced its standards for "benefit denial technology," which is intended to keep thieves from being able to enjoy stolen DVDs or games. The scheme would see companies ship their games and movies in an inoperable state. The discs would then be activated at the cash register when they were purchased, much like stores typically do with gift cards now.

"The deployment of benefit denial technology would reduce shrink [loss due to theft] in video game and DVD stocks, increase open marketing of video games, reduce packaging, decrease labor costs, improve consumer access to video games and Blu-ray discs, and make the categories more attractive for additional retail channels," EMA president and CEO Bo Andersen said in a statement.

Such a system doesn't exist at the moment, but the EMA designed the standards to encourage development of such a scheme. The standards were jointly created by retailers, game publishers, and home-video companies.