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GeekNights Special 014 - This is Not a Charity!
Here is the unedited text of the e-mail we geekback in this special. Your regularly scheduled podcast will resume Monday.
While I applaud the idea of not buying bootlegs and not pirating after something is licensed, the real thing hurting anime DVD sales is people not buying DVDs. The quote/unquote rule of fan-subs is, if you enjoyed watching a show you should buy it. Not if you LOVED it, not if it CHANGED your life, but if you just liked it and were entertained. No matter what, the U.S. anime industry is not like the Japanese industry. The U.S. doesn’t get to rely on advertisers for their revenue. For the most part, they have to rely on us, the fans. So while renting anime is all well and good to see if you like the show, shouldn’t the same rules apply? Because otherwise while it might not make people feel as bad, it is just as hurtful to the industry. And since most DVDs are well priced, even cheap, it’s not too hard. I also here complaints about the price of U.S. anime DVDs. But if you really think about it, $30 is a good price for 4 or 5 episodes. I remember paying $30 for two episodes of Cowboy Bebop on VHS. Now, I’m not saying that is right, but anime is a niche market so it seems ludicrous to expect the same price on the DVDs as the latest Spiderman movie on DVD. Anyway, what I’m getting at is we all need to buy more anime. Period.
Kate
Comments
Kate, you will obviously not improve the human race. Just die.
Anyway, 30 bucks a DVD. Not my style. I wait until conventions or online sales to get my DVD's.
Now if they sold anime in the price format of those Avatar DVD's mentioned a lot more people would buy anime. As long as the companies stick to what they're doing, fuck this! Rent, con sales, borrow. Anything but buy directly from them or a chain store. If anime was say 10 episodes for 30$, I wouldn't mind so much.
I guess this special came just in time with the Geneon thing. People said it was their own practices that made them fall and not just sales or piracy.
Sorry if any of that came out unintelligible.
Also if you think people should buy anime, what about those who watch the anime on tv such as the Anime Network or Cartoon Network? It's the same as you said as renting? I'm paying a service to my cable provider (Comcast) and I can use the On Demand feature to rewatch anime episodes over and over at my leisure. What is your reasoning to this? I'm not going to buy a DVD for an anime that I am already paying my cable company that provides me this service.
I also remember purchasing VHS and DVDs for $30 each with very few episodes on them. Yeah, it kinda sucks, but at the same time, I would rewatch those episodes repeatedly to make it worth the money. Sometimes when I go into a Best Buy or Frye's I see anime box sets of anime that I either individually bought the DVDs as they came along, or bought the box sets as a greater price and get a bit irked. However, when I think about it, it's money I already spent, I'm never going to see it, I have already watched those DVDs many times, so there is no use in crying over spilled milk. Plus, as an example: The Azumanga Daioh DVD set. They came out with a thinner pack for $40. I remeber buying the first DVD with the box for around that price and then buying each DVD after that for around $20. Was it worth it? You bet it was. You know why? One reason and one reason only as Scrym mentioned in the podcast: merchandise. If you purchased the old box set with the rest of the DVDs separately you got a cute pin of various characters of the anime: Chiyo-chan and the cats. I have them all. They are cute and adorable and in my opinion worth the money I spent on them.
You are aware WHY people SAY "Quoute/unquote", right?
Because you don't say " "
"fansubs" is what you mean. xD
- $30 a dvd is too much, I remember paying that during the vhs days but times have changed.
- People who rent are helping out the us anime industry, just not as much as those who buy the discs outright of course. Netflicks or whoever do buy the dvds they rent out and will continue to expand their anime library as long as their customers show interest.
This is one place where Kate is right, The U.S. doesn’t get to rely on advertisers for their revenue. For the most part, they have to rely on us, the fans. Shows like the Simpsons, Sopranos and Firefly already made $$ while being aired on television so they don't need to charge that much for the season boxsets in order to turn a profit. On the other hand most anime that aren't aired on Adult Swim or other tv channels have to make $$ only through their dvd sales so of course they have to charge more to break even. Yay for common sense?It is not customers who should buy products they don't want to prop up a company with a faulty business model. It is the job of the company to change its business model so that people will want to give them their money. If anime companies "don't get to rely on advertisers for their revenue", and don't have other sufficient sources of revenue other than the charity of fans willing to buy overpriced DVDs, then it is their fault if they go out of business. There is nothing stopping them from changing their business model to open up other revenue streams. There is nothing stopping them from changing their product, or marketing their product, in new ways.
If you are a company, and people are buying your product only out of guilt, you are in trouble. Look at Apple, people want their products badly. They don't buy iPods because they feel guilty that not doing so will contribute to the demise of Apple. They actually want iPods. If anime companies want to make money, they should make something people actually want very badly instead of relying on the charity of the guilty anime fan.
Just for the record... I am NOT the Kate that wrote that e-mail.
If Scrym ever have trouble thinking of a show to do just think of what annoys you most about a particular genre and rant about it.
Economy of scale.
Anime DVDs are always going to be more expensive than mainstream DVDs.
So why are anime DVD's more expensive than other foreign DVDs? There aren't too many TV shows that make it here for sale on DVD but the ones that do (British mostly) are often times cheaper than American TV shows. The movies that come out here (from virtually every country that makes movies) are always on par with American films. Why is Japanese film and anime any different?
The second factor to increasing your customer base is marketing. This is something anime companies in general seem to be experts at failing. You use marketing to increase your 'market size'. I think this could be done but there's a disconnect. There is are two kinds of people who watch anime: those that know a lot about it and eat up everything Japan, and those that see it on TV but may not even understand it's anything other than a somewhat adult cartoon. We need to connect these groups by educating the later. This shouldn't be too hard since you have them in front of the TV, a relatively captive audience for advertising. I think the industry is moving this direction (been to a Hot Topic recently?) but it's taken a while, and they aren't moving very quickly.
That's the attack I would take anyway. Turn mediocre customers into star customers.
Nintendo is the only smart company so far. They gave all the geeks the finger. They made a product to sell to moms, old people, kids, and everyone else who doesn't give a shit about video games. Geeks still bought it anyway, because they'll buy anything. Meanwhile, now the Wii is #1 in sales of the new generation despite inferior graphics, actually making a profit on the hardware, etc. Every other company with geeky customers needs to take a lesson from Nintendo. Sell your geeky wares on the mass market to make big $$$. Niche markets will always be poor by definition.
To get rich, stop being niche.
I'm a poet, and I didn't know it. Seriously, total accident.