Anime Prices

Kilarney

You guys (and AWO) have missed something when it comes to anime pricing. Yes, a series priced at $30 is going to sell a ton more copies than a series priced at $100. This does not, however, mean that the studios should immediately release a series for $30. I compare it to an airline seat. The goal is to get the most money for that one particular item. If there are some people willing to pay $100 for a boxed set, then it makes sense to sell it for $100 and at a later point in time reduce the price to $30.

Basically, the idiots that have to have something when it first comes out are willing to pay more for that item. Why blame the studios for taking advantage of this? It's actually a good business model.

As for a download service, I'm curious to see how these will work. Netflix has an automatic throttle which is called the United States Postal System. (In addition to Netflix's own throttling.) You also can't give your friend your Netflix password and give them the same access to media that you have. A DVD can only be in one place at a time.

I suspect that download services are going to have to place a limit on downloads per month. I just see too many abuses for an unlimited download option.

HMTKSteve

Pricing is a very large part of marketing. That is why so many things are priced $19.99 instead of $20.00. That one penny means a lot to a customer whether they believe it or not.

In the game industry (which I have some experience with) market research is done before pricing a game. It is a known fact that a game priced at $19.99 will sell more copies then a game priced at $29.99. Setting a price point is very important. Even though you may make less per copy you can sell more copies and thereby make more in the long run.

You also get the added clout of saying, "we sold a million copies" which then garners more interest in your product as it is popular.

Granted, you make a better return if you can sell less product for more money. Just don't forget that extra bonus you get for being the most purchased product.

Rym

The real issue is the Japanese companies. Not to get into it, but check out Anime World Order. They've covered the issue of where the costs come from in anime fairly well, and it all comes down to the Japanese companies being very protective, restrictive, and effectively ripping off the Japanese people.

Kilarney

In the game industry (which I have some experience with) market research is done before pricing a game. It is a known fact that a game priced at $19.99 will sell more copies then a game priced at $29.99. Setting a price point is very important. Even though you may make less per copy you can sell more copies and thereby make more in the long run.

Trust me, I get that. My point was that if you can sell 1000 copies at $19.99, why not sell 100 copies at $100 and 900 copies at $19.99. That's the beauty of being able to move your price point over time.

Rym

The issue is more that anime sales are falling. People aren't buying DVDs at near the rates they used to, and the only real significant sellers are older shows packaged super cheap. You're right that they're making a killing with the current model now, but the well is slowly running dry.

HMTKSteve

They should just give away the first few episodes for free as a download.

Apreche

I think it's obvious that you should sell a show at a high price initially, and then lower it to make more moneys. But, it might not be the best idea after all. People are very excited about shows when they are brand new. Years later, when the price finally gets down to a reasonable level, people might not be interested anymore. It is possible that that if you put a brand new show out at a much lower price that the sales could be insane enough to make more money in the long run. I'd like to see a company try it just once, to see if that is the case. It's not likely, though.

So yes sell at the high price from the get go, but don't ever stop selling. The problem is that a lot of anime companies own some very old shows which are no longer in print. Sure, you can probably find the DVDs if you try, but they aren't pushing them. Sometimes for the really big shows they will re-release a perfect collection or other cheap boxed set. That, however, is the minority of shows. Look at some old great shows like Slayers or Lodoss War. Sure, there are DVDs, really really old ones. They already paid for the license, they already profited on the show. If they made new DVDs, advertised and re-released the show, perhaps putting it on TV also, they would most likely make a second profit. There are lots of anime fans who are new to the game, and have never seen these old shows. If the price is right, you can get them to pay for stuff that will never show up on BitTorrent because it is old and licensed. If you made the old shows available for download at the right price, someone would pay. As Rym said. Would you pay a monthly fee for unlimited access to ADV's out of print back-catalog? I would.

This is also true for manga. Do you know how many manga titles were licensed by companies like Viz in the late 90's which have been out of print for years? If they did a reprint of Sanctuary in the modern manga format, I know for a fact it would sell. Word has gotten around about that manga, but it is very difficult to find. There are many out of print manga which need to see the printed page one more time.

If you own a huge mountain of intellectual property which you paid a large amount of money for, then you should be constantly profiting from all of that property as much as possible. Don't lean your entire business on just a few of the properties. Milk every single one of those properties for all they're worth.

Jason

This concept is called "market segmentation." It operates on the basic flawed idea that something that is more expensive is better - e.g. fashion labels. It also includes the practice of goading the tech-forward to buy first-generation technology that is untried and buggy.

Bottom line: some people are willing to pay very high prices, and companies like that.

Kite

You guys should pay attention to Funimation's failed experiment with Fruits Basket: they tried releasing the entire 24 episode series on 4 dvds for $40 a disc MSRP. ADV/Bandai would stretch it across 6 discs and Pioneer would rape you with 8 at $29 a pop. Funi's deal was the cheapest per episode, but consumers didn't go for it until the initial price was dropped.

Cremlian

This concept is called "market segmentation." It operates on the basic flawed idea that something that is more expensive is better - i.e. fashion labels. It also includes the practice of goading the tech-forward to buy first-generation technology that is untried and buggy.

So you're referring to the PS3 I guess? ^_^ Sorry! Cheap shot!

nlatimer

It's not really a cheap shot: the whole video game market works on the theory.

Some people will pay $600 for a PS3 now; others are willing to wait a year and a half for a $400 price point.

I think I can wait three years for that magical $200 price point.

They do the same thing with the games.

As for anime, I personally am less likely to pay over $100 for thirty episodes of, say, Rurouni Kenshin (which I really, really want), as to pay $30 for My Name is Earl. I think anime has a lot of people hwo will pay that top price. I probably will be one of them as soon as I'm not a broke college student.

Jason

I'm a cheap bastard. I picked up a broken PS2 for free and fixed the DVD laser, and I refuse to pay for anime. When it came time to get all of Arrested Development on DVD, I picked up each season for $12 on Amazon. (Batman KAPOW! here as I bitchslap market prices.)