Forum - View topic
NEWS: A.D. Vision Lays off 13 Employees, Shifts Priorities

Well, this doesn't sound like anything too serious, just restructuring as companies need to do at times. I was expecting more people in this thread acting as if ADV was about to go under though.

I don't know how it works in the US, but in the UK if a person is "underperforming" they get at least a warning to pull their socks up and start producing the goods. If that doesn't work then they get the sack. Being "laid off" usually means that your job is no longer needed because that department is no longer needed, or that job has been give to a machine to work and there is no other position that a person with your skills can do. They never think of perhaps re-training you because they never think laterally. It's just "Job not needed , person doing job not needed" then spend three times the time and money recruiting a new person to do the new job the old person could have easily done if re-trained. It's OSIFU management, but I digress. As Mr. dlw said it's ADV morphing for a better tomorrow. I hope it works out and I can't wait for the "Big Announcement". Wink

Gotta say that after seeing that Geneon's going into a type of moratorium with their releases, CPM being knocked out of releases, and now the laying off 13, everyone is REALLY on edge when they don't need to be.

I've seen stuff like this happen from time to time from working in different places that have had to do stuff like this for actual restructing within the company or actually going out of business due to being actually closed out.

ADV still seems to be a strong contender as far as releasing anime along with Bandai and FUNimation. Only other company I haven't heard from in quite sometime is Urban Vision since they've released The Professional: GOLGO 13 and Animeigo since almost ever.

Whatever the case, I'm doing what I can to actually support actual releases for the US, but as of late, I've had to scale back alot on my purchases since my funds have been needed for things of actual importance.

I know there are others who are in the same boat.

I still believe it would be highly unlikely that these layoffs are unrelated to the deal that fell through between ADV and Geneon. Obviously, taking on Geneon's catalog as a distributor had some potential for a strong increase in ADV's market share and you know that losing a deal that close to completion had to have hurt and/or damaged longterm plans already in place with these items as the epicenter.

I still am extremely curious what caused the deal to go through. Was it Geneon who pulled out or ADV? If it was Geneon, did they see or discover something about ADV's status that made them question the validity of the plan, ADV seeing the same of Geneon or could a foreseen projection of future sales and market share make it unattractive to have so many irons in the fire now competing with two company's products under one roof?

I still see a major down turn in the US Anime industry ahead. Will Geneon be the last to fall in the industry? Probably not. Does this mean no more anime available or it disappearing entirely? VERY unlikely. Will Japanese companies suffer from fewer revenues from exporting titles to Western countries due to fewer companies making bids though? Most Definitely. (Simple Supply > Demand).
And where do the cuts come from in this sort of situation? Opportunity costs get higher and production budgets get lower.

Where does it go from here? Who knows, but someone will have to make a very BOLD move in my opinion in order to turn it all around at this point.

Just a quick note to everyone still in the thread though. One of the chief rules in business is to remain profitable and maintain consumer confidence. If you were in dire straights, would you want your customers to know and increase the chances of things going worse?
Definitely not. Furthering the card analogy, you never show your hand until you have to and bluff as long as you can to try and manipulate the game. Not that I am saying any company is doing this, just that this happens alot in business.

Geneon seems to have been playing this game of course since noone heard anything about this and suddenly we hear they are shutting down overnight. Decisions like that don't happen on a whim. But would we have bought volume 1's of some of the new series (Saiunkoku, Shonen Onmyoji, When they Cry) if you knew you'd never get the rest? (Tokyopop's Clamp Chess set is a fine example of that.)

But enough ranting out of me...

Good luck to you ADV and your new restructuring. Sad to hear that it cost some jobs, but hopefully your new plan will have made it worth it. Let us know something soon so we can put our minds to rest though, will ya?

Okay, one last rant. A counter-rant actually...

Thinking about it, what if ADV isn't necessarily losing on the deal with Geneon, but is outright purchasing Geneon to absorb them into ADV? This would be something not to tip the hand on as obviously they would not want any outside bidders and layoffs may be positions that will be duplicated when the company comes together?

Just a bit more crazy that popped into my head just now.

	Anime News Network Forum Index -> Site-related -> Talkback	All times are GMT - 5 Hours Goto page Previous 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Next
Page 4 of 5

Forum - View topicNEWS: A.D. Vision Lays off 13 Employees, Shifts Priorities

Forum - View topic
NEWS: A.D. Vision Lays off 13 Employees, Shifts Priorities