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NEWS: Square Enix to End E-Manga Service in N. America, France


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Catseyetiger



Joined: 20 Oct 2009
Posts: 779
PostPosted: Wed Apr 24, 2013 8:22 am Reply with quote
this is the problem with digital manga.

not owning a copy of what you pay for.
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jymmy



Joined: 11 Nov 2011
Posts: 1244
PostPosted: Wed Apr 24, 2013 8:26 am Reply with quote
Quote:
Users can still read their previously purchased manga after the service ends
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DuelLadyS



Joined: 17 Mar 2006
Posts: 1705
Location: WA state
PostPosted: Wed Apr 24, 2013 10:03 am Reply with quote
jymmy wrote:
Quote:
Users can still read their previously purchased manga after the service ends


But for how long? I'm glad they're at least leaving it open for now, but I have zero faith that Square will continue to pay for bandwidth to run a website with no new income, just out of courtesy. I hope those who bought from here can find a way to put their purchases onto their hard drive.
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scottjam65



Joined: 24 Aug 2006
Posts: 20
Location: San Diego, CA
PostPosted: Wed Apr 24, 2013 10:03 am Reply with quote
Didi not even know they had an e-manga service.
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ZeetherKID77



Joined: 17 Jun 2007
Posts: 980
PostPosted: Wed Apr 24, 2013 10:07 am Reply with quote
Since Yen owns most of their stuff this isn't surprising.
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SnaphappyFMA



Joined: 14 Jan 2009
Posts: 216
Location: California
PostPosted: Wed Apr 24, 2013 10:47 am Reply with quote
scottjam65 wrote:
Didi not even know they had an e-manga service.


This.
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publicenemy333



Joined: 21 Feb 2011
Posts: 563
Location: Los Angeles, CA
PostPosted: Wed Apr 24, 2013 11:47 am Reply with quote
Square Enix had a North American what now?
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macloud



Joined: 17 Jan 2009
Posts: 94
Location: great britain
PostPosted: Wed Apr 24, 2013 11:54 am Reply with quote
scottjam65 wrote:
didn't even know they had an e-manga service.


publicenemy333 wrote:
Square Enix had a North American what now?


And we see the inherent problem with the whole enterprise.
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azabaro
Subscriber



Joined: 06 Jul 2007
Posts: 251
PostPosted: Wed Apr 24, 2013 1:35 pm Reply with quote
macloud wrote:
scottjam65 wrote:
didn't even know they had an e-manga service.


publicenemy333 wrote:
Square Enix had a North American what now?


And we see the inherent problem with the whole enterprise.


It's worse than that - some folks did know they had the service, but couldn't make it work (e.g. Deb Aoki of manga.about.com said she literally couldn't figure out how to pay to buy manga on that site).
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aereus



Joined: 08 Jun 2010
Posts: 574
PostPosted: Wed Apr 24, 2013 1:48 pm Reply with quote
Can't say I'm surprised, but I see this as more part of their overall cost-cutting measures lately. As the article mentioned, they've been losing a lot of money lately -- so they undoubtedly want to cut back to their core business and right the ship, as it were.

Sadly it's not because they aren't selling, but because of mismanagement it seems. Tomb Raider sold like 4 million copies, yet somehow lost money. The whole debacle over how FF14 was developed originally. It's not even clear if we will get more FF games out of them now, since they're closing down most of their internal studios.

Although IMHO they could cut their FF budget in half and forget about all the stupid CG movies. Go back to focusing on the characters and plot instead, like FF6 or such.
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StormSky92





PostPosted: Wed Apr 24, 2013 2:11 pm Reply with quote
So, looks like VIZ is the only Digital Manga provider left. To my knowledge anyway.

I prefer physical volumes anyway. That way I don't have to worry about sites going down or hard drive failures. I just have to worry about finding the volume I want to read in my very cluttered bookshelf.
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Mr Adventure



Joined: 14 Jul 2008
Posts: 1598
PostPosted: Wed Apr 24, 2013 2:17 pm Reply with quote
StormSky92 wrote:
So, looks like VIZ is the only Digital Manga provider left. To my knowledge anyway.


Kondasha has an iOS app and regularly provides content. ComiXology has some manga offerings from various publishers, Dark Horse has an app, and some publishers use Amazon

So VIZ isn't the only game in town. Just the most viable.
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Mohawk52



Joined: 16 Oct 2003
Posts: 8202
Location: England, UK
PostPosted: Wed Apr 24, 2013 2:21 pm Reply with quote
StormSky92 wrote:
So, looks like VIZ is the only Digital Manga provider left. To my knowledge anyway.
Stay tuned.

Quote:
I prefer physical volumes anyway. That way I don't have to worry about sites going down or hard drive failures. I just have to worry about finding the volume I want to read in my very cluttered bookshelf.
You're so old fashioned, but so am I. Wink Meanwhile how many pirate scanlators are closing down? Anybody?
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st_owly



Joined: 20 May 2008
Posts: 5234
Location: Edinburgh, Scotland
PostPosted: Wed Apr 24, 2013 2:25 pm Reply with quote
Yen Press do offer digital volumes as well. Notably, the Another light novel is being released digitally only for the time being.
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aereus



Joined: 08 Jun 2010
Posts: 574
PostPosted: Wed Apr 24, 2013 2:25 pm Reply with quote
That's because most of them have zero expenses, or close to it. The chapters get picked up automatically by aggregator sites, the raws are usually nipped from P2P or various trading forums, and/or they accept donations for buying volumes to scan.

The hardest thing is just getting people to do the work Wink
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