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Answerman - Why Do Companies Only Sell Some Shows Through Their Own Stores?

Man, I wish the Berne Convention didn't have it's members copyright span ending at least 50 years after a creator dies. As such, I think copyright should limited universally to 50 years from when the work was published/made for non-photo works. This is because then we could overcome these licensing barriers with legal fansubs.

And then, you have Viz selling the remaining post-dub volumes of Maison Ikkoku only through their own site, Amazon or RightStuf.
Not so much because it was a "prestige" item, or because of rights, but because they still had such a personal company grudge against the VHS release, they wanted to "prove" to the fans that it Was Never Going to Sell In Retail Anyway, by burying it under the radar for the two or three fan-nitpicking "eccentrics" who were planning to buy it on disk.

Sort of the same reason Warner keeps banishing all its old classic movies to the Warner MOD Archive instead of retail, since they wish to convince us that "everyone knows nobody buys disks anyway".
("Everyone knows" that except the home-theater fans, apparently.)

EricJ2 wrote:

And then, you have Viz selling the remaining post-dub volumes of Maison Ikkoku only through their own site, Amazon or RightStuf. Not so much because it was a "prestige" item, or because of rights, but because they still had such a personal company grudge against the VHS release, they wanted to "prove" to the fans that it Was Never Going to Sell In Retail Anyway, by burying it under the radar for the two or three fan-nitpicking "eccentrics" who were planning to buy it on disk. Sort of the same reason Warner keeps banishing all its old classic movies to the Warner MOD Archive instead of retail, since they wish to convince us that "everyone knows nobody buys disks anyway". ("Everyone knows" that except the home-theater fans, apparently.)

Unfortunately, "home theater fans" are not the majority in the market. Physical disc sales have declining for some time now, and there are no signs of that changing. Companies like Best Buy cut back the sales space on movies because the volumes and profit weren't there. They didn't cut back on space to intentionally kill off a profitable business.

The same can be said for Warner Archive, and studios like Paramount licensing out much of the library to other distributors (including Warner.). They aren't scaling back home video operations to kill it off. They began scaling back operations in response to declining sales. Home video companies are businesses and they keep their doors open by making money. They aren't going to keep profitable movies from being accessed just to make less money, or force buyers into less profitable and lower sales formats.

The DVD market was in decline even before Netflix, Hulu, and others took off. Bluray has never come close to picking up the slack, and never will. The move towards to MOD discs, smaller print runs, and more limit d distribution is likely a permanent one.

It's overdue that production committees set up a download site for each show.

Completely dispose of all middle-men.

This is the internet, FFS.

himeji wrote:

It's overdue that production committees set up a download site for each show. Completely dispose of all middle-men. This is the internet, FFS.

Well, it's good to know that Japanese companies have the staff and budget available to provide service and support in every language and in all time zones, and that "the Internet, FFS" has eliminated all economic disparities and cultural differences around the world.

Evernessince

Unfortunately that is only feasible for popular shows. They have to pay a web designer to make the website and maintain it. Not to mention server costs, domain name costs, ect. They also have to hire people to handle sales for each website. You can't have one guy check every website and ship out everything by himself.

Another aspect, licensors' own shops can't sell to customers from other regions, while retailers don't have that obstacle.

Unfortunately that is only feasible for popular shows. They have to pay a web designer to make the website and maintain it. Not to mention server costs, domain name costs, ect. They also have to hire people to handle sales for each website. You can't have one guy check every website and ship out everything by himself.

Greed1914 wrote:

I have noticed that the Funimation Store's pricing typically tracks with Right Stuf, which I'm sure is no coincidence. Like Justin said, the few times where I've ordered directly, rather than through Right Stuf is when there is some sort of exclusive item, and even then, I might not do that if the price wasn't the same. I basically settled in as a dedicated Right Stuf user years ago for all the reasons Justin mentioned at the end, plus they are located in my state, so buying from them has a certain "shop locally" feel to it.

Sentai's prices are much the same at their store. Same with Robert's Anime Corner Store. The latter hardly gets mentioned by people compared to Right Stuf. Which is sad cause they do a good job at RACS.