Forum - View topicHey, Answerman! - Building You A Better Cartoon Show
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RyanSaotome
 Posts: 4210 Location: Towson, Maryland |
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In Japan, owning the anime is a premium not everyone but the biggest fans can do... I don't see the problem with changing the market to be like that here too. In the past, buying was the best legal way to watch stuff, but now with all the legal streaming everywhere, its essentially the same as it airing on TV in Japan so you no longer need to buy unless you really like the series.
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HitokiriShadow
 Posts: 6251 |
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Neither has Blue Exorcist. The ones that have sold out are ones that have been explicitly labeled "Limited Edition" like OreImo and Kara no Kyoukai. Fate/Zero is not labeled as such even in Japan. Furthermore, consider that the ones that sold out had the entire show in a single release. Fate/Zero is just the first half and Madoka Magica is being released in three parts and has not finished. It would make sense for them to go to the effort of not cutting off supply of Fate/Zero part 1 so as not to limit the sales of the second half. Possibly the same for Madoka Magica, but additionally, the sales of the first one would give them a better idea of how many to print for the second volume and then again for the third. They also haven't sold out of the RK movie and Reflections BDs, though the latter is on a counter. Edit: Oh yeah, and neither has Durara!! and that was one of their most R1 friendly releases, as it was close to R1 prices and even had a dub. And yet, I believe they've gone on record that that one was a disappointment for them and hasn't done very well. |
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kakoishii
Posts: 741 |
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If changing the market here in the states could in any way work the same way as how it is in Japan then Bandai Visuals would still be in business selling their Japanese priced anime. You cannot translate the economics of one country to another. In Japan the only people who would even consider buying anime on BV or DVD are hardcore otaku who buy up anything under the sun anime related no mater what the cost. I'm not saying there aren't people in the west who do that, but unlike in Japan for the most part those hardcore collectors aren't the only people who buy anime. For a market that's hurting because the amount of people who is buying are shrinking, to me it would be counterproductive and ill informed to suddenly think selling everything anime at Japanese prices is a good idea. Physical media always has and at least for the forseeable future will continue to be the only way licensing companies can make the majority of their profit. You better believe they're going to make sure people keep buying BV/DVDs and not give them a reason to stop doing so. |
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BigOnAnime
Encyclopedia Editor
 Posts: 1232 Location: Minnesota, USA |
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http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/detailview.html?KEY=ANZX-9431
(BTW, for whatever reason, it's already sold out on Amazon Japan, this happened before it was out for a month there. Though, it's a part of this. It's happening with many Aniplex releases in Japan, and people are wondering what the hell is going on.http://www.mania.com/aodvb/showthread.php?p=1983954#post1983954)
http://aniplexusa.com/retailers/ |
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HitokiriShadow
Posts: 6251 |
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I've never even noticed the LE labels there. It's not labled as such in the product title though, which they are in pretty much every other case (look for 初回生産限定 or sometimes 完全生産限定版). Fate/Zero has nothing like that in the product name or the Japanese product description.
Yep. I was actually the first one to notice that going on (or at least the first to post about it there, in the Nisemonogatari thread).
RACS just buys them from other stores and then re-sells them. He would have to buy them from TRSI or one of those other retailers listed. As for continuously shipping them to TRSI, well, I guess that depends on what you mean by continous. Like I said, in this case, I don't think it makes sense for them to not ship additional copies if it looks like TRSI will be able to sell them. That just limits their sales of the second half, which doesn't make sense when Fate/Zero doesn't look like its a limited edition in the same way KnK was.
Bandai Visual was trying to use R2 prices with an R1 mainstream-chaising distribution system. Aniplex seems to have a much better understanding of the market. They're limiting sales to specific stores precisely because they know that a "mainstream" audience isn't going to touch this.
You also can't translate the economics of mainstream American TV shows to niche products like anime, yet that's exactly what the R1 market has largely been trying to do. And unless Toonami really does make a comeback, airs new shows and brings in lots of new fans, I don't think the mainstream chasing model of Funi, and to a lesser extent Sentai, are sustainable without some sort of other breakthrough (like finding a way to make streaming a significant money-maker). If Best Buy goes out of business, that seems to me like it would be the nail in the coffin of dubbed cour sets and possibly Funi as a whole unless they are able to make an astoundingly rapid shift in their business model.
And in R1, it seems most people only buy anime if it has a dub and costs under $40. And some people think even that's a rip off.
Here's a tip: price is, at best, one small issue among many other beyond any anime company's ability to control that is causing the anime market to shrink. Raising the prices can, in fact, be a sensible way to go. People are just too stuck on how they're used to consuming anime and the pittance they're willing to shell out to buy anime to even consider that higher prices could be anything other than the arrogance and idiocy of Japanese companies. Also, releasing shows at these dirt cheap prices already requires them to do things that will give people reason to not buy their releases. |
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agila61
 Posts: 3213 Location: NE Ohio |
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Kind of tangling up your argument here ... if the amount of people who are buying is shrinking, that means that the hard core collectors are a larger part of the remaining market. Which means that the number of series where it makes sense to sell at a price that only the hardcore collectors will pay will be increasing as the market shrinks, not dropping. What is really needed is a cross-platform direct digital download market. Considering that under the traditional model, as per the Anime Economy Part II, net revenue is about 30% of MSRP, then an MSRP of $60 for a 13 episode series is a net revenue of $1.40 per episode, and a MSRP of $60 for a 26 episode series is a net revenue of $0.70 per episode. While FUNimation is charging $2/episode HD and $1/episode SD for digital downloads of the new Lupin III on PSN ... a price point of $1/episode HD and $0.50/episode SD would give the middle ground between the pennies for ad-streaming, nickles and dimes for subscription streaming, and the massive collector outlay for a LE Japanese priced release. Its S.A.V.E pricing to steeply discounted online pricing of regular series, except at net revenues to the distributor more like a regular first release price. And add it on top of revenues from the sales of the elite collections to the hard core collectors and the smaller amounts per viewer from a larger number of streaming viewer, there might be a sustainable market model in there somewhere. The challenge is getting something that the Japanese will agree to that will let someone buy one digital download and watch it on their console, or their iPhone/Android device, or their smart TV.
A case in point on price points ~ its not like the 50% boost to mainstream US first release price points by releasing the half-year series in thirds rather than quarterly-seasons fooled anybody. Yet the series was not priced high enough to be lucrative at a substantially lower volume of sales. But most importantly ~ to support a premium price point, you need a premium product. PMMM and KnK and Fate/Zero can do that. Drrr! looked like it might have promise to do that, and had a fairly strong start in a lot of people's eyes, but, also in a lot of people's eyes, rather than building on the early promise, it faded a bit. I'd grudgingly pay $200 for ROD Complete if I had it and had to. I'd certainly pay $160. I would have paid $100 during the Christmas sale and figured I got a tremendous bargain {but thanks to the economy, all of that is notional demand rather than effective demand}. However, I'm a real big fan of ROD! I love that series. If I see the manga, as a B&N Nook Comic when I have the money to buy, or as a title on JManga, I'll buy that. OTOH, $130 (online, $150MSRP) for the three Drrr!! DVD's, no, not so much. At the current price of the two half sets of Shiki, $80 online for the full series ($130MSRP), that's more in the frame for a series that in my eyes is good enough to buy to own, but not great.
Either fewer buying or those buying not buying as much ~ the market has dropped over 50% since the middle of last decade. |
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kakoishii
Posts: 741 |
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That's exactly what they should be hoping for. I sincerely doubt Funi at least would stay in the anime game if they couldn't broaden their audience past the hardcore collectors. If that's the sort of business model they wanted they wouldn't have bothered with ever dubbing anything they released, they just throw some subtitles on it and ship it out. And as much as people like to dismiss this fact, there is an audience outside the collectors who would be willing buy anime, they just aren't going to do it for $200 per 12 episodes. Anime may be niche, but the DVDs/BVs aren't clad in gold. They aren't like comic books that appreciate in value as time goes on (unless it's LE, then maybe it might be different), these things are only worth as much as what other collectors are willing to pay for them and if all the hardcore collectors make sure they get all these overpriced LEs the second they drop on the shelf the only people left who don't have the item are the non-hardcore collectors who won't be willing to pay upwards of $300 for anime series.
I'm not seeing how that's all that unreasonable.
Pittance from who's stand point? Certainly no pittance to me. When I make the choice to budget in the cost to buy anime, it's not as frivolous has me putting in a quatter to get a gum ball out of the machine. I worked hard for that money. And in case you haven't noticed, the economy sucks right now and it'll be a while before it's healthier. I get from the company's stand point they make less per unit if they price a dvd lower than what they'd like, but I have a hurting wallet too. Many people do. I'm not seeing why the consumer is always demonized in these kind of debates for not paying enough. Because a lot of people who don't live in Japan don't want to pay Japanese prices, suddenly that's a horrible thing? At this point people like to throw in piracy, but let's not go there. That's irrelevant to this point, this is about the people who do like to pay for stuff, why create an insular market where a small group of die hards have their needs met and the rest are ignored?
Like? And dirt cheap for who? Relativism is relative.
Not if you take into account that the majority of the collectors are older fans that exists in a number that's more or less constant. That isn't to say there aren't younger fans who would buy something, but those fans won't buy DVDs/BVs at collector prices, and it stands to reason that younger fans exist in greater numbers as the more of them discover the medium the number grows. Logically that's how I see it, but Funi would want to test that out and raise their prices to Japanese prices or something the proof would be in the pudding whether they saw increase in sales or decrease in sales. |
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agila61
Posts: 3213 Location: NE Ohio |
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It may "stand to reason" that the young fans exist in greater numbers, but its not showing up as growing sales in the market, and unless numbers translate into sales, they do no good to someone selling commercial entertainment. Since the fact is that the total spending on DVDs/BDs has dropped, substantially, and it can't possibly be due to the kinds of releases we are talking about, because the decline started before they existed and even now they are only a small slice of the total number of new releases.
It wouldn't make any sense for them to license something best suited to that release strategy. That's not their skillset and not what they have set up their enterprise to do. Indeed, if they have succeeded in licensing things that make sense for their business model, as they try to do, then they have the wrong kind of content to do that kind of experiment. Its not as if there is one kind of release strategy that will be a one-size-fits-all solution. There are going to be different strategies that will be appropriate for different series facing different market prospects. |
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kakoishii
Posts: 741 |
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Seems like the kind of leg work the marketing team should get on. Buried gold is useless if you don't know where to dig for it.
I realize that. The point wasn't to say that they should, but more of a follow up to my point that they shouldn't and that if such a strategy was feasibly they would already be doing it. |
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agila61
Posts: 3213 Location: NE Ohio |
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So your logic is this: (1) people stopped buying as many DVDs/BDs. (2) This proves that they will buy more DVDs/BDs than every before, if only the companies know how to get them to!!!
If you (1) realize that there is not a one-size-fits-all solution, then you agree that (2) how Funimation does with the things it picks as being suitable for its type of releases (3) doesn't say anything about how appropriate AniplexUSA's different strategies are the the things that it licenses. That's what no one-size-fits-all strategy means. There is no magic strategy that works for all types of anime series. And that means that "its a mistake for AniplexUSA to pursue their strategy, because it would be a mistake for Funimation to pursue that strategy" is a nonsense argument. |
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kakoishii
Posts: 741 |
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No, my logic isn't to state that there's any such proof whatsoever that people will buy more than ever before, but knowledge in this situation is power. It's a company's job to get people to want to buy their products not ship out the stores and just hope people will snap them up. That sort of business is lazy, and unless you're selling something that people can't help but buy (i.e. toilet paper, light bulbs, necessities etc.) you have to be willing to do the research to see what people are willing buy and the maximum price they're willing to pay for it. This sort of thing is even more important when you have a product that people used to buy and droves but not so much anymore. DVDs would be in that ball park. It's the marketing team's job to find out why people aren't buying them anymore and how to get them to buy them again.
You're confusing and convoluting the issue. My initial response on this issue was more of a counter on why it isn't a good idea for every anime company to use Japanese prices as people were starting to talk about how companies in the states should all just go Aniplex's route and sell only to collectors and hardcore fans. |
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HitokiriShadow
Posts: 6251 |
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Two things: I never said they should *only* sell the high priced releases to the collectors and hard core, though I can see how you may have inferred that from how I worded it. And I said the current model is priced too low, not that they should all be selling at Japanese prices. I do think it should be more common as the *first* release and that the cheaper version that people are getting as the initial release should be released several years down the road. Key word there is "more common", not "every series." The Funi model is probably a good one for shows like FMA that are definitely or highly likely going to sell the numbers to justify it. Shows like Naruto and Bleach, that have pretty widespread appeal but are insanely long should probably be even cheaper, particularly since they DO have other revenue streams. But the average late night otaku anime? Import releases like Fate/Zero are probably only worth doing for shows that seem like they would have enough hard core fans to justify it. It's probably not worth it for most titles though. For most of them, something closer to the high priced LE versions of Madoka Magica would be better. And even Madoka Magica's price point ($225) would probably only be justifiable for something of that level of popularity. Probably somewhere in the $100-150 range (for money actually being paid, not MSRP) would be better. And even for something that gets a Madoka Magica priced release, it would probably be good to have two releases: a super LE that is basically what Madoka Magica was and cheaper edition that is in that $100-150 range. And again, this wouldn't be the *only* release. But people who want the cheap release would need to wait a few years. And there are still other shows that would be neither mainstream enough for a Funi model (cheap and dubbed) initial release nor have the R1 collector base to justify the higher priced LE release. For those shows, the barebones style Sentai release or maybe a halfway point between that and a NISA-style release. Of course, the trick is figuring out which shows belong in which category. Basically, I think more expensive releases need to be more common, but not the only release and its certainly not the way to go for every show. |
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agila61
Posts: 3213 Location: NE Ohio |
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What is your evidence that the R1 distributors are not doing as much marketing of their product as is feasible and sustainable by the market conditions?
It would be quite naive to believe that companies producing and selling toilet paper, light bulbs and other necessities just "ship out to stores and just hope that people will snap them up", The companies that produce staple products invest quite heavily into market research.
And of course, "ship out to stores and just hope that people will snap them up" is the opposite of what Aniplex USA is doing. Indeed, its quite possible that the Aniplex USA market model is the result of a better understanding of the market, in light of the fact that the
What if they do that, and find out: (1) The price required to get the old numbers of unit sales is a price so low that the old numbers are not financially viable; (2) ... but that there is a portion of the market that would be willing to buy at a substantially higher price point. In that case, then doing as you suggest would result in exactly the Aniplex USA type releases for the series where this is true. After all, if FUNimations market model is right, and Sentai's market model is right, then most of the titles that they pass one would only be viable under some business model that is different to the FUNimation one or the Sentai one.
But that issue only lives in your head ~ nobody was arguing that every anime company should price at Japanese prices ... hell, AniplexUSA themselves only prices a minority of their releases at Japanese prices. Its like you've taken four different price points ~ budget release, mainstream first release, premium priced limited editions, and a very few Japanese priced Direct Export Model releases ~ and have smooshed them together into two groups, without even being very clear where the boundary is between the two groups. |
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kakoishii
Posts: 741 |
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::sigh:: before I begin piecing your reply apart agila, I'm just going to say agila you are notorious for taking simple replies and over complicating them for no reason whatsoever, I really have no idea why you go out of your way to do this, by I digress...
really? let's go back , we started with this:
and I came back with this:
then you insinuated this:
and I clarified with the initial quote in this post. So out of all of that at one point did I ever say the R1 industry isn't capable of marketing? This is what I mean when I say that you convolute and confuse the issue.
I don't recall ever saying that a toilet paper company doesn't do marketing. My point was that marketing is more imperative to sell things people don't need (i.e. an ipad, a blueray player) than it would be for something people are going to need to buy at some point (i.e. at some point someones going to need to pick up toilet paper if they run out regardless if they want to or not). Last I checked we're all able to use critical reasoning, it's concerning to me if you did not understand my reasoning of using the wants vs. needs example in my last post.
I don't recall ever saying that this is what Aniplex is doing. Context is your friend and what you're doing is taking what I had said out of context.
If Sentai or Funi decided they are not interested in expanding their consumer base and the only thing they wanted to do is put out the product for maximum return, then I guess they could go Aniplex route. But just because Aniplex has a business model that's working for the titles they've sold so far, and Funimation and Sentai have a business model that's working pretty well with their titles doesn't mean there aren't other ways to sell those same titles with similar or greater returns. There is no "right" model per say, there's just the model that a business has chosen to go with that has shown success and that they feel comfortable with. There could be other ways to do it that they haven't tried because they're either unfamiliar or uncomfortable with them.
::double sigh:: See this just makes me think that you just aren't reading the thread. Let's go back to the post above yours shall we:
I only quoted the first part of his post because I know this post is already long enough, but the point is HitokiriShadow acknowledged that there was a discussion about the R1 anime industry raising their prices, he clarified it wasn't his intention to say the raise should be to the Japanese prices, but higher than what they are. So no I am not delusional or making things up, it seems that maybe you just lack reading comprehension. |
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agila61
Posts: 3213 Location: NE Ohio |
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Complete and utter nonsense, since it doesn't do you any good that they need to pick it up unless they pick up yours. In the future, when you are flailing around, don't pick that one. As far as quoting someone patiently explaining to you that you had misread them to prove that you are the authority on reading what is in front of you ... .. OK, you go with that. On this:
Dude, this is the context:
... that is, a discussion about AniplexUSA titles. And yes, I just now read through each and every one of your posts up through to the one where you say:
And you are the one who tosses the idea of "selling everything at Japanese prices" into the discussion. Nobody else said anything along those lines: you were just making up an absurd position nobody else said so you could have something that was easier to argue against than what people actually said. Last edited by agila61 on Wed Apr 18, 2012 9:35 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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