Forum - View topicAnswerman - Could Patreon Be "Better For The Industry" Than Crunchyroll?
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CatSword
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Digibro has been extremely respectful to Justin and this column (even plugging it on his Twitter and encouraging fans to read it before automatically taking his side), so even if you're not a fan you've gotta give him that.
I really like this respectful debating style and wish we'd see it more often in this community. |
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Cutiebunny
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Not gonna lie, but I would totally watch this. |
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Kadmos1
 Posts: 13566 Location: In Phoenix but has an 85308 ZIP |
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I would too. Out of all the made-up titles for a long LN title, the above is perhaps the best one I have seen. |
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RealMTL
Posts: 178 |
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Interesting read, I'd like to see a some of the sources for your numbers that you bring out in this article. Thanks as always!
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bigivel
 Posts: 536 |
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Nope, is not subjective. You're talking of how you value the work. Not the work value. The work value isn't how you personally value it. The work value is a combination of the work utility(the use that it provides) and the entire audience evaluation. Our language is a context based language and so many concepts are compacted in groups to show their close relantionship. Still, they aren't the same thing. Your "personal value", "Group value/society value" and "real value" are all different concepts. It gets even more complicated because you can abbreviate all of them by just saying "value". Also something being subjective means that it didn't took a specific and well defined method. Not that there is many different opinions/results about it. You can very well have 10 people making a objective evaluation of one thing and reaching 10 different results. Normally subjective is used related with emotions, because when people use emotions they don't have a specific and well defined method. Making possible the same person reach different results for the same thing, in the same state, just some little time after evaluating it before. Objective with science, specially math, because they take very specific and well defined methods of evaluation(of course because the point of science is being objective). So, what people normally think an animator deserves to earn is subjective. What he in fact deserves to earn, and what he earns, is objective.
because the best way, for both the seller and the buyer, is doing by defining a price and freely and willingly both parties enter the transaction. And so they only focus on doing the optimal, that kind of transaction. Normally the buyer wants things cheaper. And the Seller things more expensive. Is rare the cases where the buyer wants to donate, and is rare the cases where the seller places the price of his product below the market price(the one that normally would bring more money).
But that is not subjective at all.
yep, actions mean a lot more that wishes. People need to act and donate, something that they don't do right now. At least not in a significant way. And I don't think Patreon brings a game changer in terms of donations.
There is no such thing efficiency being strained to near breaking point. Though it doesn't mean is easy to find a breakthrough. Still that is the solution. So people should focus on that.
Where do you think the higher wages come from? From productivity. Increasing wages without increase productivity just mean Inflation. More man-hours devoted to each title means that an animator will be spending more time in something that will be value the same. Meaning, He will be creating less value. Is the same idea of printing more money into an economy. You're not really making the economy richer, you're just making the items in the economy less valuable(in this case the time less valuable). If you conclude that many people would have the opposite opinion, you're already responding to yourself. That higher cost would bring less revenue, and so bringing less many to all people involved in the creation of the product. And so it would bring even less money to the animator, ecause he would produce less value, while making him work more hours. Again asking more of a product means valuing less the work of the people creating the product. Giving more for a product(more people buying or each individual paying more), means valuing more the work of the people creating the product. |
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Shiflan
 Posts: 418 |
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Of course I'm talking about the former and not the latter. The latter is not relevant to my point.
"Many different opinions" is a great example of subjectivity. An opinion is not objective by definition. Remember that we are talking about how people value the work.
Yes, and that's what I am talking about. What he "derserves to earn" in economics theory is an entirely different discussion that isn't relevant here. I'm not disagreeing with you, I am talking about a different subject entirely.
"Best" is irrelevant. What's wrong with using something even if it isn't "the best". Do you live in "the best" house? Drive "the best" car? Eat "the best" food? Or do you make compromises as efficiency and conditions dictate? I'm sure the companies involved would gladly sell me discs at twice the price, but the mechanism to do that is cumbersome. Me sending them a few extra bucks on Patreon or via some kind of in-app donation tool is a simple and practical solution to what is otherwise an intractible problem.
It doesn't have to be a "game changer" to warrant adoption. It just has to be better than nothing.
As a person who has owned and operated multiple businesses over the years I am very tempted to scream a certain compound word at you which begins with the term for a male bovine and concludes with a slang term for fecal matter. That particular quote reads like something out of Marx: the product of an overly sheltered life with precious little real-world experience. I don't mean any offense but that statement is flat-out ridiculous.
What's wrong with a stopgap measure? Especially one that reuires no effort from those people you are telling to work harder? The two are not even close to mutually exclusive.
Ever heard of a "raise"? As a business owner, I can provide plenty of firsthand examples as to how increased wages result in improved productivity.
We're not talking about across-the-board inflation, we're talking about a very limited case which is hardly worthy of the term "inflation".
Not at all. Spending more time on a product can result in that product having greater value. I.e. a custom tailored suit sells for a lot more money than one off the rack. A car company can sell a high-end hand-built model for a lot more than they can sell the mass-produced econobox. A new AAA-title video game sells a lot more copies at a higher price tag than a new retro NES title, etc. And likewise, a high-quality animated flim sells for more than a cheap TV special.
That depends entirely on which group of fans is the larger, and thats a fact we don't know. Perhaps the majority of the fans are more like me and buy up the new higher-budget show. In that case the production makes higher profit. Of course I must admit the alternative is also possible and it could flop, as we've seen with many films, both animated and hollywood. But in either case the animators still make out well. It would be the financial backers which would take the hit. The studio and the animators get their money regardless. |
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Sailor Sedna
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Call me an idiot, I'd rather stick with Crunchyroll and trust them than someone who admitted being into lolicon (yes, Digi is one of THOSE people, and that's all I'm going to say about that so as not to create an unnecessary off-topic debate).
Anyway also, don't you have to pay to keep a Paetron account too? I'd rather have a free account on a website where I could watch it at any time, instead of having to pay who knows how much money every month, worried I may end up not having enough money to keep an account there. Someone also mentioned how anime is using more and more 3D, and though this here may sound a little off topic, I really don't want anime to completely go that route 100%, a lot of it I've seen in anime tends to be poor in quality (looking fake, laggy framerates), and it seems outside of Japan traditional/hand drawn animation is practically dead. |
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Skeptic
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That's why Crunchyroll has Eromanga sensei and kobayashi's dragon
Um... no? Just in case nobody knew, Digibro made a response and both Jason and Digi kindly responded to each other. I'm tired of all this unfair hate towards Digibro, guy seems genuinely nice |
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ATastySub
Past ANN Contributor
 Posts: 649 |
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Higher wages come from distributing profits to those responsible for the work that created them. In this case that would be the animators. However capitalism has this big problem of hoarding profits to the top end and not paying those that do the actual work that makes them money. I'd really suggest you read more than Ayn Rand before trying to dictate how anime production (or any economy) works. I mean your earlier food service comment is completely laughable, as any chef would be happy to tell you how important everyone in the kitchen, and the front end of a restaurant too, is to providing meals. |
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all-tsun-and-no-dere
ANN Reviewer
Posts: 606 |
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Y'all. I don't know much about economics. I don't know much about corporate finance, although I've learned a bit from a brief stint in doing data entry for a restaurant accounting company. Basically, I know enough to have at least somewhat of an idea of just how little I know.
And I know enough to look at every solution about donations being floated in here and know they are completely, totally unworkable on a few levels: The first is that anime production and distribution are complex collaborations that involve the creative input of a lot of people, and if you don't think they deserve to get paid for their labor you don't deserve to enjoy the product they bring you. The second is that there are tons of laws governing how corporations receive and spend money. Taxes, operation costs, employee wages, raw materials... there are specific laws about how the money can be used. People go to law school for years to learn just a fraction of these laws to specialize in. An overly simplistic, "Just put a donation button up!" by some random internet mook is not helpful. |
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Sailor Sedna
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I think my reasons are perfectly fair, thank you very much. Last edited by Sailor Sedna on Wed Aug 29, 2018 11:32 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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I_Drive_DSM
 Posts: 217 |
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Okay. So I’m pretty far down the conversation at this point.
I have to admit; I did not know who this Digibro YouTuber was prior to this post, so I went and watched around half a dozen videos. It’s likely not enough to make a solid critical analysis of his words; I’ll admit that. There is however a lot that is immediately rubbing me wrong. In one video I watched about “accepting mediocrity”, he states that “if you treat anime like a business you are missing the point” which immediately told me he does not understand the point. I see he’s rather fascinated with the “old guard” of anime, but even those classic Miyazaki and Otomo and Kon shows were not made purely from their artistic stand point. They were made in the hope that they were going to pull a profit. No one goes into the animation industry purely out of naive hope that they can utilize animation to tell their story or show their craft and get by just on it’s artistic quality alone. it has to ultimately bring money. Otherwise what’s the point? Remember Disney and their low points in the 70s and 80s? They did exactly what Digibro mentions in terms of seemingly being negative; kept pushing and pushing product out there until, finally, something did pull a profit and something began to work (key points being The Little Mermaid and Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, both very different disney movies around that time period that did very well for Disney). However what they were putting out there was not just from a non-business lack-of-seeking-profit venture; they wanted something that will eventually pull a profit and they kept throwing out what they could until something worked. Sure, anime is very cookie cutter nowadays which I do freely admit is a concern. However, we have single seasons of anime where we see upwards of 40 to 50 releases Stateside whereas 20 years ago we didn’t see more than 20 anime TV series for the entire year, and how many truly can one remember with even such a small number (how many remember seeing ADV Films’ ’98 licenses of Steam Detectives and Neo Ranga?…). All harems are not terrible. They may seem like they are, but they’re not, and they’re getting better as they try to seek out SOMETHING unique. Sure also Isekai anime is getting super popular but a lot of it is interesting, has some good stories and moments, and genuinely looks to be well-put together. What I’m trying to get at is that anime is probably doing this exact same thing that Disney is doing. It’s throwing out everything it can into every genre and style it can come up with. In a way - and I haven’t posted about this anywhere online in any form - I feel this is what CR is doing with HGS. Yeah I’ll probably watch it; I keep an open mind about any animation regardless of it’s source or intent. Is it going to change or ruin CR? No. I don’t know where everyone and their mom keeps reading this or coming up with these wild theories about what’s going to happen to them but CR as mentioned already has plenty of issues (I’m a subscriber). CR is still going to pull in titles. It’s still likely going to cross-pull titles with Funimation (something that seemingly every one seems to forget they do; that’s literally where they’re getting this mass of older titles from). They’re still going to continuously amass a large library of older titles along with their seasonal new pulls. It’s going to be CR as you know it. Dated player with questionable translations and all. Could that money have been used elsewhere? Undoubtably. Personally some of the original content they’ve created with retrospectives and commentary is not half bad. I enjoy famous people and athletes being interviewed about how they enjoy anime. Ultimately they’re still going to be doing the whole anime thing as they’ve been doing and likely still be the last streaming service on the whole of the web to use Flash. Ultimately too and Justin touched on it some there are more ways to support your favorite studio than “directly give money.” I know particularly as adults having physical items of anime products can be uncomfortable for some - no 40+ year old American business man is going to have scrolls hanging in his office with dakimakuras flipped to the lewd side strewn on the sofa - but these companies that produce your favorite anime rely on so much more than just the animated product to gauge how well it’s doing. They create games (I mean as much as people want to harp on SAO, LITERALLY the series is created with a game aspect in mind hence why so many console titles are pushed). They license companies and sculptures to mold figures. They create random other tie-ins. They license and authorize side stories or re-tellings in other formats (think Hatsune Miku, who probably has more unique stories about a character that really doesn’t have an actual ‘story’). There are P.L.E.N.T.Y. of ways to support your favorite studio if you get out of this narrow mindset of “oh I have to funnel that money DIRECTLY” (and honestly what’s ‘directly?’). American dollars, the Pound, the Euro, the what ever your currency is, all work like the Yen when buying directly from Japan [and adjusted for exchange rates]. Are you likely to amass products that may outlive their usefulness? Sure. However you can always donate old DVDs and manga to say a local public school club (so many schools have manga clubs now I’m like where were these at when I was a kid?). Your random Evangelion pencil board and stationary set that you bought in your Rei phase can actually be used instead of being shoved in a box labeled ‘anime stuff’ in the closet. Or you can do the modern thing and pass those goods through auction online, pay ridiculous auction fees, and let the next person deal with the goods. I’m now going to go pull the Nov 94 issue of Animage off my shelf and throw on a Tenchi Muyo OVA VHS from 1994. Remember? That’s when Pioneer said “yeah we’re going to charge you twenty dollars for ONE!!!! thirty minute episode.” However yeah sure being an anime fan in 2018 with 200+ series through a paid streaming service is sooooooo terrible. |
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Errinundra
Moderator
 Posts: 6532 Location: Melbourne, Oz |
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I hear what you're saying, but there'll be no going back on that direction in this thread. |
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your fly is down
Posts: 27 |
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Ok so. Watch yall sayin is
Money is good for industry Give money to industry any way you can Don't pirate unless there is no other option Give money to paytreon if you want to give more money Digibro is ill informed about inner workings of industry Don't watch shows you don't want to watch Netflix live action adaptations suck Animators are underpaid and should unionize The sun rises from the east Isao takahata was a problematic director And we all want to watch the pop tart anime Did i miss anything |
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Shiflan
Posts: 418 |
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I don't think that anyone is pretending that a "donation button", Patreon, or simliar would or could truly fund the anime production process. No way no how. But that's fine, it doesn't need to cover 100%, or even 1%, of the costs involved. If it provides a mechanism for fans to contribute something then what's wrong with that? Just because it doesn't cover everything doesn't mean it isn't helpful. Especially given how simple it would be to implement. If you are struggling to make ends meet and someone offers to throw you a few bucks are you going to refuse that money because it's not enough to cover ALL of your expenses? No way. I don't understand why some people are looking at this with an "all or nothing" viewpoint. I have worked for the state before and I am somewhat aware of the crazy maze of accounting rules out there. But I don't think that is a sound argument here. All it takes is a one-time lookup of how "donations" or the equivalent must be taxed and accounted for and that's it. Done. It's one question that needs to be addressed, it's not an ongoing concern with many different types of payments. There's just one type. One question to answer. |
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