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Hon'ya-chan wrote:

FullmetalCJ wrote:

I used to live in Houston and I used to be an editor at Newtype USA. Hi! *waves* Greg's a good guy and I'm sure he was told exactly what he said. But it is unfortunately not the entire truth.

With NDAs (non-disclosure agreements) common practice, you can hold up that sign for all of eternity and he probably couldn't answer your question even if he wanted to.

KrisEllieOphi wrote:

Completely agree with this sentiment. I don't understand all the hate it's getting. Or well, I do I guess. The anime fans got all huffy because it talked about (*gasp*) things other than anime. Heaven forbid. A lot of anime fans (myself included, obviously) are interested in many other similar things like video games, American comic books, Dungeons and Dragons, and so on. It's great to have everything consolidated and not have to buy Game Informer, and Otaku USA, and Dragon Magazine, and whatever else.

The problem is the people who bought Newtype USA bought it for the content, which was relatively unique. Changing the focus alienated at least part of it's original core readership while at the same time pitched it against bigger, more established magazines.
I've got two issues of PiQ, and if more turn up at my comic store I'll get them also, but I cannot say that I am enamoured of the change.
I buy the off issues of Doctor Who magazine. Would I be happy if it suddenly devoted half it's pages to Heroes and Lost etc? Clearly not, otherwise I'd be buying SFX.
I was buying Newtype as it's coverage of anime/manga, even it's previews of US games that were far away from UK release fulfilled my needs adequately so was I happy when this changed? No, and I think I can be quite justified in being unhappy.

Hon'ya-chan wrote:

FullmetalCJ wrote:

I used to live in Houston and I used to be an editor at Newtype USA. Hi! *waves* Greg's a good guy and I'm sure he was told exactly what he said. But it is unfortunately not the entire truth.

[http://xkcd.com/285/]

Zac has already vouched for him and, for what little it is worth, so do I. Hey CJ, LTNS.

enurtsol wrote:

Don't forget about the anime soundtrack CDs too. Used to even have their own category rack in Sam Goody. Now ya can't find 'em anywhere. Laughing

The vast majority of anime CDs in the US were published by Geneon, unfortunately.

yoru08 wrote:

If anyone hereby kindly enough, please advise me what I should do to get my money back.

Look into your bank's/ credit card company's policies on chargebacks and payment disputes. I can't guarantee you'll be able to do anything, but you can certainly see what options you have if forced to go that route.

I have thought about this, though- you know what might be a good option for these guys? Rightstuf gift certificates. Since they recently took up ADV's online sales, thye might be able to hash out a deal where PiQ can get a break on the value (pay 90 cents on the dollar or something) so TRSI can enjoy the extra sales. I know I wouldn't mind getting my money back that way, I shop TRSI all the frickin' time.

Conan-san wrote:

So with that all said and done, everyone up for suporting Otaku USA's efforts?

Already on it Very Happy

Waiting for the subscription resolution before I subscribe though (I've got enough money in limbo with this to pay for a year of Otaku USA, so...)

thanks, DuelLadyS
Unfortunately, I originally was a Newtype subscriber
Without my consent, they automatically transferring my subscription to new company PiQ
And I paid them directly by my credit card years ago so the dispute/charge back no longer valid for this transaction.

In addition, here what I being told when talking to their customer service at phone number 1800-224-1348

"You have two options to pick
1/. Enjoying your new PiQ subscription with double-issues as compensation
2/. Make a cancellation then you lost everything
we are under no obligation to refund to anyone at this moment??"
Newtype-usa was already done submitting the bankruptcy paperwork
You can wait 7-10 years or forever until they back??

Last edited by bglassbrook on Sat Jun 14, 2008 9:12 pm; edited 2 times in total

tempest wrote:

brettlv5506 wrote:

lets see what was on the cover this month, oh WALL E and featured hellboy, incredible hulk, tabletop rpg, space ghost, doctor who. yeah this was a great anime/manga magazine. and nothing of any value was lost.

PiQ isn't an anime/manga magazine, and was never advertised as such.

ADV decided to focus the resources that they previously put into Newtype USA into a completely different magazine that they hoped would still appeal to many of the old Newtype USA readers and also appeal to a wider, more mainstream audience.

Basically, it was a young-adult (and teen) oriented magazine about "entertainment". Anime and manga are of course included in "entertainment." Bascicaly, ADV tried to do with PiQ what Cartoon Network did with Adult Swim, expand it to a bigger audience. It worked for [as] but not for PiQ.

-t

I had never read NTUSA, so aside from having heard all the noise online, went in with a clean-slate when the copy showed up unexpectedly in one of my shipments. After finally getting around to reading through it, the pre-ship sniping seemed fairly generous to me. To me it read like the bastard child of G4 (or at least their self-image from the promos) and USA Today (overly-wide focus, but too short & shallow for any impact.) This announcement comes as no surprise.

As to to the "wider focus=better sales" argument, didn't CompUSA try that? You know, adding more competitors (like the still dominating BestBuy) to a failing business model? I realized what a death knell it was at the time, and now, they are almost completely (if not entirely by now) online-only under the same ownership group as TigerDirect.

kokuryu wrote:

This has been lost both here and in Japan... Manga is no longer being made for the fans, but rather for profit... and that is their downfall.

I don't necessarily dis/agree, but after reading so many posts today where their was spelled "there" (including one or two in this thread) ... *deep inhale* ahhhhhhh.

EDIT: Add CompUSA analogy.

From working in the magazine business I can say that everyone is entitled for a refund of unserved issues if they want to cancel.

Now if a magazine is ceasing publishing what we do is transfer the subscriber to a different magazine (in this case NTUSA to PiQ). Another good example: Game For Windows is ceasing publication and the publisher Ziff Davis will transfer the subscriber to either PC Magaine or EGM (GFW's subscribers will get a notice in the mail). If the subscriber has a reference they can call the customer service number and request one of the magazines.

Since ADV doesn't have any other magazine to transfer subscribers to they are entitled for a refund of the unserved issues.

If they are not going to do it that's terrible business. Then again ADV is not a magazine company.

Here is my opinion. First PiQ was a decent magazine. However, it had several problems. First of which, it was treated as a replacement for Newtype USA. Why else transfer the subscriptions form Newtype USA over to PiQ? The problem was that Newtype USA subscribers wanted a dedicated anime magazine; however, PiQ was anything but a dedicated anime magazine. PiQ was no successor to Newtype USA and should never have been treated as such.

Second was that PiQ is/was unfocused as a magazine. If I were asked to describe what kind of magazine PiQ is to a friend, I would have a hard time doing so. Was it a film magazine? An anime/manga magazine? A video gaming magazine? Honestly, if the reader cannot tell what type of material was going to be coved by a new magazine, why would he or she purchase it in the first place? Especially when there are more established magazines for each of those areas.

Well, that didn't last long. Rolling Eyes

I'm glad I didn't suscribe.

FeralKat wrote:

Wow, from Tokyopop to this... The anime and manga world is really hardup. I hope ADV doesn't go down like Geneon. Sad

Hopefully so, but don't count ADV out just yet though. PiQ failed because they sold the Anime community in this country out to everyone else. Well, we (or everyone else) can stop holding our/their breaths, and call the T.O.D. on this poor S.O.B. publication. Laughing

But, let's all pray and hope that ADV doesn't get another new series put on the repo block or it will really be over for them and English-speaking Otaku everywhere will REALLY be screwed!!!! Shocked

P.S.: I want what's left of my $81 back PLEASE!!!! Twisted Evil

Doesn't surprise me. The magazine was crap as far as I'm concerned. I loved NewType USA, and when they ended it, and moved my subscription to PiQ, I hoped that it would live up to NewType. Naturally that didn't happen. There was hardly any anime coverage at all, and way too much non-anime coverage. The whole point in NewType was to cover all things anime, and when they took all that away in PiQ, I just couldn't help but wonder what the hell the point was. They just better refund my money this time, and not transfer it to another crappy magazine that I don't want.

I knew when I read the Lucky Star article, that the magazine just wasn't going to cater to the NewType fans. The writer admitted right in the article, that he had a hard time convincing his fellow editors why it was important to have a Lucky Star article. Apparently Lucky Star being one of the biggest anime releases of the year wasn't a good enough reason for them.

I think the problem with PiQ was it tried to be too many things. You've already got Wired, a couple established anime publications and about five hundred magazines devoted to gaming. Combining all of those was a nice idea, but the market is too crowded. I get the feeling that they lost a lot of the Newtype fans who were disappointed by the change in format (Newtype obviously wasn't selling great, but realistically this audience was the best chance they had).

Last edited by Tempest on Sun Jun 15, 2008 1:43 pm; edited 2 times in total

Actually, I take it back, the Adult Swim discussion is perfectly valid, but off topic for this thread. So instead of banning further discussion, I'm just going to move it into its own thread.

-t

Ooops, sorry, I replied to something that I shouldn't have because I didn't see Tempest's last post. Sorry -_-;;;;

But to get back on track, I'm still definitely buying the last issue of PiQ, especially since I just saw an article about Final Fantasy IV DS will be in it. But I'll be sad to see PiQ go. RIP...

yoru08 wrote:

thanks, DuelLadyS
Unfortunately, I originally was a Newtype subscriber
Without my consent, they automatically transferring my subscription to new company PiQ
And I paid them directly by my credit card years ago so the dispute/charge back no longer valid for this transaction.

In addition, here what I being told when talking to their customer service at phone number 1800-224-1348

"You have two options to pick
1/. Enjoying your new PiQ subscription with double-issues as compensation
2/. Make a cancellation then you lost everything
we are under no obligation to refund to anyone at this moment??"
Newtype-usa was already done submitting the bankruptcy paperwork
You can wait 7-10 years or forever until they back??

Unfortunately, it's incredibly common for companies ceasing one magazine to transfer all their subscriptions to another magazine automatically (I've had it happen more than once.) The uncommon part is the 'no refunds' bit of the whole thing. (I basically got told the same thing via email you were told via phone.)

For the time being, since your chargeback time has passed, I think it's best to just wait for wait they tell us- I like to imagine they know the patience of their NTUSA subscribers is wearing thin, and they're going to have to do something.

DuelLadyS wrote:

For the time being, since your chargeback time has passed, I think it's best to just wait for wait they tell us- I like to imagine they know the patience of their NTUSA subscribers is wearing thin, and they're going to have to do something.

If they really want to do right by the NTUSA subscribers, then they should transfer those subscriber over to either Otaku USA or even Protoculture Addicts.

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