Forum - View topicNEWS: Nico Nico Douga to Delete Videos with Derived Content
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Goodpenguin
Posts: 457 Location: Hunt Valley, MD |
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Zargas, while I don't think home-brew fan videos are a mortal bane to the industry, I'm not sure they are quite as as valuable as you argue. Some of your points work in an abstract 'on principal' (Videos as free advertisement, draws fan participation) sense, but I don't think hold in the practical sense of the anime market of today. This issue reflects a bit on who/what drives the anime market; it's changed over the years (with the rise of easy-to-use- fansubs) from a DVD/VHS collecting hobby with a social outlet to a primarily social/internet hobby with a small purchasing component. Fan-made videos, on both sides of the ocean, stem apparently heavily from the 'social' aspect. Most seem less like 'tributes' to shows others might not have seen, but much more like 'in-jokes/competitions/communications' entirely driven in the social/internet culture realm. There are companies that celebrate user generated material as great advertisements/community builders (Apple, etc.), but there is a big difference between most of those and the anime industry. Most companies know their creative fan-base is buying their product/services first, whereas the anime industries 'socially-driven' fan community is overwhelmingly likely to have downloading their product off the internet. The anime industry weighs this simple question: 'If most of the source material is watched/gathered via free downloads, and the fan videos primarily serve social/internet culture interaction for an audience already deeply familiar with our product, does this phenomenon help us much?' The answer, reasonably, is no. If purchasing/collecting was still the major 'backbone' of the hobby, companies would probably let fan video's slide. Companies aren't charities who are just pleased that folks recognize their product, 'fan advertisements' entail 'bringing in more sales/creating brand loyalty'. While I'm not saying fan video's remotely hurt the anime industry like full show downloads, they are primarily in the service of driving pure 'social interaction' (which is the reason so many folks get upset over this) between an audience that's already overwhelmingly familiar with the underlying shows, and has seemingly little effect on driving sales. If fan interaction doesn't drive sales or build brand loyalty in a discernible way, it's not of major value to a company. |
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zargas
 Posts: 50 Location: Nebula M78 |
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If the anime market is moving towards a more social-driven web-based framework than a collector-driven VHS/DVD-based framework (and I actually don't disagree with that theory at all), then advertising, marketing buzz, and the fan interactions become more important, not less.
MADs can be considered a sort of naturally spontaneous "buzz marketing", and thus are of actual value towards driving sales, attracting viewers to profitable ad-supported viewing streams of the products used in the MAD, establishing brand loyalty, and maintaining long-term product visibility (more than once I've seen certain MADs spark interest and related sales for properties that peaked years ago). Companies risk millions trying to kick-start buzz artificially, so it seems rather counterproductive to try to stomp out any naturally occurring sources of it. Anything that can generate buzz for your product for even just a few weeks is already valuable. Anything that can generate buzz for your product years after its release, and with no work on your part to boot, is quite frankly priceless. |
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Goodpenguin
Posts: 457 Location: Hunt Valley, MD |
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I think like your first post you have a lot of points that work in the abstract, but I'm not sure it directly lines up with the practical reality of fan videos. The issue with the modern anime 'social network/internet culture' is that it utilizes the end product (commercial animation) sans any *commercial* consumer participation. Anime is now a social hobby that's totally supportable free through the internet (downloads/message boards/etc.), and fan video's seem more a pure social interaction than anything designed to get others to watch/buy certain shows. Their a social expression/creative outlet that merely happens to involve anime. The general gist of your 'advertisement' points center largely around the concept of building exposure. The issue there is the modern anime scene is already flush with exposure. The 'average' fan in anime is probably relatively close to a definition of 'seasoned/expert' compared to other media hobbies, at least along the definition of knowing/following a large percentage of available, current shows. A completely raw fan can spend 4-8 weeks on the internet and be conversing like a seasoned fan at the end of that time, all without *commercially* getting involved whatsoever. That's kind of the tale of the anime market on both sides of the ocean: extremely high fan exposure, terrible sales. For a business all the fan interaction and free exposure in the world doesn't mean a thing unless it translates into increased commercial success, and the ease of watching/interacting on the internet makes fan participation in a consumer role completely at their discretion. When you add that to the earlier mentioned fact that fan videos are mostly social interactions between folks already knowledgeable on the product, the value of fan videos to the anime industry seems awfully slight at best (which is why I said your general points were true, but fan videos don't necessarily conform to the general 'fan-buzz' technique ala Apple, Linux, Mozilla, etc.). Again, I really don't have anything against fan videos, nor do I think their at the top of the list of anime's problems. I do believe that they are overwhelmingly a purely social/creative interaction vehicle within an already knowledgeable fan-culture, and that their commercial benefits are basically negligible given the ease of free product availability on the internet. Fan videos seem to attract a pretty vocal support base, but the situation somewhat underscores a 'two-way street' in terms of the broken dynamic in the anime market. Fans are often quick to lean on criticisms (sometime solid, often dubious) of anime companies as reasons they don't commercially support the industry, but here companies turn that argument/attitude around (speculatively) and take the position if the fan-base doesn't support them commercially, there's no reason to be generous with the fans. Companies have to feel that any blow-back would take the form of fans forgoing commercial purchases, and the industry probably feels a good portion already do that anyway. |
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zargas
Posts: 50 Location: Nebula M78 |
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Well, we seem to agree on underlying premises (ie: media saturated nature of the market and its evolution towards social frameworks vs collector frameworks) only to reach different conclusions (ie: you say that the social nature of the market makes MADs practically irrelevant, I say that the social nature of the market means that MADs and other forms of user-generated buzz are even more vital towards translating attention into profit), so on those points I'll agree to disagree and leave it at that.
Though regarding "companies being generous", how is it "generous" to expend no effort regarding a negligible thing? Generosity requires an expenditure of effort and money on one's part. If MADs truly are negligible, then a company that simply ignores MADs isn't being "generous to the fans", they're just being sensible and not wasting effort and money towards either helping or destroying MADs. At worst MADs do nothing, at best they are helpful to the company. Under no circumstances then is it logical to try to destroy them. If MADs do nothing, then destroying them is just wasting time and money, a net loss. If MADs are helpful, then destroying them means spending time and money to hurt profitability, translating into an even greater net loss. It may be unclear whether being generous regarding MADs is worth it, but there's no harm in just being neutral and ignoring them, and it's quite obviously not worth it to be hostile. |
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