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cyrax777 wrote:

Pandemonium wrote:

I agree with that, anywhere else you shop, anime dvds will be at least double the price of regular dvd movies.

for about the umptteth time. a hollywood movie is going to sell A BUNCH MORE COPYS then a anime hecne why they can charge less they can make iy up in volume.

ANIME IS STILL A VERY NICHE MARKET!

So basically, it's something like supply and demand?

cyrax777 wrote:

For about the umptteeth time. a hollywood movie is going to sell A BUNCH MORE COPYS then a anime hence why they can charge less they can make it up in volume.

ANIME IS STILL A VERY NICHE MARKET!

Yes, not even to mention (as I have many time before) that a hollywood movie has already earned it's millions by the time it hits the shelves. What they make in DVD sales is chump change to them. On the flip-side, the only way an Anime company can make a return on it's investment, is by selling DVDs and/or the broadcast rights. It's inevitable that the price will be higher 1. because of the fact I just stated 2. because cyrax is right, Anime is a niche market. It's like a show I saw the other day on Food Network (don't start Wink

). If you go to a candy store in say the mall or something, their prices are usually pretty cheap. Go to a handmade candy store, and you will pay more. Why? Because handmade candy is a niche market in this day and age. The market has been taken over by the big manufacturers. So the only way they can stay in business with the lower volume that they sell is to charge more. Back to the topic of anime, the easiest way to combat high prices at B&M stores it to buy online.

Pandemonium wrote:

So basically, it's something like supply and demand?

excatly and like Kazuki-san said a hollywood movie has already made most of its money already

Pandemonium wrote:

pyr3sayz wrote:

Complaining about the prices of the collector's box is a moot point. It's a 'collector' box. It's extra. You don't need it. Complaining that they charge extra for it is stupid. If you want (or feel that you need) it then you pay the extra money for it. If you can't afford it, then make your own piece of cardboard to hold the DVDs. The DVDs are still coming in cases. It's not like you're getting the discs by themselves with nothing else. Sorry, I just hate it when people complain about the price of extras. It's *extra* for a reason. THAT is why it costs more.

Well since I wasn't complaining, your post is totally irrelavant, I was merely stating a fact that anime costs alot of money, nothing more. But if YOU feel like complaining some more, feel free to manipulate my words to satisfy your insignicant point.

I apologize. I mistook your post. (no sarcasm)

Pandemonium wrote:

cyrax777 wrote:

Pandemonium wrote:

I agree with that, anywhere else you shop, anime dvds will be at least double the price of regular dvd movies.

for about the umptteth time. a hollywood movie is going to sell A BUNCH MORE COPYS then a anime hecne why they can charge less they can make iy up in volume.

ANIME IS STILL A VERY NICHE MARKET!

So basically, it's something like supply and demand?

The studios have already turned a profit of millions on the movie when it's in theaters. The only cost they have to offset for the DVDs are the authoring of the DVD image and the designing of the package. After that it's just the $1 or less per DVD that it costs to actually manufactur it.

Let's take Spiderman 2 for example. The estimated budget of the movie was $200 million. As of August 8, Spiderman 2 has grossed $354,501,860. So they've made a profit of $154,501,860. They have already made back ALL of the costs associated with the movie, plus turned a profit in the millions. The studios just have to pay for these things to create the DVD:
1) DVD authoring (gathering of extras, designing menus, etc)
2) Design of the case
Now they have a DVD ready to be made. They just send the DVD image and the box art to the manufacturer that produces the boxes and stamps the DVDs. Each DVD + box only costs about $1 or so to produce. So they can sell you the DVD at $3 and still turn a $2 profit. And that $2 is PURE profit. None of that has to go towards offsetting the cost of creating the movie. They've already paid for it through the box office revenue. They've even paid for the DVD creation through the box office profits. So if they now sell 2 million DVDs, they can make $4 million ON TOP of the money they got from the theaters. (granted this is a simplified example for the sake of explanation)

Let's take ADV as an example of the anime industry. Let's say they license ... oh.... Galaxy Express 999 TV. First they have to negotiate a licensing agreement with Toei Animation. This could be anything from a set amount of money up front, or a percentage of the money they make off it or both. (I'm not sure which is the common practice in licensing) For the sake of argument, let's say that they pay $100,000 for the license. On top of that licensing cost, they have to pay for the Japanese script to be translated. Then they have to pay for that script to be converted into a dub script (and 'Americanized' or whatever), and for it to be converted into a subtitle track. Let's say that all of that costs them $50,000 per episode. They have to offset this cost somehow to turn a profit. But they can't release it to the box office. They have two avenues to try and turn a profit. Negotiate broadcast rights with a TV station that will air it and/or release it to video. If it is only released to video they have to keep the prices higher so that they can make back their money based on predicted sales. Each price for the DVD has a projected sales number and they have to try to balance this out so that it will allow them to offset the costs and make some money on the deal. If they are able to pitch the series to a TV company the money they make off of the broadcast rights allows them to lower the price on the DVDs.

US TV series operate much in the same way as the movie theaters, only they have their costs paid off with advertisement revenue so they have already turned a profit and can afford to charge less as well. (a 30 second ad during the final episode of Friends, cost more than a 30 second ad during the Super Bowl this year)

The one last thing that allows them to charge less is that they will sell a larger volume of DVDs of US Movies and US TV Shows. This is the supply/demand part. It's less about supply and demand and more about the fact that the content has already paid for itself. The costs associated with creating and manufacturing the DVDs in and of themselves are next to nothing. Even if some of the movies aren't going to sell a lot, they can still afford to charge less for them since it's all just icing on the cake. Take a look at Mario Brothers the movie. I saw it online for a pre-order price of $6 before it came out. They can afford this because they are still making a profit, whereas ADV would be losing money.

(Sorry if I destroyed anyone's eyes reading this. I was bored and felt like writing a long post.)

pyr3sayz it may have been long but it tottaly explained everything.

just goes to show how much a markup there is on goods but companys are in the business to make money. They wouldnt go anywere if they just gave it away or broke even.

and prices are falling even at 12 bucks a disk (online) there still making money. just anime will almost always be more expensive then a hollywood film its just a much smaller market and will most likely always remain so.

I really hate it when people use the "But I bought Hellboy for 13.99 at Best Buy last week, why is Wolf's Rain 26.99?!" argument.

Because New Line will sell 3 million copies of Hellboy inside 2 weeks whereas Bandai will be lucky to move 20,000 units of Wolf's Rain. I'm not kidding; hit anime series sell maybe 10,000 units. BIG hits sell 20,000 units. Now THAT is a niche market, folks. If anime wanted to start competing price wise with American films, they'd have to be selling over 200 times the units they routinely move now. Which isn't going to happen. Not even something like Dragonball moves that many units; the average DBZ/DBGT disc sells something like 100,000 units, which is a colossal biggest-hit-ever success in the anime field.

I can definetly agree with people that fansubbing is starting to hurt the market. Largely due to unethical groups. However I think fansubbing will always have a place in the NA market until the day comes that we have people translating every series out of Japan. Until then fansubbers have a place translating series that we will have a hard time seeing over here like Prince of Tennis, Legend of Galactic Heroes, Tekkaman Blade and other shows. The fact that fansubbers are jumping all over the latest shows is definetly becoming a problem and needs to be solved in a positive way. A way that will not kill fansubbing since it's fansubbing that has allowed some of the greatest anime series of all time to come out over here such as Marmalade Boy and Kodocha. Fansubbers need to find a new place in the American marker one that is not hurting the companies. But I know that bootleggers are a much larger problem and are something that should be dealt with first before resources are wasted on trying to track and stop the nameless fansubbers.

I'm sure I heard this somewhere...but isn't fansubbing still a grey area in the legal system?

Piracy can be promotion, but that was only really true in the early days of anime. Now with so much hitting the market, it would be better for everyone involved, from the companies to the fans to find better ways of doing things. Fansubs are a holdover from the old days of anime and we need to break this trend.

However, ethical arguements and heavy-handed tactics will only work some of the time and eventually earn the resentment of the consumers. Use the "carrot", not the "stick". You have to give them an alternative to fansubs that is just as "free". Which is why I'm all over using Anime Network to broadcast "fansubs" made by the companies. Stores should do their part by offering rentals which will allow people to check out a series at a low cost.

If the American companies will start offering a "free" alternative to fansubs, they can render the fansub network useless and most fans won't even care.

Pandemonium wrote:

I'm sure I heard this somewhere...but isn't fansubbing still a grey area in the legal system?

actly it was never a grey area its tottaly black and white illegal. always was.

2 reasons first there distrobuting Copyrighted video. via the Bern convention If its copyrighted in Japan its the same as having a copyright in the US(and practly every other country)

Its a ethical problem not a legal one.

Its just always been a case of the companys going "nope didn't see anything there no sir nothing at all"

Pandemonium wrote:

I'm sure I heard this somewhere...but isn't fansubbing still a grey area in the legal system?

Nope. That's was just a false concept that was promoted in order for people to feel better about what they were doing. It has had its place in helping to garner interest and cause in getting the market where it is today, but from a legal standpoint it was illegal from the start. Because of the Berne convention, any changes or processes made to/from a work (such as adding subtitles, or even creating a translation) without the copyright holders consent automatically falls under the category of being illegal.

even swapping a raw file back and forth is illegal via berne convention. Yes even one aired on tv. recording shows off tv is only allowed for time shifting ie your not going to be home at the time (of course practly everyone I bet has something they archived off the tv more of a case of non enforcement bigger fish to fry kinda deal)

Quote:

1) DVD authoring (gathering of extras, designing menus, etc)
2) Design of the case
Now they have a DVD ready to be made. They just send the DVD image and the box art to the manufacturer that produces the boxes and stamps the DVDs. Each DVD + box only costs about $1 or so to produce. So they can sell you the DVD at $3 and still turn a $2 profit. And that $2 is PURE profit. None of that has to go towards offsetting the cost of creating the movie. They've already paid for it through the box office revenue. They've even paid for the DVD creation through the box office profits. So if they now sell 2 million DVDs, they can make $4 million ON TOP of the money they got from the theaters. (granted this is a simplified example for the sake of explanation)

I realize you're trying to simplify, but this is not entirely correct

Don't forget that for every Spider-Man 2 at the box office, you have 3-4 Catwomans. The profits from Spidey help offset the losses from those movies.

On the video pricing

The price of a DVD does not just include the cost of the physical medium. Authoring costs, actor and music royalties(which are part of every unit sold and never go away. These can contribute SIGNIFIGANTLY to the price of a DVD, see the X-Files and Star Trek releases). Disregarding those costs, it costs approximately $5 to get a DVD to the shelf. $2 to press it and print the cover and any inserts, shipping, advertising, general overhead etc. The wholesale price of the average DVD is around $15 for a new movie, and after every cost factor involved in it, the studio may be clearing $6-7 of that in profit. And let's not forget that a solid 75% of those films being released did not (and in many cases even come close) to breaking even in the theater.

Considering the reduced theatrical windows that most films experience, video is often times where a movie makes most of its money. Without the success on video of Austin Powers, Lethal Weapon, Pitch Black, and a host of other films, there NEVER would have been sequels.

Sword of Whedon wrote:

Quote:

1) DVD authoring (gathering of extras, designing menus, etc)
2) Design of the case
Now they have a DVD ready to be made. They just send the DVD image and the box art to the manufacturer that produces the boxes and stamps the DVDs. Each DVD + box only costs about $1 or so to produce. So they can sell you the DVD at $3 and still turn a $2 profit. And that $2 is PURE profit. None of that has to go towards offsetting the cost of creating the movie. They've already paid for it through the box office revenue. They've even paid for the DVD creation through the box office profits. So if they now sell 2 million DVDs, they can make $4 million ON TOP of the money they got from the theaters. (granted this is a simplified example for the sake of explanation)

I realize you're trying to simplify, but this is not entirely correct

Don't forget that for every Spider-Man 2 at the box office, you have 3-4 Catwomans. The profits from Spidey help offset the losses from those movies.

Actually in my attempt to simplify I never even considered other movies. Thanks for pointing that out for others.

Quote:

On the video pricing

The price of a DVD does not just include the cost of the physical medium. Authoring costs, actor and music royalties(which are part of every unit sold and never go away. These can contribute SIGNIFIGANTLY to the price of a DVD, see the X-Files and Star Trek releases). Disregarding those costs, it costs approximately $5 to get a DVD to the shelf. $2 to press it and print the cover and any inserts, shipping, advertising, general overhead etc. The wholesale price of the average DVD is around $15 for a new movie, and after every cost factor involved in it, the studio may be clearing $6-7 of that in profit. And let's not forget that a solid 75% of those films being released did not (and in many cases even come close) to breaking even in the theater.

This is true, but they need to keep the price low. If it didn't break even in the theater, how many people will be willing to pay the same amount for it on DVD as they pay for popular movies like Spiderman 2 or Titanic? If you do want to get technical though, they also get money by licensing persmissions to rental places for their DVDs too.

On the royalties, that is also true. There are a lot of US TV series that won't come to DVD due to the cost of royalties just for all the popular music they used in the soundtrack. Some even change the soundtrack by getting rid of some of the copyrighted songs and keeping others (see Roswell and Dawson's Creek). But even with royalties and all it's still only about $32 for 22 episodes of Dawson's Creek or $42 for 22 episodes of Roswell, as opposed to ~$87 for 13 episodes of Lain. Though ~$50 for 26 episodes of Excel Saga is starting to get close to the US price point.

Excel Saga = $1.92 / episode
Dawson's Creek = $1.45 / episode
Roswell = $1.90 / epsiode
Lain = $6.69 / episode
Hellsing = $6.92 / episode

Quote:

Considering the reduced theatrical windows that most films experience, video is often times where a movie makes most of its money. Without the success on video of Austin Powers, Lethal Weapon, Pitch Black, and a host of other films, there NEVER would have been sequels.

Yea. They are sometimes called 'cult classics' or 'sleeper hits' though those terms aren't specific to things being popular after video release. The Boondock Saints is another (there is a sequel in the works). When I rented it I never had even heard of it in theaters. Back on topic though, there animes that are doing this now. Ninja Scroll TV, Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex, and Big O Season 2 were all financed (if not prompted) by US companies. Big O Season 2 was financed by Cartoon Network I believe. Ninja Scroll TV by Urban Vision. I can't recall who was in on GITS:SAC though.

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