| dem chinese pirates |
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| Because they don't know how to market things. If PC game manufacturers were still relying on disc sales, the industry would be in a devastating state. However, due to Steam and similar digital distributers, it's doing pretty okay. They are simply stuck to their conservative distribution model. Go along with the technology or die, that's how things work. I'm surprised they still haven't realized that. |
| If you generalize, you're wrong. |
| Okay, a few things that need to be realized about the anime economy in Japan: • Anime are expensive to make; think $100k-$300k per episode or roughly $2 million to $4 million for 13 episodes. That's a lot of money, and if that money doesn't get recouped the majority of the time, the anime industry would be in trouble. (This much should be obvious.) • The vast majority of anime don't bring in high ratings, meaning TV networks don't cover the majority of production costs with advertising as is common in the West. This means you have to get the money from your viewers directly in one form or another. • The high BD/DVD prices are an artifact of the old rental pricing economy that even America once had. Basically, the idea was to sell a few thousand copies of a high-priced disc to rental companies, who would then enjoy semi-exclusive supply of the show to typical audiences. It wasn't being marketed toward collectors initially. However, otaku surprised producers since they really were willing to pay those high prices to own a physical copy of the discs. Why would they lower the price given that? The thing is, even after the economy tanked and video rental stores stopped buying as many discs, otaku were still buying enough to recoup the budget to make these anime, making them the new primary source of income. • Lowering the prices of BDs/DVDs has been tried before and did not lead to appreciably larger sales as a result. For whatever reason, only the otaku in Japan seem interested in actually owning anime. This re-emphasizes their prominence as the main source of money. Maybe non-otaku would rather rent it from somewhere; maybe they don't want to be associated with late night anime. I don't know. • It can take a long time to make a profit- several years, even. BDs/DVDs are considered luxury items, not mass-market products. Since the BDs/DVDs are known to be expensive luxury products, they tend to stay in print for awhile and hold their value pretty strongly. Keeping these points in mind, we move onto how the Western fanbase factors in: • Localization companies (distributors) have their own expenses they need to recoup when they start putting out discs. Apart from subbing/dubbing and distributing costs, they have to pay the licensor an up-front minimum guarantee that can range anywhere from a few thousand dollars to tens of thousands of dollars per episode. This is treated by the licensor as revenue similar to sold DVDs in Japan. After the distributor has recouped their costs and the minimum guarantee, the licensor gets further royalties from the profits (around 20-30%) which is also treated as revenue on their part. Of course, if the distributor can't recoup the money, that makes it more difficult for them to localize other series and less likely to attempt to localize similar series in the future. • From here you have to keep in mind the the Western media industry doesn't rely on DVD sales like it used to. People don't just buy tons of DVDs for movies/shows they've never heard of before anymore, because, obviously, you'll end up with quite a bit that wouldn't seem like it's worth the money. Since the Western media was trying to focus on people building personal collections, this means prices needed to be cut lower, and lower, and lower, until you have what's present today. Still, even with the prices as low as they are, you now have a lot of people moving toward on-demand cable and instant-access rental services like Netflix (which was part of the whole point of owning a collection before- instant access). This means, again, that only collectors and passionate fans of a series/movie will buy DVDs, anime or otherwise. (As an aside, I wouldn't be surprised if we start seeing DVD prices in the West increasing also, as streaming and on-demand services take over the market.) • Since most people only want to watch and don't necessarily want to own, this leads to the big topic everyone loves... piracy. Why buy something you won't necessarily like when you can watch it for free online? Thus you have a huge swath of consumers who aren't contributing to the industry. Japan needed a way to target this group, but they were still very much behind the times when it came to speedily delivering raws. In order to have simulcasts to compete with illegitimate streaming, suddenly they had to deal with all sorts of technical aspects of video they didn't before, and this (not surprisingly) costs them even more money. If they're going to do this, it's going to have to be worth the money and effort put into it. • Online advertising does not make the kind of money TV advertising does. You can get several dollars for a thousand ad views, and since anime (again) doesn't really garner than many views to start with, you're hardly making anything when you rely on online advertising alone. You would do well to recoup costs at all on advertising alone unless it's a very very popular show. Despite not making much money, legitimate streamers had confidence in the business, but they started having to pay minimum guarantees to the licensors as well (at roughly 1000-2000 dollars per episode, notice how much less money is being made here as opposed to DVDs; barely worth the effort required, if they decide it's worth the effort at all). • The little money made by ads is exasperated by Western fans who are too ignorant, lazy, or obstinate to watch these series through the legitimate channels (if they're even available through legitimate channels). Since there's barely any money being made here anyway, it's hardly worth it for the legitimate streamers or the licensors to try to go after all the illegitimate streaming websites with legal filings. • Because of the low amount of money ads provide the streaming localization companies, they started moving toward subscriptions for ad removal, nicer presentation, etc. This provides way way more money than viewing ads does, but then the diffusion works against the Western industry. You can't go to Crunchyroll and get access to every anime being released. You can't go to Funimation and get access to every anime being released. Non-airing anime often aren't legitimately available at all, and those that are aren't necessarily legitimately available online. (This is why many claim a Steam-like anime service would be ideal.) Licensors don't necessarily like dealing with multiple localization streamers either. Long story short, Japan is justified for having BDs/DVDs at high prices and they're also justified in thinking that the Western world is a much less viable market. Barring some major development on the Western side, producers are likely to continue relying on otaku. All of that being said... I don't know how well the anime industry is doing right now. Are otaku buying less than they used to? Are there fewer otaku to buy in the first place? Etc. Source |
TripleSRankJun 13, 2015 1:52 PM
Idria said: sedmelluq said: Because they don't know how to market things. If PC game manufacturers were still relying on disc sales, the industry would be in a devastating state. However, due to Steam and similar digital distributers, it's doing pretty okay. They are simply stuck to their conservative distribution model. Go along with the technology or die, that's how things work. I'm surprised they still haven't realized that. ... and someone is stuck in 2007. Are you referring to being able to stream anime legally? That is a completely different thing. |
| If you generalize, you're wrong. |
SeijiSensei said: Drunk_Samurai said: Blame the networks then. Obviously the American way is 100% better since it means everybody makes more money that way. American networks wouldn't bother with anime at all given the ratings it would draw. Even in Japan lots of late-night shows have ratings below one. That's why the production committees buy the time from the networks. http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&hl=en&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=ja&tl=en&u=http://www.geocities.jp/animesityouritu/2012a.html&usg=ALkJrhifbJQ_oNeZb8GTSLK-3SscU32A9Q I was referring to TV in general. The ad revenue would make up for it. Tomoki_Sakurai said: Drunk_Samurai said: [ "Well people.illegally download and stream constantly which isn't helping." Yea so what? Piracy is not helping the industry. Is that something you can't comprehend? I never said piracy was the reason for Japan's financial predicament. You can't even understand a fucking sentence so what are you even doing here? Then that is still just as ignorant. Many people have bought products after pirating them first. sedmelluq said: Because they don't know how to market things. If PC game manufacturers were still relying on disc sales, the industry would be in a devastating state. However, due to Steam and similar digital distributers, it's doing pretty okay. They are simply stuck to their conservative distribution model. Go along with the technology or die, that's how things work. I'm surprised they still haven't realized that. I'd rather own a physical game disc than a digital copy. The companies even get super cheap on the physical copies now and don't make instruction booklets anymore. |
fst said: To put it simply, when was the last time you paid for an anime? Bought legal Blu-ray copies of Redline and Jin-Roh two weeks ago. And in theory, I pay for my legal streaming methods like Hulu and Amazon. I'm not sure how money is exchanged between the service and the anime creators. My guess is a certain amount of money for every month or so that it's available. For western markets, piracy is definitely everywhere. I'm not sure how profitable streaming is, as while it's guaranteed money, it's most likely not very impressive figures. I wonder how many American cartoons are selling in Japan. It's hard to go international. I'd say the sheer amount of anime available here is impressive in it's own right. That's all just opinion and estimation, however. I could be completely wrong, it's just my consumer's standpoint on the subject. I'm honestly curious if people have any statistics regarding streaming and piracy vs. purchase ratios. |
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offmodel said: LunarProxy said: That's all just opinion and estimation, however. I could be completely wrong, it's just my consumer's standpoint on the subject. I'm honestly curious if people have any statistics regarding streaming and piracy vs. purchase ratios. AFAIK, there is no way to get access to that without being a member of one of the paid, industry services like The Numbers. I know that the DVD sales for the Cowboy Bebop movie were disappointing at the time, and a lot of people blamed piracy (I'd say they were right, that was when p2p was really cranking and torrents were about to hit), but you can't see the figures without being a member. One way you could chart it, somewhat, is to compare FCC graphs on broadband expansion year by year to the years when the old U.S. distributors started dropping. I might set down and do that tomorrow. The other problem is that you can't compare torrent #'s even if you had access to those, because it took awhile for torrents to become the dominant means of file sharing (obviously the illegal stream sites aren't going to hand over their figures if you ask). Even if you did compare torrent downloads to official releases you'd have to throw away about 85% of the results if not more due to the fact so many people wouldn't buy anyway or the people that pirated then later bought. |
| It doesn't go to the gym enough. If it did, it'd get in good shape quickly. |
| WEAPONS - My blog, for reviews of music, anime, books, and other things |
offmodel said: Okay, I found a good chart showing this: Compare that to this: 2006 - Central Park Media lay off most employees. 2007 - Geneon USA cease operation, after having announced plans to take over Bandai's distribution. The year prior, they had been named “Best Anime Company” by the Society for the Promotion of Japanese Animation. Toonami is cut back to two hours. 2008 - Central Park Media have ceased releasing any new titles. Toonami is cancelled. 2009 - Central Park Media file chapter 7 bankruptcy. ADV announces their dissolution months after announcing plans to take over some CPM titles. 2012 - Bandai Entertainment announce their plans to discontinue U.S. distribution. I can't figure out what year it was when Animeigo licensed their last new title, but it was sometime in the 2000's. It's not on wikipedia, and I can't remember. They didn't go away though, they just moved into samurai/karate movies and sold their back catalogue. EDIT: Found a better chart with just broadband, not VOIP, digital cable, etc. You're comparing shit companies to piracy in general. Genon had shitty dubs so many people didn't want to buy them. Higurashi was awful. You also forgot to mention ADV who may have had better dubs but overlicensed so they went bankrupt quickly. ADV dubs weren't the best either though. Central Park Media had awful dubs in general. Also as for Toonami that was CN being asshats in general. From their actions it was obvious they were trying to get Toonami canceled. Towards the end of it they had 1 hour of Goosebumps and 1 hour of Naruto fillers. If they hadn't cut it and aired good shows then it would have never lost ratings. They should have kept airing DC shows too. |
Drunk_Samurai said: Wow, I never knew dubs were so important to you. I know I've touched on this before, but have you ever actually heard any Geneon dubs other than the Higurashi and Hajime no Ippo / Fighting Spirit dubs (which were both done when the company was already circling the drain anyway) that you love to slather hate on? Because they've also been behind many dubs that're widely respected among non-dub-haters, such as Tenchi Muyo, Trigun, Armitage III, Paranoia Agent, Haibane Renmei, El Hazard, Texhnolyze, Gun x Sword, Koi Kaze, Licensed by Royalty, Hellsing TV, Kamichu, Last Exile, Vandread, Samurai Chammploo, and others. (Some less-renowned favorites of mine include Girls Bravo, Dears, Ikki Tousen, and Heat Guy J.)You're comparing shit companies to piracy in general. Genon had shitty dubs so many people didn't want to buy them. Higurashi was awful. You also forgot to mention ADV who may have had better dubs but overlicensed so they went bankrupt quickly. ADV dubs weren't the best either though. Central Park Media had awful dubs in general. "They failed 'cause they had shitty dubs" is just an attempt at slapping together an ex post facto justification for complex events without bothering to actually research their causes. Sure, not every dub of theirs was great, but that's true of any company. CPM, yeah, a lot of their dubs weren't so hot, but they mainly fell by the wayside when they couldn't compete in the licensing bidding wars of the mid-00s, and they also got hit hard by the Musicland retailer bankruptcy. ADV was doing some of their best dubbing work right until they shut down and reorganized, so unless this mythical "not buying anything because of bad dubbing reputation" contingent was suddenly remembering their late-90s/early-00s output, "ADV failed because bad dubs" is also a bogus explanation. And since when were dubs the sole determiners of whether or not a show is worth buying, anyway? Surely some people think the Japanese voice acting, artwork, animation, story, character development, music, etc. are worth paying for. Or perhaps people thought all that was worthless because they could easily pirate it via the TV-fansubs, while dual-audio DVD-rips were relatively harder to obtain because they often required IRC use? |
Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts. Everything that connects to MAL |
ExTamplier said: Because no one wants to buy expensive ass 2 episode blurays ExTamplier said: Tenshi_Shura said: One word: Pirates More like: Poor people That's just it pick one, buy an episode or stream it online. ;) |
| The quality of the shows have taken a massive dive after 2009 |
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| Anime is not quality as it used to be. Now-a-days anime is a mindless pastime, I can watch an episode and only watch the next one days later no problems. Whereas older shows were more interesting and plot driven that I would marathon as much episodes as I can. Something went wrong somewhere. In the past it was about plot, now its about visuals with little to no plot. I don't buy anime anymore, I'm not even actively watching anything new. Whereas I would still buy older anime series, I have a nice collection of older stuff and I will continue to buy them due to their re-watch value and gripping plots. I say animators should stop catering to waifu/moe creeps and they should start making quality anime that would attract a bigger demographic. |
Midori-tan said: Anime is not quality as it used to be. Now-a-days anime is a mindless pastime, I can watch an episode and only watch the next one days later no problems. Whereas older shows were more interesting and plot driven that I would marathon as much episodes as I can. Something went wrong somewhere. In the past it was about plot, now its about visuals with little to no plot. I don't buy anime anymore, I'm not even actively watching anything new. Whereas I would still buy older anime series, I have a nice collection of older stuff and I will continue to buy them due to their re-watch value and gripping plots. I say animators should stop catering to waifu/moe creeps and they should start making quality anime that would attract a bigger demographic. This is definitely not entirely accurate, thought I guess I can see a grain of truth there. Most people remember older anime from the good ones that stood out. In 10 years, very few people will remember something like Chuunibyou, for example. However, as genres such as 'moe' and 'harem' become popular (well, moe isn't really a genre...), those genres become oversaturated by companies looking for the best profit. While anime is an expression of art, it's also a business, too. |
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Midori-tan said: There is just as much plot in anime these days as there was in the 80s/90s, you just don't notice it because every single show is available now, so you'll probably find a bad anime sooner these days, than you would do in the 80s/90s.Anime is not quality as it used to be. Now-a-days anime is a mindless pastime, I can watch an episode and only watch the next one days later no problems. Whereas older shows were more interesting and plot driven that I would marathon as much episodes as I can. Something went wrong somewhere. In the past it was about plot, now its about visuals with little to no plot. I don't buy anime anymore, I'm not even actively watching anything new. Whereas I would still buy older anime series, I have a nice collection of older stuff and I will continue to buy them due to their re-watch value and gripping plots. I say animators should stop catering to waifu/moe creeps and they should start making quality anime that would attract a bigger demographic. |
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Milk_is_Special said: Midori-tan said: There is just as much plot in anime these days as there was in the 80s/90s, you just don't notice it because every single show is available now, so you'll probably find a bad anime sooner these days, than you would do in the 80s/90s.Anime is not quality as it used to be. Now-a-days anime is a mindless pastime, I can watch an episode and only watch the next one days later no problems. Whereas older shows were more interesting and plot driven that I would marathon as much episodes as I can. Something went wrong somewhere. In the past it was about plot, now its about visuals with little to no plot. I don't buy anime anymore, I'm not even actively watching anything new. Whereas I would still buy older anime series, I have a nice collection of older stuff and I will continue to buy them due to their re-watch value and gripping plots. I say animators should stop catering to waifu/moe creeps and they should start making quality anime that would attract a bigger demographic. Not true. One thing to notice is the length of anime series now and then. These days most adapted manga/light or visual novels get only 12 episodes, therefore, a lot of the key components and plot devices gets left out due to the short number of episodes. Whereas older anime shows did come in variety of lengths, there were a lot of 12 episode series, as there were longer 24-26 episode series. I'm not saying this does not happen these days, but they are fewer in comparison to the other shorter series. As a result, the shows that are adapted are just mediocre at best, they would sell so little and we never get to see a sequel. I have noticed that with newer shows, I'm enjoying and liking the longer series because they do present a good storyline, whereas all of the shorter things I've watched were nothing but fanservice with little bit of plot thrown at random episodes with no real progression no closure. LunarProxy said: Midori-tan said: Anime is not quality as it used to be. Now-a-days anime is a mindless pastime, I can watch an episode and only watch the next one days later no problems. Whereas older shows were more interesting and plot driven that I would marathon as much episodes as I can. Something went wrong somewhere. In the past it was about plot, now its about visuals with little to no plot. I don't buy anime anymore, I'm not even actively watching anything new. Whereas I would still buy older anime series, I have a nice collection of older stuff and I will continue to buy them due to their re-watch value and gripping plots. I say animators should stop catering to waifu/moe creeps and they should start making quality anime that would attract a bigger demographic. This is definitely not entirely accurate, thought I guess I can see a grain of truth there. Most people remember older anime from the good ones that stood out. In 10 years, very few people will remember something like Chuunibyou, for example. However, as genres such as 'moe' and 'harem' become popular (well, moe isn't really a genre...), those genres become oversaturated by companies looking for the best profit. While anime is an expression of art, it's also a business, too. I agree. However, to make more profit animators/studios should cater to different demographics. I do feel alienated by anime sometimes. I cannot purchase BDs or merchandise for this reason alone. In the past I could do so because there was variety in anime and everyone could relate to something. If anime goes back to the way it was, I will surely go back to purchasing these things. I'm sure I'm not an isolated case, as others do feel the same. With this step, many others would get the anime market moving hence it would improve the studios profits greatly. Mod Edit: Merged duplicated posts; please use the edit button. |
HeddieJun 16, 2015 10:45 AM
Milk_is_Special said: There is just as much plot in anime these days as there was in the 80s/90s, you just don't notice it because every single show is available now, so you'll probably find a bad anime sooner these days, than you would do in the 80s/90s. So how many 80's and 90's series did you watch btw? |
NoValueNobs said: I like how there's no cited evidence in any of these baseless claims. I have never skimmed over so much worthless garbage context in a thread Citation needed. |
| one simple word - moe |
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| What are these shows from the 80s and 90s that have a much better plot than 00s and later shows? My few experiences haven't been that good except LOGH. |
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| it isn't in a bad fucking shape ffs |
| :3 |
Drunk_Samurai said: NoValueNobs said: I like how there's no cited evidence in any of these baseless claims. I have never skimmed over so much worthless garbage context in a thread Citation needed. I clearly stated mine as an educated guess, and after asking, it appears nigh impossible to see the statistics behind it. I dunno, I ain't writing a research paper here. If it's true that finding the sales statistics is unreasonable, then people are doing a fairly okay job at least discussing what it could be. Just gotta tack this on, can't help myself: |
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| it`s not about the moe who ruined the anime industry. it was the Otaku the one who ruined the anime industry. fuck anime fans. |
| Do you play Azure Lane? Then please join my fanclub https://myanimelist.net/clubs.php?cid=74907 |
NiN10d0h said: TheBrainintheJar said: I imagine you're in your mid - late 30's because only people in that range would make jokes as lame as that.It doesn't go to the gym enough. If it did, it'd get in good shape quickly. Thanks for the compliment, but I'm just about to reach 21. I still got a whole life ahead of me to improve my jokes. Wish me luck! |
| WEAPONS - My blog, for reviews of music, anime, books, and other things |
| Lolis and moe. I like character design that is older more. But new animation is better ofcourse. Old: Lamune:  New Moe:  They are the same age :P |
| they sell things in highprices rather than just the dvds by them self at a reasonable price but they insist on selling them with a bunch of other un needed stuff when people would rather just have the DVD for example the complete Kara no Kyoukai series is 500+ USD |
| "among monsters and humans, there are only two types. Those who undergo suffering and spread it to others. And those who undergo suffering and avoid giving it to others." -Alice “Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty.” David Hume “Evil is created when someone gives up on someone else. It appears when everyone gives up on someone as a lost cause and removes their path to salvation. Once they are cut off from everyone else, they become evil.” -Othinus  |
| Because of Miura. Fuck off Miura. |
GrandTemplar said: Ofc, because of piracy. Read the thread. |
| It's most likely because they aren't entirely good with researching potential audience and regular viewers and don't always adapt the best stories. Or adapt them the way that they need to be adapted. I'm sure there's a way to make a formula. If something doesn't look like it'll be loved by a good amount of people and produce enough of an audience to buy a lot of products and copies of the anime itself, then they shouldn't adapt it. Also, they put themselves in a hole by adapting stuff into MANY MANY episodes in the 80s and 90s and didn't get enough revenue to make up for it. Another point is, maybe they should make their anime more affordable for regular Japanese people to just own (Like season box sets (dvds) that are 40 dollars or 5000 yen each). Instead of blurays, dvds would be good, and not releasing 3 episodes per volume and costing 40 bucks for that many episodes would be good. It's not entirely affordable to buy anime. So I don't see how they're making money (BESIDES the few that will pay the money), and I can see why so many people would rather watch it illegally instead of owning a tangible copy. |
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| Anime is quite expensive in Japan, but it's not like they're doing bad in sales either. They keep up that 4-5k yen pricing for 3-4 episodes, because putting more episodes would leave less to sell and less money to earn. It's fair to see that most people in the West are VERY reluctant to buy at those prices, because what we're used to is more for less. But would we not buy because we can't afford the money? No, some of us have the money, but we don't have the resolution that consumers in Japan possess because anime is still a pretty niche hobby outside Japan. People in Japan are already used to overpriced products, so they see no reason to change their ways now at this point. On the point of Blurays, a lot of people do want quality resolution with their animation, and they tend to come with limited edition bonuses. There's also the fact that BDs tend to uncensor content that was censored on TV. |
| Has anyone posted this yet? |
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| They need to sell $20 bucks for the regular edition, then put another limited edition for $100 for the people who want the extra stuff. Every bodies happy :) |
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Lancehot said: ichii_1 said: They need to sell $20 bucks for the regular edition, then put another limited edition for $100 for the people who want the extra stuff. Every bodies happy :) I'm not Oh right sorry, $0 dollars for everything and a thank you from the producers that we watched their shows. Now everybody is truly happy <3 |
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Lancehot said: ichii_1 said: Oh right sorry, $0 dollars for everything and a thank you from the producers that we watched their shows. Now everybody is truly happy <3 I'll never be happy :'( Free DVD's aren't enough!? |
| WEAPONS - My blog, for reviews of music, anime, books, and other things |
sasukeuzi said: Anime is quite expensive in Japan, but it's not like they're doing bad in sales either. They keep up that 4-5k yen pricing for 3-4 episodes, because putting more episodes would leave less to sell and less money to earn. It's fair to see that most people in the West are VERY reluctant to buy at those prices, because what we're used to is more for less. But would we not buy because we can't afford the money? No, some of us have the money, but we don't have the resolution that consumers in Japan possess because anime is still a pretty niche hobby outside Japan. People in Japan are already used to overpriced products, so they see no reason to change their ways now at this point. On the point of Blurays, a lot of people do want quality resolution with their animation, and they tend to come with limited edition bonuses. There's also the fact that BDs tend to uncensor content that was censored on TV. Except dvds have 720px quality and are pretty decent. That's usually what they show on tv. And people can't afford to pay hundreds of dollars for just 2 days worth of entertainment. It's not worth it. I don't see how Japanese people would put up with it either. |
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