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NEWS: Square Enix Opens N. American, French E-Manga Stores




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Primus



Joined: 01 Mar 2006
Posts: 2820
Location: Toronto
PostPosted: Fri Dec 17, 2010 3:39 pm Reply with quote
This won't do well. Create a hub, as having all these different places to look for legal e-manga isn't going to help anyone.
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Asrialys



Joined: 12 Dec 2006
Posts: 1164
PostPosted: Fri Dec 17, 2010 4:48 pm Reply with quote
Primus wrote:
This won't do well. Create a hub, as having all these different places to look for legal e-manga isn't going to help anyone.

That's what browser bookmarks/favorites are for!

Anyway, who knows. Maybe the nice folks at AOD will make a thread listing all the legal manga available online, like they do with the streams.
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machetecat



Joined: 06 Jan 2010
Posts: 396
PostPosted: Fri Dec 17, 2010 4:50 pm Reply with quote
....If they're gonna go much higher than $5.99, I really don't see this site doing well. I would assume one of the benefits of downloading your manga would be the cheaper price. Regular manga goes between $8-11, so why is the "limited time only" price just a few dollars below that?
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YTKGemini



Joined: 16 Aug 2010
Posts: 23
PostPosted: Fri Dec 17, 2010 5:41 pm Reply with quote
If they expect people to pay $5.99 or more per volume, I better be able to have access to higher resolution and download it as a PDF...without DRM...
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Emerje



Joined: 10 Aug 2002
Posts: 7413
Location: Maine
PostPosted: Fri Dec 17, 2010 5:58 pm Reply with quote
At that price I'd rather own the book. Saving 50% off the cover sounds great, but it's only temporary and already isn't as good of a saving as anime streams tend to be. If this is their idea of a serious alternative to scanlations then they've got a big surprise coming when nothing changes.

Emerje
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Tomibiki



Joined: 08 Jul 2007
Posts: 837
PostPosted: Fri Dec 17, 2010 6:36 pm Reply with quote
Lame idea, it's too late in the game for this kinda B.S. to hook any large body of people. Most will just feel dumb when all their friends ask them why they paid 6 bucks for something that's on A B or C scanlation site.

Make a hub, make it subscription based, build an archive, offer better quality images, offer some stuff that scanlators AREN'T going to be able to provide, really make this worth our while.
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YTKGemini



Joined: 16 Aug 2010
Posts: 23
PostPosted: Fri Dec 17, 2010 7:12 pm Reply with quote
Emerje wrote:
At that price I'd rather own the book. Saving 50% off the cover sounds great, but it's only temporary and already isn't as good of a saving as anime streams tend to be. If this is their idea of a serious alternative to scanlations then they've got a big surprise coming when nothing changes.

Emerje


Tomibiki wrote:
Lame idea, it's too late in the game for this kinda B.S. to hook any large body of people. Most will just feel dumb when all their friends ask them why they paid 6 bucks for something that's on A B or C scanlation site.

Make a hub, make it subscription based, build an archive, offer better quality images, offer some stuff that scanlators AREN'T going to be able to provide, really make this worth our while.


Agreed~
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Dimlos



Joined: 02 Mar 2008
Posts: 226
PostPosted: Fri Dec 17, 2010 9:58 pm Reply with quote
Tomibiki wrote:
Lame idea, it's too late in the game for this kinda B.S. to hook any large body of people. Most will just feel dumb when all their friends ask them why they paid 6 bucks for something that's on A B or C scanlation site.
What's the difference between that and having people ask them why they paid ten bucks for something from a bookstore that's on A B or C scanlation site? The biggest issue is the price, not what entitled children think about what other people spend their money on.
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MrTerrorist



Joined: 20 Oct 2010
Posts: 1348
PostPosted: Fri Dec 17, 2010 10:18 pm Reply with quote
Ok, why is everyone is so stingy about the price? It's not like their charging $10 for it.
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Ohoni



Joined: 10 Jun 2003
Posts: 3421
PostPosted: Fri Dec 17, 2010 11:38 pm Reply with quote
It's nice that they're doing this, but at the moment the scanlated version of the product is better, and they can't compete like that. If they want to sell digital versions of their books, they need to ditch their "reader" and just distribute the .cbr files like actual digital comics do.
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teh*darkness



Joined: 16 Feb 2007
Posts: 901
PostPosted: Sat Dec 18, 2010 3:40 am Reply with quote
MrTerrorist wrote:
Ok, why is everyone is so stingy about the price? It's not like their charging $10 for it.


Because they're only offering a 40% discount off the normal cover price as a launch special. Which leads us all to wonder, just how much do they expect us to pay on a normal basis for non-physical media? Because if the launch special isn't some twisted joke, and the normal price isn't lower, this isn't going to take off too well, as it's not going to attract anyone. The ones who read for free now aren't going to start paying nearly the same price as buying the book in the store, and the people who do buy now are probably collectors of some sort, and aren't going to suddenly start buying digital versions, especially not of volumes that have been out for years.
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formerroadie1



Joined: 31 Oct 2010
Posts: 126
Location: Fort Worth, TX
PostPosted: Sat Dec 18, 2010 4:48 pm Reply with quote
Unless they make the e-manga available for e-readers, then it's a moot point. I'm not all that interested in sitting at my computer all day reading manga. I would rather lay in bed and relax with a Kindle or a Nook and read. It's really lame that you can only read on their reader and, frankly, the price is too high.
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agila61



Joined: 22 Feb 2009
Posts: 3213
Location: NE Ohio
PostPosted: Sat Dec 18, 2010 5:18 pm Reply with quote
In terms of its prospects, I agree all around: there may or may not be a supportable price point of $6 for DRM'd ereader downloads, but that slices the market horizontally ~ the odds of there being a supportable $6 price point for online reader volumes seems quite low.

IMEHO, $3 for an "ongoing online access" to a volume and $5 for genuine download would be supportable price points (with upgrade from the first to the second for the extra $2), but I believe that the first venture to hit those price points will be focusing on bringing out electronic issues of works that cannot support a print run.

There is no helping that any supportable price point will in fact reduce total print sales, because while much of the print market prefers print, some would in fact prefer to avoid the bulk and wait. And since the current sales volumes are so close to the lower edge of a viable print run, until high quality print on demand for B&W art books is available, the fear of cannibalizing the print run market will prevent publishers from offering genuinely supportable electronic distribution price points.
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mglittlerobin



Joined: 28 Aug 2008
Posts: 1071
PostPosted: Sat Dec 18, 2010 7:41 pm Reply with quote
Digital distribution sounds great in theory, but I prefer hard copies and this probably won't do anything to scanlations but they're trying something.
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BleuVII



Joined: 19 Sep 2006
Posts: 672
Location: Tokorozawa, Japan
PostPosted: Sun Dec 19, 2010 4:26 am Reply with quote
It's too little, too late. It's also too limited.

I'm seriously sad to see this, since I had such high hopes for this service. Price is a major point, because in order to make somethign like this viable, you need to make people feel like they're getting their money's worth. In my opinion, a digital volume of ANYTHING should never exceed $5, with $3-$4 being the average. At $5.99 as a "special launch price", this will never work.
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