Forum - View topicAnswerman - How Big Of A Deal Is Crunchyroll Reaching A Million Subscribers?
|
Goto page Previous 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 Next Note: this is the discussion thread for this article |
| Author | Message | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
jrockfreak
Posts: 125 |
|
|||
|
im probably one of the few people who arent subscribed to CrunchyRoll
|
||||
|
||||
EricJ2
 Posts: 4016 |
|
|||
My reaction was that CR doesn't mean all that darn much to the industry, but it's a big deal to THEM. Now they can finally get over their inferiority-complex demons about their "bootlegger" past (which some non-fan outlets are so out of the loop, they think that CR still is a bootleg site), and can now rub their numbers in the world that they're a "real" streaming site to contend with Netflix, Hulu and Amazon. And, more importantly with Funimation.com, which grabs all the mainstream non-fan hits for dubbing, while current-show subs on CR are still seen as a "fan niche". Basically, it's to convince the dopey rest of the industry of what the CR subscribers themselves already know, by the only way the rest of those folks believe it. Does this mean that CR should start forming their own conventions, as they've already announced, or start sponsoring series like Netflix with Seven Deadly Sins?....Er, let's not get too full of ourselves, there, sparky. (And I was subscribing, but quit supposedly over a big boycott of the Forum discussion moderators, but in fact, found that I could already watch the anime free-with-ads on my iPad and PS3.) |
||||
|
||||
relyat08
 Posts: 4125 Location: Northern Virginia |
|
|||
Yeah, you're right. CR's goal is to get *big rainbow* EVERYTHING *end rainbow* as they've said in basically every interview they've ever had. And they have gone to pretty surprising lengths to get everything. I like eclectic stuff, but browsing their library, I'm still constantly surprised at how many weird, clearly unpopular shows there are on the site. Just look at how many ratings some of those things have. You may think Lupin III is a massive show based on some circles, but it was getting rated like 20 times per episode when it first showed up last Christmas. Compare that to the 3000 times that Erased was getting rated per episode during the same season. If they weren't trying to get everything they would have had literally no business getting the former. I think it's hard to make an argument that CR is bad for consumers in literally any significant way. So far they've done nothing but make being an anime fan incredibly cheap and convenient across the board for me, personally. People just want to hate something, I guess. Or make excuses as to why pirating is totally cool. |
||||
|
||||
leafy sea dragon
 Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
|
|||
I don't know if anyone who posts here is of that mindset, but there are some anime fans in some places who are anti-industry in general. They're the ones who feel anime should be underground and that all anime translation should be grassroots. Crunchyroll in particular gets their goat because they USED to be a fansubbing hub, something they like, and then because a normal, legit company, something they oppose. Their friend became their worst enemy. |
||||
|
||||
|
relyat08
Posts: 4125 Location: Northern Virginia |
|
|||
|
^It's not as common of a sentiment here as in some other places, and it fortunately seems to be going away in large part, but even in this thread there are still a couple of people who are trying to argue that CR is bad for us, and that they won't support them for various reasons(like you mentioned, that they used to be a pirate site is somehow still relevant to these people). Like the person I was indirectly responding to.
|
||||
|
||||
|
EricJ2
Posts: 4016 |
|
|||
As pointed out in the "90's anime" thread, before there was Crunchyroll--or any workable desktop streaming--there was the "gray market" of Internet digisub .MKV files on BitTorrent. (.MKV allowed for more freedom in subtitling than .MP3 did, even if you had to get a VLC player to watch it.) The more responsible fans didn't feel they were "pirates" for watching current or obscure shows kept up to date on an underground volunteer basis--and, like the dubbers, made sure to destroy their files after licensing, if it happened--we just felt we were making up for the problems of the 00's Bubble-era industry. Maybe there were a few fans who claimed to be loyal Pirate Bay buccaneers just to thumb their noses at the $35 single-disk pricing, but they just turned out to be cheapskates, and most of the better-angels gray-market fans shunned and distanced from them as spoiled scofflaw brats. That CR went "legit" and turned current-series fansubs into a commercial industry wasn't seen as a "betrayal", like Bob Dylan going electric, quite the opposite: It was seen as finally validating what we'd been doing all along, making it legal so we didn't have to pull down our window shades anymore or worry about BT viruses, and what the industry should have been doing all along instead of Bubbling disk-licenses sight unseen. Now the entire market has changed to an industry where the audience is familiar with a series before they buy it, and it has an established fanbase when the commercially dubbed disk release comes out. Funimation.com tried the same thing before CR officially went legit, but they were still hobbled by what shows the company corporately licensed in the interest of future disk sales, which was a missing link back to the 00's troubles. CR just licensed everything else for no-commitment viewing, and shows could get their own word-of-mouth popularity, just like the digisubs did. If companies are going to get the "popular" shows, the shows have to become popular first. |
||||
|
||||
|
dragonrider_cody
Posts: 2541 |
|
|||
|
There are some like me that don't think that CR is bad. However, I'm not a big fan of one company having so much control in any market. So little competition leaves little incentive for improving your services. Not to mention, what happens if CR's parent company becomes unhappy with their returns and cuts back funding, or pulls the plug altogether? Even large companies can fail, and in cases like this, that could leave a big vacuum in the market and leave many shows without a home for sometime.
Not to mention, they could more easily pull a Netflix and jack up their prices, or even cut their content back as well. Just because they have been growing their catalog of titles at a steady pace and kept their prices consistent doesn't mean they will always do so. With less competition, they have less to fear as far as losing subscribers. No, I'm not saying that I have fears about their financial performance, but one must take the bigger picture into account. Also, as far as dubbing goes, Funimation and Sentai already produce about 80% of the English dubs for North America, and by extent, the U.K. and Australia. Throwing the majority of CR's dubs into the Texas market is going to mean even less variety. While Funimation may have flown out of towners in for traditional dubs, it's much more difficult and expensive to do that for a "simul-dub". Though I do give both of them credit for their recent attempts to bring in new local talent. And of course, there are the concerns about the home video market. CR handed even more market share to Funimation, whose schedules are likely to get more crowded. Doing so could make it harder for companies like DiscoTek, Sentai, Viz, and others to compete and get their titles noticed. We also have no idea how CR's home video releases are going to look, and whether they will be following the traditional Funi pattern or not. While CR having so much anime may be a great thing as far as convenience goes, I'm not sure I like how it cuts down on competition. I can't honestly think of a time when one dominant company basically became a monopoly and that ultimately turned out to be a good thing for consumers. |
||||
|
||||
|
mangamuscle
Posts: 2658 Location: Mexico |
|
|||
Hear! Hear! This is one of the reasons crunchy has been successful globally, just like Steam they get paid in local currency and adjust their prices to different markets. Unlike amazon prime video that insists to charge in USD outside the USA (one price for all America is dumb as fudge if you ask me). |
||||
|
||||
|
leafy sea dragon
Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
|
|||
Of course. I wasn't talking about you, me, or most of the other people on this site, but an extremist viewpoint, of sorts, who have been pushed to the very margins of the fandom, but still make appearances inwards and are quite vocal. What their REAL motivations are is irrelevant (whether it's because they're too cheap to even use the free Crunchyroll service, or it's a personal grudge, or general anti-establishment and rebellious attitudes, or the breakdown of fansubbing communities they used to belong to, or they're just being hipsters). They DO think Crunchyroll betrayed them, they DO think the fansubbers hired by FUNimation and Sentai and such to be paid for their work betrayed them, and, based on my recent interactions with some of them, are intensely frustrated that they've become a small minority. But this group still has enough people in them to produce fansubbing groups that produce things in direct defiance of Crunchyroll and such. (From what I'm seeing, this is the prevailing mindset at 4chan, but I don't go there, so all I know about them is indirect. I do know Toonami is verboten on /a/, however. Then again, they tend to hate anything that's become remotely popular.) |
||||
|
||||
|
EricJ2
Posts: 4016 |
|
|||
Up to now, CR hasn't been able to afford a home-video line, and DiscoTek, Sentai and Nozomi/RightStuf haven't been able to afford a streaming site. So, one partners the other, and recent Discotek and Nozomi have been licensing their shows to CR with nowhere else to turn. Meaning, that now archival license-resurrected series like "Dragon Half", "Sherlock Hound" and the subbed "Samurai Pizza Cats" can find new audiences, alongside the other current-series fans of Mr. Osomatsu and Kemono Friends. It's particularly valuable in bringing 90's-resurrected titles back into exposure again, since they dated back before the "Watch now, buy later" market of the Streaming industry, and had to be fan-evangelized the hard, old-fashioned way. |
||||
|
||||
|
relyat08
Posts: 4125 Location: Northern Virginia |
|
|||
I agree with this in theory, but I don't think CR is anywhere near the point where that is a legitimate issue. Amazon and Netflix are always looming over them and could cripple them in a single move if they wanted to, so CR has to watch their back very closely. That, by itself, keeps them honest and will force them to keep fans on their side as much as possible. The only way they can compete with a company that is 50 times larger than them is to do that. As far as home video releases go, Funi needs some help, but there are always other people willing to jump into the market, or take advantage of their loss. If Sentai fails to do it, Aniplex will do what they can, maybe NISA will pop back in if prices get low enough again.. or maybe a new company will start up. We'll see. But at this point, even if CR got all but 2 shows for a season(as long as those two shows are on Amazon or Netflix, or Hulu), I'm not worried about them relaxing and dropping the ball in any significant way. |
||||
|
||||
|
leafy sea dragon
Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
|
|||
|
Yeah, that's a point I had forgotten about: There are some industries that can remain sustainable and competitively priced even by a single company because the market is so niche that it can only really support one company (or one big company with dedicated offices and several tiny, garage-level companies). In those cases, the competition is coming from outside: Consumers have alternate options by choosing a different, but closely related business. In this case, Crunchyroll is the one option for streaming most anime shows, but consumers have the option of, well, not watching anime at all. Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon all provide a much wider variety of programming to watch, and a lot more series as a whole, and from the standpoint of someone who wants to watch things but doesn't have any strong preferences, they have little reason to pick Crunchyroll's paid service over the other streaming services.
Last edited by leafy sea dragon on Tue Feb 14, 2017 4:00 pm; edited 1 time in total |
||||
|
||||
|
mangamuscle
Posts: 2658 Location: Mexico |
|
|||
Whoa, hold your horses right there. Let me point towards the elephant in the room. There was one and only one reason why fansubbing ever came into existance and that is because the top executives at media companies were not interested in marketing anime. Business has always being about getting the people what they want (and sometimes what they have yet to realize they want, see the iphone). So thanks to the amiga computer vhs anime fansubs started to appear. Fast forward to the present, we have anime streaming worldwide *hip* *hip* *hurray* But we still have restrictions thanks to the top executives at media companies. So I open the netflix app in my roku and see that they are still not streamining little witch academia, they can go **** themselves, I am going to see the fansub here and now. So I open the crunchy app and alas, the Koro-sensei Q! is not available in my country, well, you know the drill. So amazon prime expects me to pay in dollars for their overrated amazon prime video service and then expects me to pay for strike? well, I am NOT paying for that, that is why I became a cable cutter. It is not that fansubiing is in a battle with crunchy, it is that people everywhere wants to be treated as customers and treated accordingly. Of course, many will disagree with me and will strawman me, but the truth is that anime fansubbing is not going to disappear while this issues continue to exist, no matter how high a horse some people try to ride. |
||||
|
||||
|
leafy sea dragon
Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
|
|||
Again, you're not the sort of person I'm talking about. You have to resort to illegitimate means of getting your content because it's not legally available to you. That's different from someone who DOES get access to that content but still chooses to watch (or even create) fansubs because they want to thumb their nose at the industry. I don't believe for a second that everyone who ever watched fansubs did so due to lack of availability. I can buy that most did so for either a lack of availability or a lack of options of satisfactory quality, but there are many, many reasons why someone would choose to watch fansubs, one of them being that they feel it's an effort brought forth by love and not some cold corporate machine somewhere (even though the industry itself is full of passionate people, but it doesn't matter--they're getting PAID). I can say this with certainty because there's still a lot of this within the One Piece community. I would say that's the biggest divide among fans of that series. |
||||
|
||||
|
HeeroTX
Posts: 2046 Location: Austin, TX |
|
|||
Even today, the US anime companies are NOT competing with each other. US anime companies are (and have pretty much always been) competing with "fansubs". Heck, even the incredibly high priced Japanese industry is moving to stop "piracy". And as long as that's a real threat, the US companies can't afford to use monopoly tactics on their consumers, because they'll just go pirate more heavily. And if ANY company knows that it's CrunchyRoll. |
||||
|
||||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group