Forum - View topicHey, Answerman! - DEATH DECAY CHAOS
|
Goto page Previous 1, 2, 3, 4 Next Note: this is the discussion thread for this article |
| Author | Message | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Melanchthon
 Posts: 550 Location: Northwest from Here |
|
|||||
I guess I am one those five, but in my defense I don't like Cowboy Bebop. I thought it was a boring. ---- It used to be that the reason people bought anime was to watch anime. With streaming and fansubs, this is no longer the case. I think there are three core 'audiences' that need to be targeted. First, there is the collectors (I consider myself in this group). Collectors buy anime for the psychic benefits of collection. They are willing to pay large sums of money to have a rare item on the shelf. The collector group is small, but has deep pockets. The second group is the dub watchers. These fans buy anime to watch it dubbed, and they are willing to pay a premium for it. These fans are serviced by Funimation, who dubs everything. The final group is the frugal audience. These are fans that don't have deep pockets, but still want to support their hobby. These are your students or people hurt by the economy. The members of this group are willing to forgo a dub or bells and whistles if it means they can get the anime at an affordable price. So, to say that in the future all anime will be sold at $400 a pop is silly, because that only services one audience. As long as these audiences exist, companies will try to sell to them. It is quite possible that the advent of streaming will kill off dub-fans, but I doubt it will happen in the next ten years. |
||||||
|
||||||
|
MarineCorps
Posts: 36 |
|
|||||
Very much so. 
|
||||||
|
||||||
Optitron
 Posts: 46 |
|
|||||
Okay, here's what I don't get. Code Geass, Cowboy Bebop, Escaflowne, and every Gundam series ever created were all made by Sunrise. Sunrise is a wholly owned subsidiary of Namco-Bandai. Doesn't that therefore mean that the licenses for these shows only expire if Bandai feels like selling them off to someone else? I fully admit to having no understanding of the workings of the anime industry, but if I'm wrong then what exactly am I missing here? (This feels like it could be a full "Hey, Answerman!" question, but I'm guessing after this week Brian is going to be pretty burned out on Bandai-related questions, so I'd rather just drop it in this forum... which could be a huge mistake, but whatever  )
Last edited by Optitron on Fri Jan 06, 2012 7:03 pm; edited 1 time in total |
||||||
|
||||||
Mohawk52
 Posts: 8202 Location: England, UK |
|
|||||
|
||||||
|
||||||
agila61
 Posts: 3213 Location: NE Ohio |
|
|||||
(1) Bandai Entertainment is a US subsidiary of the Bandai group. (2) Sunrise is a Japanese subsidiary of the Bandai group (3) Plus other members of the various production committees involved Even though they both may have the same owners, the way that rights and revenues are managed is by Bandai Entertainment licensing the work for a period of time, with set Minimum Guarantee, royalty rates etc., and then (hopefully) all sides meet their contractual obligations and exercise their contractual rights and everything goes smoothly. Its not even automatically the case that Sunrise was the international licensor ~ it could have been another member of the production committee, which may have been another member of the Bandai group in some cases or a member of the production committee that was not a member of the Bandai group in others (broadcaster / advertising firm / manga publisher / etc.). Since Bandai Entertainment itself is not being shut down, it still possess its legacy rights, until the terms of the rights contracts expire. In the cases of particularly valuable franchises, the license would normally have been renewed, but now, instead, they will revert to their original owners.
Those who only watch free bit-torrents and fansubs are neither a majority nor a minority of the market ~ they are outside the markets and don't really count for a commercial entertainment industry except for whatever indirect impact they might have on the market. Decades of "free" commercial television has instilled the idea, perhaps particularly in the US, that "the audience" is what matters ~ but it only matters with respect to commercial entertainment to the extent that it can be monetized. And so, yes, the torrent downloaders and fansub viewers are quite like the White Elephant of Thai mythology, something that looms large in symbolism and myth, but in reality may not really be all that important. |
||||||
|
||||||
|
GATSU
Posts: 15378 |
|
|||||
Never say never. Dirty Pair and Gintama prove that Sunrise is clearly willing to outsource its content to non-Bandai entities. Is it just me, though, or is it hilariously ironic that the company is releasing K-On! as a boxset while complaining that boxes were the reason they can't stay in business? Last edited by GATSU on Sat Jan 07, 2012 12:22 am; edited 1 time in total |
||||||
|
||||||
penguintruth
 Posts: 8468 Location: Penguinopolis |
|
|||||
|
I can foresee Bandai Ent refusing to give up the licensing for Gundam at the same time they aren't producing any more physical media. Gundam will be in limbo.
|
||||||
|
||||||
Youkai Warrior
 Posts: 505 Location: Sarayashiki |
|
|||||
|
It's always sad to see a company go, especially one like Bandai, which was such a good anime company. While it seems like the anime industry is slowing down (it's been like that for a while btw), it's as someone said, it's not like Bandai "died", they are just bowing out gracefully. It really isn't like what it used to be. But since Bandai has bowed out, I think I better go ahead and grab Wolf's Rain and Gundam Wing. (Just Gundam Wing, I'm not into the rest of the Gundam franchise) before they run out, because I ain't paying an arm and a leg on amazon or ebay.
|
||||||
|
||||||
ss-hikaru
 Posts: 269 Location: Western Australia |
|
|||||
I'm the second one except I haven't watched it at all! (and have no desire to). |
||||||
|
||||||
Sippin Coffee
 Posts: 19 |
|
|||||
I'm certainly no 'doomsayer' but this Gundam fan is definitely concerned about my favorite IP. |
||||||
|
||||||
|
PetrifiedJello
Posts: 3782 |
|
|||||
I chuckled because I'm under the firm belief the question's never been asked by anyone currently employed at Bandai. |
||||||
|
||||||
bglassbrook
 Posts: 1243 Location: Gaithersburg, MD |
|
|||||
Number three checking in. I figured early-on that the show is too pretty to own in mere SD. Must be on the right track, considering how good it looks even just going through the basic upscaling for CN-HD. Who knows what may come, but this is one set of guns I plan to stick with come lunar explosion or high water. And tv (free or otherwise) didn't ruin anything, at least back when people understood & accepted (note: I didn't say LIKED) the purpose of ad-funded programs. I still sit through them when making my brief jaunts in online streaming, whether the variety of as-seen-on-tv from Hulu, the same-ad-every-time-on-every-show of On Demand or ANN's feeds, or those few precious times where you can get it all done up-front. They are doing their part, it's only right for us to return the favor. Though, with Bandai's expressed end-date, and their history with releases... is there a tacit understanding that they won't really finish releasing new content until March? |
||||||
|
||||||
|
agila61
Posts: 3213 Location: NE Ohio |
|
|||||
They will, without a doubt, finish releasing in February 2012. Though whether the second month of the year, February v1.0 or the third month of the year, February v2.0, that remains to be seen. |
||||||
|
||||||
|
Redd the Sock
Posts: 55 |
|
|||||
|
Guess I'll claim the title of 4th non-Beebop owner, and can throw in a couple of friends for 5th and 6th.
I actually think this might have been taken better if they had folded financially. That we can get. This, to me at least, was an incident boud to happen. We've all been at odds over pricing for years now, and it was only a matter of time before a comapny said "we can't please the casual fans wanting lower and lower prices, so we'll just say screw them, leave them to their torrents, and focus on the collector's market with really expensive items". It's a sign that the market isn't dying so much as it's a market companies don't want to cater to, which is far more frightening. |
||||||
|
||||||
Sheleigha
 Posts: 1673 |
|
|||||
I can't even do that, NBC is like Fox Jr. and put it on hiatus  Good shows on tv here are in the same boat as anime on tv, often getting moved to a crappy timeslot, or replaced/cancelled altogether :/
I know I need to pick up the last bits of Bandai media before it DOES become impossible to find... I have other priority purchases right now, but I'm not going to wait THAT long! Fortunately, I just need to grab the rest of Tales of the Abyss, some .hack//Root singles, and a bunch of the Code Geass novels/manga. At least all those got completed, but according to MyAnimeList, Code Geass: Knight hasn't ended? Queen is done, so I can get that, but I don't want to pick up an unfinished series. |
||||||
|
||||||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group