Forum - View topicDo you think anime is too expensive?
|
Goto page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 Next |
| Author | Message | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
The King of Harts
 Posts: 6712 Location: Mount Crawford, Virginia |
|
|||
|
I hear people always talk about how we're being ripped off by the industry when they charge $29.98 for one volume of anime. Immediately in my head I think, "Who the hell pays that much for a volume of anime?" I have 18 box sets that I bought brand new and I payed less than $30. I got all four volumes of Haibane Renmei for $24 and I could get all 7 volumes of My-Hime plus the LE box for $24 if I wanted to. Anime isn't even near expensive when you know what you're doing when it comes to shopping and know how to stretch out your dollar. But, there are people who think it's expensive and I think they fall partially, if not mostly, into one of three categories I have.
 The fisrt are the people who are bad shoppers and don't wait for sales or specials and buy it as soon as it comes out at retail price; this is usually a sign of poor patience. This mentality of MUST HAVE NOW is a bad way to buy anything.
-A sub-category of this is the shopper who doesn't know about a lot of shops or refuses to use another service. Pretty much anything you show me from Amazon or BestBuy I could get for $15 cheaper during a Rightstuf sale (or in the bargain bin). The second is the pro-piracy guy. Doesn't everything look expensive when compared to free? Even $8 seems expensive when you can get if free.
-A sub-category of this is the guy who's in high school without a source of income. When I was in high school I knew people on the track team who did both track and had a part-time job and still had time to go home and do school work. So this no job excuse younger people have is kind of null and void. College is a different beast because you have to support yourself and have little disposable income. The third is the guy who compares the prices to domestic products. That comparison is completely unfair because there are several things that come into play. One is it that more people will buy a movie or a show because they saw it on TV or saw it in theaters. Family guy can be cheap because it makes a lot of TV revenue and they're confident people will buy the show because they saw it on TV. Also, Hollywood movies make millions of dollars in a week so they can charge less because they made up most the money in theater revenue and will make up the difference in home movie sales (usually, there are always exceptions). People see hundreds of commercials for it or saw it in theaters and liked it and are more likely to pick it up. Anime has to be bought from the original creators, make a dub, hire translators, script adapters, audio mixers, directors, subbers, make DVD's, make cases, make cover art and hope people buy their stuff. They don't even know people will buy the show so they can charge more if the want. I think some people believe the industry, in America at least, is bigger than it actually is. Funimation is a bug on the bottom of Pixar's shoes.
-The sub category of this group is the $1.00 per episode guy. That's completely ludicrous. That's .40 for the dub, .30 for the sub, .20 for the subtitles and .10 for the extras. I could understand if you said a dollar per audio track, but not for the whole episode. Besides that would be $4 dollars for a disc that's 100 minutes, has two audios, a sub track, and usually has a handful of extras. I mean, "I Am Legend" is $13 dollars at Walmart and I don't even think it has subtitles for it's French language. Not to mention it made millions in the box office. This guy could also go under bad shopper because I have plenty of boxes that are less than $1.00 an episode. Princess Tutu for $24 (.92), MoonPhase for $23 (.88), and many more that don't even go more than $1.50 per episode. I know my singles are more than $1.00 an episode, but they're also OOP shows and still only go for $2.00 per ep so that's still cheaper than the $7.00 per ep that most people think. So many people use the argument of expensive anime for reasons to use piracy over buying, but in reality anime is no more expensive than other forms of visual media or any hobby at that. Let me hear some other opinions so I know if I'm in the majority or the minority here. |
||||
|
||||
|
Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18275 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
|
|||
|
You're forgetting one key thing in your analysis: that the kind of deals you're talking about on boxed sets typically only come on second-cycle boxed set releases which have been out for a while, and those second-cycle releases typically come a year or more after the initial releases. You're not going to find those kind of deals on first-run releases, even on bargain days at a place like Right Stuf. Same thing for the singles where you're getting them for only "$2 an episode;" that kind of price typically only comes a year or more after the fact on clearance items.
Also, people who are buying anime when it initially comes out are rarely paying "retail price" these days. I can't think of an anime title I've purchases on first release in the past couple of years that I didn't get with at least a 25% discount off of MSRP. Granted, that's not the kind of super-discount price you're talking about, but let's not use exaggeration to make your case here. Now, if you have the patience to wait an extra year or more for a series you badly want so you can buy it cheaper, more power to you. |
||||
|
||||
|
The King of Harts
Posts: 6712 Location: Mount Crawford, Virginia |
|
|||
|
Ok let's use Baccano, a show on it's first run, from Rightstuf. It's $22.49 for 105 minutes, 2 audios, a sub track, and whatever extras come with it. With a membership discount it's only $20.24. I find that very reasonable, but yet some find that absurd. I can't find the train of thought those people have.
I know my examples are based on 2nd run series, but I also don't think impatience is a reason to tag all anime as expensive. It's not like anime is so important that you have to buy it as soon as it hits the shelves. Waiting a year shouldn't be that big of deal to buy extremely cheap anime. I am more than willing to wait year for the box set of Baccano to come out so I can get a big discount on the singles + box and I am really looking forward to that show. In the meanwhile, though, I'll get My-Hime, Shuffle and others for cheap. I can't be the only here that thinks like this. |
||||
|
||||
EireformContinent
 Posts: 977 Location: Łódź/Poland (The Promised Land) |
|
|||
|
Giving a price in dollars doesn't make a sense if we want to see whole thing globally- you look just from Americans' point of view:)
Let's see how is it in Poland For example: 4 episodes of GTO 49.90 PLN(about 15.40$) without delivery. Wolfs Rain- the same prize, Utena Movie- a bit cheaper. Sounds great? Not when you have about 30$ monthly, have to buy things to school and monthly ticket. There was better time, but now there's no job for sutdents in spe in my town. No boxets, rare sales and really poor offer. Last year was only one series on DVD with dubbing. Comparing price and quality to my wallet it's really too expensive. Of course there are some cheaper movie relases, re-sellers and import DVDs ( Lady Oscar Komplettbox 43.95 euro) but I with that prices buying anime to see if I like it sounds strange to me. Anime is expensive, but what to do? Cry and pay. |
||||
|
||||
Blood-
 Bargain Hunter Posts: 23917 |
|
|||
Really? You have a hard time understanding why people find paying almost $7 per half hour episode expensive? Must be nice to be that rich. If that's the price that distribs have to charge to stay in business, then fair enough. I'd still love to be able to look into their books, though, to see what kind of profit margins they are making. |
||||
|
||||
|
evafan244
Posts: 2 |
|
|||
|
I'm the "third guy" you described. If you have some secret technique to finding a job that can pay for school, rent, food, gas, other necessities, and still have plenty of money for anime, then please share. I'm a pirate, and I purchase what I consider a masterpiece or something I am interested in watching again. If it's something I can view once and lose interest, I'll rent through Netflix, or pirate it.
|
||||
|
||||
Elfen12
 Posts: 479 Location: Bay Area |
|
|||
I'm fine with most of this post, fine meaning indifferent, except for this one little part. So about this Must Have Now basis being a bad way to shop. You must first look at both sides of the coin. There are two types of people who do this. One which you mentioned, the person with the poor patience. The second is the person who doesn't care about the pricing, but perhaps later in conversation will mention that anime is expensive. Sure he's talking about it's prices, but honestly, he just flat out doesn't care. To him, the actual owning of the anime is more important to the price. He won't care whether or not it's expensive, if it comes out, he's going to buy it because he wants to own it. It might sound absurd to some people (actually depending on what type of people you are, middle class, upper class, lower class), but there are people like that. Collectors and people of upper class, i know this because as a middle class family, i live in a city of the highest of upper class families (slightly like in Ouran, although not as exagerated). So to say it's a bad way to shop, may be legitament to point out to the ones with poor patience, but to the collectors, it isn't. One can say though that, financially it's a bad way to shop, but if people don't care about the money as much as owning the series, then it's the best way to shop. That is the only flaw in your arguement that i care to point out. -Elfen12- |
||||
|
||||
Zin5ki
 Posts: 6680 Location: London, UK |
|
|||
|
I'll never be able to benefit from Rightstuf specials, as they're not friendly for foreign customers. As for anime titles in bargain bins, they're something I've yet to see with my own eyes.
Though most online retailers discount products' prices compared to the MSRP, the additional fees I pay for delivery often offset this reduction. Despite these circumstantial hindrances, I know the sites I can shop with to avert or minimise the chances of being stung by import VAT, and I'm willing to sacrifice socialising and higher-quality food to continue to buy anime. Naturally however, the rate at which I do so perhaps cannot match that of people in Region 1 with an equivalent spending budget to mine. Ultimately, anime is expensive, but so are living and travel costs; I'm at a stage in my fandom where high anime prices have become part of my everyday life, due to my aforementioned sacrifices. Perhaps it'd be better for me to refer to anime, or at least to anime in the small volume in which I purchase it, as expensive for those to whom it isn't a normal expense. |
||||
|
||||
|
Key
Moderator
Posts: 18275 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
|
|||
Um, they clearly aren't making much of one, or Geneon and CPM would still be active, ADV wouldn't have had the troubles they did, etc. The perception by some fans that American anime-importing companies are getting rich off of this because of the prices they're charging is a total fallacy. It wasn't until last year that the changes in production and/or licensing costs made the first-run half-season boxed sets feasible, and those are typically around $4.50-5 per episode at MSRP. (Of course, I know based on other threads that you also don't have a positive opinion on those, either.) EDIT: Fixed typo. Last edited by Key on Mon Jun 22, 2009 8:57 am; edited 1 time in total |
||||
|
||||
Labbes
 Posts: 890 |
|
|||
I know your problem. 5$ per DVD sounds great, but for me it's 7$, and in 1 out of 2 cases, 30% more thanks to tolls. Awesome. Then again, a German DVD costs at least 13$, MSRP is 45$. Thanks to that, I usually buy just box sets, but I mostly consider the anime, and not the price. I nearly bought Texhnolyze for 80$, got Haruhi for 55$ and Kaleido Star S1 for 45$ - shortly afterwards, the two-season pack got announced 
I wanted to buy Baccano! as singles+artbox, but I didn't have any money then, so now I'm just going to wait for the box. I have a list of things I want to buy, including anime, "normal" DVDs, books, games and music. I don't drink much alcohol, which makes my wallet so big I can spend my money for other stuff. Christmas and my birthday also give me money I always spend at least partly for the things listed above. As long as I like something, I don't care about price*. I will just spend less money afterwards. Of course, that means I have to be able to preview something, but not necessarily seeing the whole thing. With nearly all my favorite shows, I could tell after the first episode I would love them. I sure as hell would not blind-buy Texhnolyze for 80$. *I'm even tempted to buy Shadow of the Colossus for 80$ even though I haven't played it yet. Edit: What a messy post that was. I hope I'm making sense 
|
||||
|
||||
Mushi-Man
 Posts: 1537 Location: KCMO |
|
|||
I don't see that as being "absurd", I see it as to expensive for me. That is just one volume of a 4 volume series. In the end you'll be paying almost $90 for 16 episodes. Now I do really like this series, but I'm not going to pay that much for just 16 episodes. I think that anime can be expensive, but this is to be expected. These are products that run a high cost just to give them a good release (the price of dubing and licensing). So I can understand high cost to an extent. But some times companies try to milk it a bit to much. This happened with Geneon, and look where that got them. But there are allot of ways to find the titles that you want at the prices that you want. All you have to do is keep an eye out for good deals and try to avoid the temptation to just run out and buy everything as it comes out. If you just wait a while prices will drop and things will go on sale. I'd also suggest that if your trying to save money, avoid buying volumes in their first cycle. These new volumes tend to be more expensive then they need to be. If you just wait a bit the price will drop like a rock. |
||||
|
||||
|
PetrifiedJello
Posts: 3782 |
|
|||
Given the research I've done on distributors, these companies had troubles at their own doing. Geneon's demise came from them trying to box trinkets with their full price offerings, being undercut by competitors. CPM seemed only to pick up titles they thought would be popular. Limit supply is death in a fickle market. There are rumors internal management decisions also played a huge factor in their demise. As for ADV, I'm clearly not understanding their situation if financially unstable. Given its title base, prices, and distribution methods (most of which requires a monthly service fee), the only thing I can fathom is internal management is at fault. ADV's problems have been years in the making, though, and even Sentai Filmworks isn't helping. I don't consider anime expensive, but at the same time, I don't buy new releases either. Much like my video games, I let those who can't wait contribute to the profit margin. As for me, a year wait and cheaper cost is what I'm all about. Of course, there are exceptions to this. Had Clannad been dubbed, that would be in my collection even at $70. It's sequel would also be right next to it. I'm not sure why distributors don't stop wasting time with singles and two part box sets. Just release a box set for $50 and be done with it. |
||||
|
||||
|
Labbes
Posts: 890 |
|
|||
Actually, the answer to that might be simple: Because it's not enough. Shows like Battlestar Galactica sell for nearly that price and they have had a TV run to make money. Anime doesn't work that way, I'm afraid. |
||||
|
||||
|
Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 23917 |
|
|||
You may very well be right. I'm still curious, however, about the distribs that are left, like Funimation. I would love to know what their profit margins are. |
||||
|
||||
HyugaHinata
 Posts: 3505 |
|
|||
The quickest way would be to join their accounting division. You wouldn't be able to spread their financial information without their consent, though. |
||||
|
||||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group