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Forum - View topicNEWS: Digital Manga Sales Up 29.5% in Japan in 2019
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encrypted12345
Posts: 723 |
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I think it's a bit misleading to relate the closure of a pirate website to the increase of digital sales. Correlation doesn't equal causation. Maybe digital manga storefronts improved in such a way to encourage such sales. It's not like there was only that one pirate website; there are plenty of raw manga scan websites still out there.
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Яeverse
 Posts: 1146 Location: Indianapolis |
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oh yeah digital manga AND light novels are rising. Keep on keeping on with my favorite times of literature.
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El Hermano
 Posts: 450 Location: Texas |
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I doubt they have any substantial proof at all that links the two together, but much like the "1 download = 1 lost sale" argument that was ruled unfounded by the courts back in the mid 2000s, it's a talking point that makes for good PR. |
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Sailor Sedna
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Call me old-school, but I will never, in my entire life, get the appeal of reading books/novels/manga digitally.
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lossthief
ANN Reviewer
 Posts: 1440 |
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While doubtlessly there isn't a 1-to-1 ratio, it is absolutely certain that stamping out piracy hubs and scan sites helps push sales and readership of official releases. Shueisha's MANGA Plus releases saw huge spikes in readership of their simulpub series literally the week after 2 piracy/scanlation sites announced they were shutting down, with some series more than doubling the number of hits they received from the week prior. There's of course more nuance than just Stop Piracy = Profit, but to say that there's no link between publishers working to take down pirate sites and a nearly 30% increase in digital sales is nonsense. |
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a_Bear_in_Bearcave
Posts: 549 Location: Poland |
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Not having to bother with library, both its physical space and management, or choosing which books to take with you in travel? Seems to me the appeal is pretty obvious. The biggest downside in case of DRM-ed ones is that it's hard to lend them. |
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steelmirror
 Posts: 342 |
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It seems common sense that taking down a prominent pirating site in the same time period that saw a boost in online sales has some kind of link, though. Common sense isn't always accurate, but barring negative evidence to the contrary it looks likely. Either way, I'm happy the industry seems to be doing well! Hope some of that windfall is trickling down to the mangaka, and especially their assistants and other unsung creative types doing lots of drudge work for little reward. |
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DavetheUsher
 Posts: 505 |
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Usually the burden of proof is on the one making the original claim. All one needs to do is look at how the digital market has expanded each year and it shouldn't really be a surprise to see numbers like this. Double digit increases over previous years happens every year. 2018 had a 17.6% increase. Digital manga is a vast growing market in Japan and is gaining ground each year, regardless if one specific pirate site is around or not. If anything boosted sales it would probably be the Kimetsu no Yaiba boom giving people a new big series to binge since a couple years ago AJPEA said the ending of big series and lack of new ones was why growth dropped. After all, couldn't pirates buy physical as well? Why would digital keep growing and growing while print decreased? |
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Blanchimont
 Posts: 3563 Location: Finland |
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I too doubt the takedown had that much to do with the numbers. A slight effect perhaps.
4,3% drop in physical down to 1236 billion, and 23,9% rise in digital up to 307,2 billion, those increase/decrease numbers in monetary value are almost identical when put side by side, only a sliver higher in favor of the digital increase. People simply shifted from physical to digital... |
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tfwnoymir
 Posts: 324 Location: Hungary |
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While I'm glad that Mangaplus exist, the way it works defeats its purpose: for most manga only the first 3 and the last 3 chapters are available, so that makes it impossible to catch up to most people. So unless you followed some of these titles to the latest chapters - and you could only do that through aggregator sites if you live in the wrong region - the site is basically useless except for the Jump+ titles that have all their chapters up digitally. For example Neverland only has their volumes translated up to 13 and we're way past that. Obviously translating volumes and chapters are different, but I think most people would get where I want to go with this.
I hate to cite Gabe Newell on this, but he basically said defeating piracy is a matter of convenience and judging by the digital sales of PC games since then, he was proven right, at least about that. I wish streaming sites and manga publishers could do the same: we're getting at the right direction, but we're still very far away from the ideal. And doing away with geo blocking would do wonders on that regard, but I won't hold my breath. |
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Ushio
Posts: 635 |
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Reading a book on an e-reader is no different than a book with the added bonus of built in light and zoom. Not to mention the space saving. I stopped buying new physical media simply because I no longer have room in my house for more. |
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Maidenoftheredhand
 Posts: 2634 |
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Same I used to be against digital manga too but lack of space made it a necessity. Now I buy all my manga digitally. In a perfect world I wish I could collect manga in print but the world is not perfect. I will say since getting a Kindle I actually read more manga now. In fact I bought the first hardback volume of Rose of Versailles which is beautiful but I have no clue where I am going to put the 5 volume series. |
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ThrowMeOut
Posts: 265 |
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Ditto. Used to also be anti-digital, then I actually got a proper E-reader. It's quite lovely and is now my preferred way of reading. Only thing that really annoys me is that publishers are still trying to charge me the same price as a physical copy. Subtract the price of paper, shipping and storage, please. |
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