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Forum - View topicAnswerman - Why Is K MANGA Not a Subscription Service?
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ZeetherKID77
 Posts: 983 |
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Doesn't matter how much it benefits creators if the service is implemented so terribly to where it actively hurts customers. I'd love to know if any of the other apps that use a coin system go so far as to split chapters up or tell people to subscribe to the goddamn EPOCH TIMES of all things to get points.
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Shiroi Hane
Encyclopedia Editor
 Posts: 7584 Location: Wales |
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@Zeether Manga UP! Splits chapters up, and Alpha Manga offers all sorts of inane things to subscribe to or do surveys for to get points (tried doing a survey once, kept sending me to a different survey when I completed one and never gave me any points so I only read free chapters)
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ZeetherKID77
Posts: 983 |
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In that case then I have zero interest in this crap model. If they want to put Capeta and their other "exclusives" on Kindle or Nook so I can buy it that way I'll do that.
Their reasoning may be right but I hate it. Subscription models > coin system, enough said. The censorship answer is also stupid as hell. "We know it's censored, it'll be the same on the desktop app." So you're just not gonna bother to have an uncensored version? Way to lose more customers. |
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Lord Geo
Posts: 2702 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
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So, in other words, Kodansha can't figure out how to how to handle royalties for multiple people & places via a model that Viz, Crunchyroll, Hidive, Netflix, Hulu, and countless other services have long figured out. Yeah, that makes perfect sense, especially considering this line:
Which is what a subscription service model does. The more popular works get greater royalties via the subscription payments, because more people are watching/reading them. Nothing Kodansha is saying actually explains how a subscription service wouldn't actually work. |
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Saskatoonshred
Posts: 22 |
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They screwed themselves hard with this rollout. Another case of a Japanese company assuming the model they use on their domestic captive audience will workout abroad.
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Gem-Bug
 Posts: 1335 |
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By subscribing to Viz's SJ reader, I have access to pretty much the full runs of dozens and dozens of series. Now with their secondary reader, we have access to even more. And it's an incredibly negligible cost for the sheer amount of material you get. I subscribed originally for the current WSJ releases, but have checked out new series and re-read old favorites. With Kodansha's model, what happens with series/authors that less people are getting tickets for? Do they just end up with nothing where the subscription model would've gotten them some slice of the pie regardless? I bought a bunch of "Keys" on Comikey in order to finish Princess Cinderella last year, and while it was a new and annoying system for me, even that model seems better than Kodansha's. I bought 100 keys for $9.99, with chapters costing 3 keys each. It's been almost a year and all of the chapters I unlocked are still readable. |
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dragonquiz
Posts: 73 |
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Unsure about censored on the app (haven't touched it since a garbage manga app), but if its the same as the magazine version (or magapoke originals) then thats on par with the Japanese version. And they're really pushing more or less on you to buy the volume edition. Though on magapoke directly you can't for some reason, yet on comic-days you can? Kodansha be weird sometimes with those inconsistencies |
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kpossibles
Encyclopedia Editor
 Posts: 152 Location: USA |
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Some of these projects were probably Comixology Unlimited funded projects until Amazon decided to do away with it... unfortunately, I think it's was at least 6-12 months until those exclusive series ended up on other services to buy. I'm glad that I held off on Beck and it was eventually in a Humble Bundle. |
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NikamiYuhara
Posts: 51 |
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Really feels like they didn't choose the coin and ticket system because they really thought customers would be attracted to it, but just so it makes it easier for them to handle royalties, which plenty of other subscription services have proven royalties can be properly handed out on flat sub models. Also, I don't understand their logic at all about how a coin and ticket system entices people to read a more variety of series. Having to pay for every chapter to keep it will add up and not everyone wants to just rent a chapter with tickets if they like to go back to previous chapters or re-read without having to deal with tickets. And I imagine having to put more money into K Manga or any similar service will make people think more cautiously about what series they want to read. Also, the fact series are also being censored on the web version is a letdown as I assumed they were censored due to app store guidelines and while that is likely the case, I suppose they don't want to bother maintaining two different versions while other services like Viz would usually just make more mature titles only available on the web version. Hope any titles exclusive to K Manga, get physical or digital releases on other storefronts as I would have no issue supporting them via those means.
Last edited by NikamiYuhara on Fri May 26, 2023 8:47 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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ZeetherKID77
Posts: 983 |
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I really want to see how badly this blows up in their faces during their launch party.
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Covnam
 Posts: 3857 |
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I can't imagine people try more with an a la carte system over an all you can eat system. It's so odd to say that, you'd think they just wouldn't mention it at all. Unless their thinking is that since only the first chapter is free, you're encouraged to keep trying series until you find one you want to pay for, while with a subscription you might read more chapters of fewer series as you browse??? "We limit what you can read so you have to try more things!" is a weird way to promote yourself...
Thanks for getting that info, annoying as it is to see. I can understand that they might need to censor for app stores, but if they just put the same version on the web to save the trouble/cost of having to have two different versions, then they've lost me there. I prefer reading on a big screen over a phone or tablet, but I'm not going to pay for a worse version than could be found elsewhere. I'll still pick up the physical books for series I want to collect, but the buck stops there. Last edited by Covnam on Sat May 27, 2023 1:36 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Romuska
 Subscriber Posts: 814 |
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I really need to know who they’re censoring these manga for. That’s usually a contributing factor that leads to piracy. |
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Triltaison
 Posts: 800 |
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This is just as baffling to me, too. I genuinely don't understand what they're talking about here, because I only invest in something that offers multiple things of interest. If I want a single series, I'm just going to go buy that series and not jump through hoops to access it. One of the benefits of an app is that it can give access to a huge variety of series, but random gatekeeping doesn't make me want to try the product at all. I don't want to pay for the privilege of doing surveys. It's especially unattractive when there are competitors who let me read 200 chapters a day between two apps that don't make me do homework. And cost $5 a month to have both, to boot. And those can be whatever chapters I want. |
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Erufailon4
Posts: 202 Location: Finland |
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My first guess was app stores and their strict policies, but that doesn't explain why the browser version will also be censored. Honestly, they should've just went the Viz approach of not including mature-rated titles in the app version at all and having them uncensored on the website. |
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pip25
Posts: 187 |
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I'd vote with my wallet to show my utter distaste for these practices, but I guess KManga was not interested in getting any money from me in the first place, considering it's US only. How very nostalgic... And here I thought the industry was finally learning its lesson.
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