From the same Comics Alliance post that announced that the Ultimate line was also going to include download codes in its print editions, here’s Marvel’s VP of sales David Gabriel:
If the digital comics going same day as print had taken off like this monster sales horse and destroyed the in-store comic shop sales of those print books… they wouldn’t have sold out each time we did another one. The retailers wouldn’t have been looking across the board for second prints on those books. Reorders wouldn’t have been coming in on the books. I think people thought at the beginning that everyone was just gonna turn to digital to get the book and not go up to a retail shop, and we watched that not be the case time and time again.
So, more talk about the digital audience not undercutting the direct market audience significantly. With both Marvel and DC claiming this, how long before we see a price cut on the day-date releases? After all, $3.99 for 20 pages of content digitally really feels overpriced, in a way that it doesn’t in print. If publishers really believe that the two markets are different, then would cutting the cost of one truly affect the other that much…?
November 10th, 2011 at 2:47 pm
With all due respect to Gabriel, it’s more than a bit disingenuous how he (and his counterparts at DC) keep suggesting that the notion of print and digital as two different markets is a “conclusion” that they’ve reached from “testing the market” and results from inherent differences between the two mediums, rather than being the outcome they’ve deliberately sought by erecting artificial barriers to the success of digital that aren’t actually justified by the economics of digital publishing.
November 10th, 2011 at 3:14 pm
By the way, how can anyone argue that $3.99 for 20 pages ISN’T overpriced? Name me another entertainment medium whose price increases in the past 20 years have exceeded inflation by triple-digit percentages and I might agree.
And yes, I know that that’s due largely to production costs and not just publishers being greedy, but that’s the point – they’re now so expensive relative to other entertainment media that they’ll never be anything more than a luxury product for nerds. Not in the current Direct Market Uber Alles business model, anyway.
November 10th, 2011 at 3:53 pm
Spot on twice, Barry.
November 10th, 2011 at 3:53 pm
Frankly, it’s about damn time this is happening. The only thing I don’t care for is the polybag, which I think would discourage the more casual reader.
Maybe Marvel should look at using the scratch-off technique instead for code redemption. (Which only occurred to me after seeing the GI Joe post above.) Of course, that would probably involve having little fold-in cards added, which no one really likes.
November 11th, 2011 at 7:10 am
I agree that $3.99 for 20 pages is overpriced, regardless of medium.
With that out of the way, I also disagree that digital should be inherently much cheaper due to not having to print/distribute. rather than printing and distributing, they still have to give a chunk of the profit to the digital platform, and with Comixology’s retailer incentive program, some of it goes to the retailer as well. Also, it takes time & resources to create the guided view for each comic, which I’m sure is factored in as well. Should it be $0.50 to $1.00 cheaper? probably, but I think all of the people crying for 99 cent comics haven’t factored in the costs for making the comics available digitally and making them enjoyable on all platforms.
November 11th, 2011 at 3:38 pm
Weeji, while I wouldn’t say new comics shouldn’t be .99, older comics certainly should. And the cost to make that happen – which only needs to be done once – would certainly quickly be outweighed by the money made in the long run.
Platforms is a bit of a problem, yes, since companies simply refuse to make things as simple as possible. For example, there’s nothing wrong with CBR/CBZ, but they’ll never use it.
November 13th, 2011 at 7:38 pm
If they started selling digital copies of books for $.99 then you would start seeing a bigger difference in sales between them and the print editions.
The companies have to inflate the prices of digital for the benefit of their print retailers. They don’t want to poison the retail market before they have digital all figured out.
As for the price differences, I can’t imagine inputting the files into the reader software costs more than printing and shipping. Add in the fact that retailers only pay (roughly) half of cover price, and the companies are netting a lot more money.