Does fansubbing/scanslations hurt sales??

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by Ledgem

And to return to your statement about gamers, I think the otaku culture is a bit more involved than the "gamer" culture. Gamers call themselves gamers when they play videogames a few hours a week. Otaku are only really otaku if they're practically living and breathing anime (you know them when you see them).

While I agree with your take on Otaku, I disagree with your take on gamers.

Most of today's most popular games are very in-depth and involved.

World of Warcraft is a good example of this, where becoming a top player in the game requires countless hours of developing your character.

Many RPGs also require a lot of time to play.

Speaking personally, I had to almost completely give up on playing video games to make time to watch all the anime I wanted to watch and become more heavily involved in the on-line anime fan community.

And this, I think, might be one of the big problems for anime in North America - it's in competition , to a great degree, with video games.

I think that it's a rare person that can balance an in-depth anime fandom with an in-depth gaming life and still have time to deal with the basic requirements of day-to-day living in today's world (work, school, etc...).

So, I actually think that the strength of the anime market may be inversely proportional to the strength of the gaming market.

And this is where I think fansubs/scanslations might be hurting sales.

They send the implicit message that anime is cheap and that anybody, anywhere can get into it if they merely have regular access to PC or a laptop (which most kids to young adults today do, I would think).

The gaming industry, however, is a fairly expensive habit. PS3s, Wiis, and X-Boxs aren't cheap, and each individual game is around the cost of a good DVD.

At some level, I think people get the message "Anime is cheap and easy", and "Gaming is an important monetary investment where money is exchanged for valued ownership of goods and fun."

This gives gaming a big edge in the competition with anime.

To the extent that someone is into both gaming, and anime, to a fair degree, I find that this is the most common outcome...


Loads and loads and loads of money are spent on numerous video games, and video game consoles.

90% to 100% of the anime material owned is downloaded off the internet (for free) and burned onto blank CDs.

There might be a few anime DVDs that were actually purchased off the internet, or in a store, but they massively pale in comparison to the bought-and-paid-for extensive video game collection.

Now... imagine if anime was getting just 50% of the business that video games are getting from a consumer like this.

[Banditopants]

I have a friend who bought the dvd of Negima basically for special features, we still watch it subbed but he bought the DVD anyways, so I guess it might actually improve sales, or break near even, those who buy it and those who would've bought it if a sub wasn't available.

[SeijiSensei]

Originally Posted by Ledgem

It isn't terribly looked down upon for a single child to live with their parents, either. In fact, "parasite singles" is a phenomenon that refers to people who are single and continue to live with their parents even as adults.

As always, I like to examine the empirical support for our common perceptions of Japanese demographics. As a result I turned to the Japanese Census. This table presents the age/sex breakdown of household members by relation to head of household. The data are quite stunning:

Males                     Total              Children
20 ～ 24                 3,020,579    2,499,618  (83%)
25 ～ 29                 3,748,966    2,224,398  (59%)
30 ～ 34                 3,622,488    1,311,036  (36%)
35 ～ 39                 3,524,797      908,071  (26%)

Females
20 ～ 24                 3,301,685    2,537,981  (77%)
25 ～ 29                 4,230,561    1,934,909  (46%)
30 ～ 34                 3,983,318      869,508  (22%)
35 ～ 39                 3,785,022       469,892  (12%)

Nearly three out of five 25-29 year-old men are living at home along with just under half of the women. Even among those in their late thirties, a quarter of all men are living with parents as are an eighth of the women.

These figures are from 2000. The continued stagnation* of the Japanese economy has probably inceased the population of still-at-home adults.


____________________

*The chart near the top of this page portrays how the growth of Japanese gross domestic product comes to a rather abrupt halt by the mid-1990's.

[LiberLibri]

Originally Posted by Ledgem

...In Japan it's expected that a parent will take care of the child's education expenses. Practically all of my Japanese teachers mentioned that they took on part-time jobs simply to have even more disposable income (just because they could, because universities in Japan are easy - that's what they said). It isn't terribly looked down upon for a single child to live with their parents, either. In fact, "parasite singles" is a phenomenon that refers to people who are single and continue to live with their parents even as adults. It's recognized as a potentially growing social problem, but the fact that it's so prevalent shows that it's considered at least somewhat acceptable. I've heard that living with one's parents until marriage is somewhat similar in Europe (Egypt and Italy specifically; probably other nations as well)...

Some courses in some universities in Japan are actually easy. Suppose nearly half of a generation go to colleges; there is certain demand for “universities” for lazy dummies. You can enter some colleges without actual examination (since the number of applicants is smaller than the capacity), and graduate without learning something. They are leisure lands for the youth to enjoy the four-years-moratorium. But of course you cannot generalise such situation to the whole academies. If so, how does Japanese society maintain the developed industries? Students in more than decent colleges are as busy as you. Possibly your teacher told his/her personal experience.

Students don't have to pay the fee, no, in most cases. I myself am studying on my own earning, I also pay all the living expenses, but such situation is exceptional. Most undergraduates (no matter whether they are in “hard” courses or not) sustain their lives on the parents' property or scholarships. They must buy the textbooks and instruments, but the prices are less expensive (I was astonished to know how costly books are in Europe!). Therefore I think it is fact that Japanese otaku-s in colleges are more advantageous than the counterparts in some other societies.

However, as you know, Japanese otaku-s comprise not only by the college students (though they may be typically caricaturised). I daresay those in full-time working posts are the main customers of DVDs for they cannot watch the programmes on TV.

I won't insist funsubs be evil or should perish; at least it has promoted international communication and understanding on Japanese culture and society. When you get older and wealthier, invest for anime industry, and it would compensate for the parasite period. What irritates me most is that some funsub lovers are even unaware that they are parasites. I'm afraid that some day they start to asserting that they have the RIGHT to enjoy animes for free. Everything-Free atmosphere surely deprives the people of the respect for the creators, causing moral hazards, and will finally smash the possibility of the culture.

[LiberLibri]

And, as for the scanslations, there is no excuse like the high price, preview function, or "Japanese can enjoy them on TV!". We can buy the original works via amazon.co.jp. Literacy? It is much easier to read foreign language texts than to understand ongoing movie shows. They should just perish.

[tripperazn]

Originally Posted by LiberLibri

What irritates me most is that some funsub lovers are even unaware that they are parasites. I'm afraid that some day they start to asserting that they have the RIGHT to enjoy animes for free. Everything-Free atmosphere surely deprives the people of the respect for the creators, causing moral hazards, and will finally smash the possibility of the culture.

I'm afraid that's already happened in recent years. I've been quite enamored with the "by fans, for fans" since I've known about fansubs, but when the fans producing them and the fans enjoying them have a different culture even among each other (see the fansub board), that's troubling. I'm sorry to say fansubbers don't get enough respect these days, with leechers demanding their fansubs a certain way, or within a certain time frame after the raw release. Respect for the original creators? I doubt many people even know which studio created their anime, like Naruto and Bleach (both Studio Pierrot).

I defend the principle of fansubbing, but I still detest the current leecher culture that's been fostered.

Originally Posted by LiberLibri

And, as for the scanslations, there is no excuse like the high price, preview function, or "Japanese can enjoy them on TV!". We can buy the original works via amazon.co.jp. Literacy? It is much easier to read foreign language texts than to understand ongoing movie shows. They should just perish.

Actually the manga outside Japan is hugely overpriced, most of them for $10/tankoubon, it used to be more before manga went mainstream. From the scanlated covers of manga, I can see that most of them sell for ~500円, which is about $4, well, $5 now that the dollar has completely crashed. Also, we don't have manga publications such as Shounen Sunday, or Dengeki G which are extremely cheap ($2-3 per issue) and offer the weekly chapters. Sure, Shounen Jump has started, I think, but it's still a long way from what you have in Japan.

I'd also contest that reading is easier than listening, I have much less difficulty with raw anime than manga. If the manga is seinen, without furigana, I likely wouldn't even bother trying.

[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

While I agree with your take on Otaku, I disagree with your take on gamers.

Most of today's most popular games are very in-depth and involved.

You're examining MMORPGs. It's personal preference whether you want to call those people gamers or not, but because they spend so much time on a single game I don't think that even they identify themselves as gamers. More like they identify themselves as "WoWers" or "EQers" - whatever game they play. If they're playing on a subscription-based server then they're paying money to that one company, but these people also don't really represent gamers in terms of economics because while they're potentially spending loads of time, they're not buying a whole lot.

You also neglected the piracy aspect of games (ROMs, mod chips, etc.). How much does piracy hurt games sales and how many gamers pirate? I don't really know, but I'd imagine that the levels of game piracy are about on par with the levels of fansubbing. (relative, I'm in a hurry and can explain what I mean later if you want to contest it)

Originally Posted by LiberLibri

Some courses in some universities in Japan are actually easy. Suppose nearly half of a generation go to colleges; there is certain demand for “universities” for lazy dummies. You can enter some colleges without actual examination (since the number of applicants is smaller than the capacity), and graduate without learning something. They are leisure lands for the youth to enjoy the four-years-moratorium. But of course you cannot generalise such situation to the whole academies. If so, how does Japanese society maintain the developed industries? Students in more than decent colleges are as busy as you. Possibly your teacher told his/her personal experience.

My teachers told me their experiences and this was also in my Japanese textbook (put out by the Japan Times, "An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese" I believe is the title). Of course, that doesn't make it true. But the understanding is that you study like hell when you're in high school to get into a big-name university, and then you have it made. You get your job more based on the reputation of your university than the work you've done in it. I believe you're Japanese, so I'll trust you if you say that such a thing isn't true or doesn't apply to the majority, but those are some interesting sources you're going up against.

I won't insist funsubs be evil or should perish; at least it has promoted international communication and understanding on Japanese culture and society. When you get older and wealthier, invest for anime industry, and it would compensate for the parasite period. What irritates me most is that some funsub lovers are even unaware that they are parasites. I'm afraid that some day they start to asserting that they have the RIGHT to enjoy animes for free. Everything-Free atmosphere surely deprives the people of the respect for the creators, causing moral hazards, and will finally smash the possibility of the culture.

100% agreed, couldn't have said it better myself.

[raikage]

Originally Posted by tripperazn

Also, the distributors need to understand that this is NOT the same "otaku market" that they have in Japan. We are NOT willing to spend $30 on a DVD containing 2 episodes because various paraphernalia are included. Trying to make sales while preventing reverse importing is dumb, especially with the industry in it's dying state. Frankly, they need to change. They are providing a product that is IMO, inferior to even fanmade productions. Quality groups like Eclipse-SS have IMO, better subs than official R1 releases. When professionals can't have a clear edge over amateurs, they shouldn't expect to make money.

Two items:

- The extras don't significantly add to the cost of the DVD. They're there as a bonus, to entice those who have downloaded fansubs to purchase the product. "We know you already downloaded and keep the series on CD's... but in return for actually buying it this time, you'll get some pins and a T-shirt!" A little weak, but what can you do? The core product is already out there on the Interwebs and the companies need a way to convince people to buy it.

- Fansubs generally aren't at the same level of professional translators.
This is not a knock against fansubbers, because they are very good at their work, but the professionals get to work off scripts, rather than going by ear.
Taking time to read > listening in real-time.

Originally Posted by WanderingKnight

Should I repeat my "die, American anime industry, die!" stance again?

If the American anime industry dies, it probably means a new way of catering to the public has been born. One that doesn't require distributing middlemen, who leech off the artists' talent, to exist.

The middlemen pay the Japanese companies. They're hardly leeching.

[tripperazn]

Originally Posted by raikage

Two items:

- The extras don't significantly add to the cost of the DVD. They're there as a bonus, to entice those who have downloaded fansubs to purchase the product. "We know you already downloaded and keep the series on CD's... but in return for actually buying it this time, you'll get some pins and a T-shirt!" A little weak, but what can you do? The core product is already out there on the Interwebs and the companies need a way to convince people to buy it.

- Fansubs generally aren't at the same level of professional translators.
This is not a knock against fansubbers, because they are very good at their work, but the professionals get to work off scripts, rather than going by ear.
Taking time to read > listening in real-time.

Well, yeah, that was exactly my point. It's to counter Japanese P2P and raw distribution, but most R1 releases are just disks, no merchandise there.

Also, most leechers can't even tell the difference between a speed sub and a quality sub. Those who can are probably fansubbers themselves. You'll never convince enough of them to make a difference. Once in a while, there are sharp ones who notice the discrepancy between lines, but that's once in a blue moon.

[raikage]

But you said that the R1 releases are inferior... not that people couldn't tell the difference. Those are two different statements.

[tripperazn]

Originally Posted by raikage

But you said that the R1 releases are inferior... not that people couldn't tell the difference. Those are two different statements.

Well...I'm generally not to taken with "professional" level work in R1. It's really more of a personal opinion than fact, as someone with very limited Japanese. Specifically, I dislike the fact that they tend to use more localized language, instead of giving more literal translations and only localizing out of necessity. Yes, I do realize it's a "higher level" of translation, but when you're hearing "メロンパン" and reading "donut", it just strikes me in the wrong way.

In the end, if people can't tell the difference, how are they supposed to justify the cost? R1s are no different than fansubs to them, really, except that they cost money.

[Aird]

Originally Posted by Ledgem

If they're playing on a subscription-based server then they're paying money to that one company, but these people also don't really represent gamers in terms of economics because while they're potentially spending loads of time, they're not buying a whole lot.

I wouldn't say that's always true. There's a secondary market that people pay real money for game currency, items, or power leveling. When I used to play WoW, there was guild mates that would spend hundreds of dollars for gold. It was much quicker for them to work at there job then to sit around and farm money in the game. For those people, time is more important than money. Some games such as Second Life, the game company itself supports exchanging of real currency for game currency.

Originally Posted by tripperazn

Well, yeah, that was exactly my point. It's to counter Japanese P2P and raw distribution, but most R1 releases are just disks, no merchandise there.

Those R2 releases also costs 2x as much as R1. R1 have offered a ton of extras such as the Haruhi LE releases. Those ended up msrp of ~$60, twice as much as the regular releases. If you want extras, expect to pay for it. It's just rare in R1 probably because most R1 fans don't want to pay for those extras such as drama cds, figures, etc.

[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by Aird

I wouldn't say that's always true. There's a secondary market that people pay real money for game currency, items, or power leveling. When I used to play WoW, there was guild mates that would spend hundreds of dollars for gold. It was much quicker for them to work at there job then to sit around and farm money in the game. For those people, time is more important than money. Some games such as Second Life, the game company itself supports exchanging of real currency for game currency.

The secondary market is like a black market. eBay and many other sites banned the sales of game characters and game items for real money partially because those actions were hurting the sales of the game companies. It meant that a person could buy into a high-level character, rather than taking the time to build up their own character (and time = money when on a subscription). It arguably turned off many other players to the game, because what fun is it if people are just buying into it?

Either way, the money exchanged there doesn't benefit game companies, just other people. The big picture that we're all discussing is about money going back to the industry from the fans. There is an MMORPG economic model used by companies where it's free to play, pay for special items, but this isn't what you brought up.

As for Second Life, I don't believe it ever billed itself as a game. Second Life was made to be a sort of virtual social scene. In fact, that's what it is - Second Life isn't a game at all! And after writing that I read over the Wikipedia article briefly and found this:

While Second Life is sometimes referred to as a game, this description does not fit the standard definition. It does not have points, scores, winners or losers, levels, an end-strategy, or most of the other characteristics of games. There are, however, several games within Second Life, e.g., international football (soccer) matches

Second Life is a virtual world based on getting people to invest real things for game things. It's similar to the way eBay works, and why eBay likes it when people use PayPal. You put real money into PayPal, and when enough people are using PayPal, no real money is actually being transferred. What gets transferred between two PayPal users is nothing more than credits - PayPal dollars, if you want to call it that. PayPal isn't losing any real money, but rather they're taking in real money from other people and exchanging it for their own currency. (This is partially also why people have a hard time getting their PayPal dollars back into real money.) LindenLabs (makers of Second Life) want people to start investing real money for "Linden Dollars" in the hopes that their virtual world will attract enough people to put money into it. It doesn't cost them a thing to hand out Linden Dollars, but every bit of real money that goes to them is pure profit.

I'd just like to draw back to what the original mentioning about gamers was. Lythka (Toua) stated that the Otaku niche and the gamer niche are incredibly similar, and I disagreed. Someone disagreed with my disagreement and cited MMORPGs as people who played games obsessively. I disagreed with that in the greater context - stereotypical otaku live and breathe anime, and they've probably spent thousands of dollars on DVDs, rare figurines, and so on. An addicted MMO player is not a part of the "gamer niche" because they're simply playing one game (and hence would probably not identify with being a "gamer" so much as an "MMO'er (WoWer, etc.)") and because they're limited to one game and the subscription (if that), they're not even spending nearly as much as "hardcore gamers" or even anime otaku. (And just to clarify, when I say "spending" I don't just mean giving money away to anywhere, I mean using that money on official products that these people are fans of.)

[cyth]

Originally Posted by Ledgem

I'd just like to draw back to what the original mentioning about gamers was. Lythka (Toua) stated that the Otaku niche and the gamer niche are incredibly similar, and I disagreed. Someone disagreed with my disagreement and cited MMORPGs as people who played games obsessively. I disagreed with that in the greater context - stereotypical otaku live and breathe anime, and they've probably spent thousands of dollars on DVDs, rare figurines, and so on. An addicted MMO player is not a part of the "gamer niche" because they're simply playing one game (and hence would probably not identify with being a "gamer" so much as an "MMO'er (WoWer, etc.)") and because they're limited to one game and the subscription (if that), they're not even spending nearly as much as "hardcore gamers" or even anime otaku. (And just to clarify, when I say "spending" I don't just mean giving money away to anywhere, I mean using that money on official products that these people are fans of.)

I think you've taken Triple_R's excerpt about MMORPG out of context. I got the feeling he wanted to demonstrate what kinds of messages gaming and anime industries send out to consumers and that the anime market is in competition with the gaming market for the same buck, the latter getting more of it. This is where your theory about social differences between Japan and northwestern countries comes in; the American entertainment market isn't capable of offering niche "media mix" properties, because a random Dragonball Z game for PS2 still largely competes with Dragonball Z DVDs (let's disregard the possibility of them having the same licensor), and DBZ isn't even a niche property; and also my theory of priorities vs. financial difficulties. All of these opinions tie in nicely, tripperazn and I just started talking about very different things that just seemed to be the same thing. He was saying the Japanese have more disposable income than northwestern countries, I was saying northwestern countries have disposable income that they allocate according to their priorities.

[Aird]

Originally Posted by Ledgem

I'd just like to draw back to what the original mentioning about gamers was. Lythka (Toua) stated that the Otaku niche and the gamer niche are incredibly similar, and I disagreed. Someone disagreed with my disagreement and cited MMORPGs as people who played games obsessively. I disagreed with that in the greater context - stereotypical otaku live and breathe anime, and they've probably spent thousands of dollars on DVDs, rare figurines, and so on. An addicted MMO player is not a part of the "gamer niche" because they're simply playing one game (and hence would probably not identify with being a "gamer" so much as an "MMO'er (WoWer, etc.)") and because they're limited to one game and the subscription (if that), they're not even spending nearly as much as "hardcore gamers" or even anime otaku. (And just to clarify, when I say "spending" I don't just mean giving money away to anywhere, I mean using that money on official products that these people are fans of.

I would argue that if you play any types of games, you would be a gamer. MMO'er would just be a subsection of a gamer. Same as a person that would only play console games except they would be in a different subsection, 'Console gamer'. One game that should satisfy spending of an otaku; and this game should be classifed as an MMO as well. All spending can be done in the game going to the company that created it. That MMO is Mobfather.

1) It has scores/rankings, winners, losers and it starts over every month. I believe it that should satisfy the criterias that define a game.

2)

Rule #12
The Buy turns option will be disabled after spending an accumulated amount of $505 for the current round. In order to purchase turns, you must be a Member. Possible purchases over the $505 limit require authorization by an administrator and are determined by your current ranking in the game and past purchases with TuHorn Enterprises. All players are limited in the amount of Bonus turns they may redeem in SiteBadge. This number is calculated by the players total spending limit. On a $505 spending limit the maximum allowed would be 46k Bonus Turns in the SiteBadge system.

It allows you to spend up to $505 dollars per month to try and win by buying turns. If someone wants to spend up to $505 per month to try and win this game, I think that should rival an otaku's spending.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by Toua

I think you've taken Triple_R's excerpt about MMORPG out of context. I got the feeling he wanted to demonstrate what kinds of messages gaming and anime industries send out to consumers and that the anime market is in competition with the gaming market for the same buck, the latter getting more of it. This is where your theory about social differences between Japan and northwestern countries comes in; the American entertainment market isn't capable of offering niche "media mix" properties, because a random Dragonball Z game for PS2 still largely competes with Dragonball Z DVDs (let's disregard the possibility of them having the same licensor), and DBZ isn't even a niche property; and also my theory of priorities vs. financial difficulties. All of these opinions tie in nicely, tripperazn and I just started talking about very different things that just seemed to be the same thing. He was saying the Japanese have more disposable income than northwestern countries, I was saying northwestern countries have disposable income that they allocate according to their priorities.

Thank you - that was the main thrust of my earlier points, yes.

I'm aware that gaming piracy does go on, but I don't see it anywhere near to the same degree that I see anime piracy going on.

One thing to keep in mind is that video games first become available to people in the actual material marketplace - in video game stores, basically.

That means that if you want to play a desired game ASAP (and most hardcore gamers do), then you either have to buy the game legitimately, or have some sort of video game disk-burning distributor as a friend that'll sell you a burned disk dirt cheep.

In any event, at least a game has to be legitimately bought amongst a small community of gaming friends - whereas with anime, a small community of gaming friends can all download the anime off the internet for free.

It also doesn't help that anime is available in fansub format long before it's available in legal, licensed format - hence, the same "Get it ASAP!" drive that helps the gaming industry actually hurts the anime industry.

[tripperazn]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

It also doesn't help that anime is available in fansub format long before it's available in legal, licensed format - hence, the same "Get it ASAP!" drive that helps the gaming industry actually hurts the anime industry.

That "Get it ASAP!" spirit is what anime studios love to see. See, what they do in Japan is that the studios pay TV stations to get their shows out to the audience much in the same way that fansubs brings us shows. That's right, they PAY, the TV stations to distribute their content. Otaku have long been recording these shows with TiVo like devices since they air at 2 am to watch them later. So, I really don't see much difference between fansubs and TV airings in Japan.

Ever wonder why you see a list of sponsors after the OP sequence? They sure didn't help pay to create the show, they paid for the broadcast to advertise themselves.

[bayoab]

Originally Posted by tripperazn

Ever wonder why you see a list of sponsors after the OP sequence? They sure didn't help pay to create the show, they paid for the broadcast to advertise themselves.

You know what they get for helping to pay for it? Ad time. They are the ones who get to run advertisements during the show. People buying those products is what gets them their money back for giving money for the show.

You know what people who watch fansubs don't do? Buy those goods. (And many of them are available for importing.)

Side note: These are also very incestuous sponsorships. Many shows are sponsored by companies under the same parent company or have something at stake in that show. Ex: Geneon music advertising during a Geneon ent production. Avex advertising when the artist performing the opening and ending are both under the Avex label.

[tripperazn]

Originally Posted by bayoab

You know what they get for helping to pay for it? Ad time. They are the ones who get to run advertisements during the show. People buying those products is what gets them their money back for giving money for the show.

You know what people who watch fansubs don't do? Buy those goods. (And many of them are available for importing.)

Yes, well, it's not the anime industry that this is hurting, which is the subject matter at hand. Besides, I personally do not care if Avex Trax loses commercial time, they frankly don't need it, and it's not really their target audience. Most of the companies I see on there are extremely well-established.

[WanderingKnight]

The middlemen pay the Japanese companies. They're hardly leeching.

Umm, there's a specific amount of money added to the DVDs in order to pay for the middlemen's salaries. They don't do it for free, you know. If I could pay the Japanese companies directly without paying for the middlemen's salaries, it'd be cheaper.