[TJR]

Originally Posted by Klashikari

The main point for a studio is to make a relatively interesting show so they can -rack money with DVD/BD- sales. The fact that studios in general do not release masterpiece like candies doesn't mean they can slack like they are doing for the past 2-3 years. (I wish I still had umineko DVD/BD sales, it was so sad that it was an obvious unprofitable venture for them, not like they didn't see it coming with what they did).

As mentioned before, it isn't true for every studio. If you have a stake in the show, you can rack up money through DVD sales. If you don't, it's merely contract work for a fixed fee.

What DEEN offers to the industry is the ability to animate a large number of shows. On budget. On time. Their model doesn't bank directly on DVD sales, but rather dependability (on budget, on time, and hopefully with profit for the client) so that they can secure the next line of work.

This works because many financiers are mainly interested in using anime to promote for something else (manga, games, merchandise). Consequently, hiring a studio to produce a low-budget show by a specific time (i.e. the big coordinated push for a franchise; what they potentially make from DVDs is often pittance compared to what they could make from successful merchandising and readership expansion) can be more important to their plans than ensuring highest quality.

DEEN certainly didn't lose any money from the failure of Umineko since they never invested in the production (only thing lost is the potential chance to work on Season 2, but what's one series in the overall scheme of things? They'll have no trouble securing other work).

You may have noticed that Madhouse makes the least number of "pandering" anime.

That's generally true of Madhouse. However, the truth is that they've also been blacklisted from doing things like moe anime (their president recently admitted that they'd like to do more, but the sponsors no longer asked them, presumably because of the bad reputation they had built up).

Even UBW made a lot of money.

Made Geneon and the other sponsors a lot of money. Didn't make DEEN nothing, although it does prove to clients that they can coordinate the production of a movie (that also happened to be highly profitable), which might mean more business later.