[quote=mitamaking]
I am okay with some sub only releases, I know they are smarter most of the time but you don’t take back a big deal like 4 audio tracks.[/quote]
Why do I get the feeling we’ve been around this topic a dozen times before already.
Sure you take it back… When a crap-storm happens, you change gears. It’s like if a rockslide is happening in front of you, do you turn/stop or just push forward into the oncoming slide (ie. getting one and one’s car crushed). Good business is about adapting, and a lot of companies did it too late… dubbing a lot of niche series, while ones we here in this forum loved… were not savy business moves. The anime companies gambled on the fans and were hoping the combination of fansubbers who liked shows would buy what they claimed they liked or those who begged for the licensing to happen or that dubs would make niche shows into mainstream offerings, but that didn’t happen - and we saw what happened as a result of that in the last couple of years.
And then a whole lot of crap happened to the industry since they said that…
The industry was hit by its hardest blow since the Musicland disaster a few years ago that almost brought the entire R1 down… again it almost did in the last few months with the industry being as frail as it has been in the last few years, then to get the economic problems, the credit markets being frozen, the Best Buy situation, retailers sending back so much, anime fans continuing to support illegal methods that don’t monetize either R1 or the Japanese companies… on and on.
Plus it’s also entirely possible one of the networks backed out of a TV deal Bandai thought they had. Why shouldn’t they? Ratings are suffering, and most otakus prefer to watch stuff illegally. They’re looking for cross appeal and Hayate at least to the executives at the broadcasting companies didn’t have it or maybe Starz/Manga asked too much, who knows. The fact that the broadcast networks are not signing marquee titles anymore is indicative of that… instead everyone’s just trying to go cheap.
There’s a whole lot of reasons why Bandai went from confident to scrambling and losing a major part of its workforce (including veteran production staff that have been with the company for like a decade). This is very dire stuff.
So Bandai changed gears. That’s good business. Would you rather they kept their promise only to shutter their doors soon or for tons of their licenses to go Out of Print pending a collapse?
Your exact comments are one I keep seeing with dub fans in the last 7 months and it’s really, really living in a different world from reality. I’m not saying companies are not responsible… certainly over-promising and under-delivering is something that diminishes fan perception and good-will. That can not be argued, but on the other hand, I also see a lot of fan demands that do not jive with reality, and how dire the situation has turned. The fans are not owed something… these companies are not depriving fans of air and water to survive, as fans constantly make it out to be.
I’d argue the opposite actually… fans deprived the companies of what was needed to sustain themselves (ie. funding the cycle). So now companies are reacting to it and adapting to lower sales figures across the board.
With the state of the market, ultimately, something is better than nothing.
