Idea for DVD/BD releasing

Ian Wolf

Ian Wolf

Mushi-shi
AUKN Staff
Given all the recent news about Bandai and Beez, I thought I'd mention this as an idea with regards to putting anime DVDs and BDs on sale in the UK: crowd funding.

In other words, a licencer buys an anime, and asks the public, "Are you interested in seeing this being released? If you are, then you yourself can fund towards it being put onto DVD/BD."

I'm taking as a model the publisher Unbound, which puts onto their website ideas for books, and if you like the idea of that book, you can fund it. The more money you give, the more you get in return when it comes out. For example, if you donate £5-£10 (depending on the book) you can get an e-book version of it. If you donate £20 you can get a hardback copy of the book with you name in the back. Really large donations can result in return having dinner with the author or even being a character in the book.

In terms of an anime, if you donate a small amount of cash you could download the series onto your computer. A bit more and you will get the DVD, a bit more than that and you get the BD. For larger donations you could have a meet-up with like minded fans, or perhaps tailor-made cosplay of a character in that anime. Also, you could get money back if get others to fund the release.

So, if you yourself could fund the release of an anime, would you be interested?
 
It would depend on the terms, and what was done. The problem is it's an awkward business model as it's highly unpredictable in as far as I can see.

I believe its been done once or twice, and you could almost see some of the online games with inventory shops as a similar deal, but I just don't know how well it'd work.

Given distributors tend to keep things to thier chest in regards to licensing costs, mastering costs, bbfc costs etc, that does make it a little hard to judge.

BUT going back to the core crux, providing I definately got a copy, I would be happy to pay a less fixed cost for some series, within reason. Being realistic, many series I would be happy to pay a low amount and just get a DVD/decent download copy, other series I have an investment in, like Toradora (which I paid about £60 for IIRC) I am willing to put in more, or Spice and Wolf, which as a property, I've probably spent several hundred on.
 
I would, for very specific items. I wonder how much I would pay to have an anime character based on me... actually, I think I would pay to never have that happen. ^^;
 
ilmaestro said:
I would, for very specific items. I wonder how much I would pay to have an anime character based on me... actually, I think I would pay to never have that happen. ^^;
Click to expand...

I don't think that would be one of things on offer to pay for.
 
I would be interested if this could help bringing more BD titles.

But it would be a difficult project. I don't think there would be enough people interested to be able to warrant a number of different versions (LE BDs, standard BDs, LE DVDs and so on), I even doubt it would be possible to fund a dub. If there were enough people willing to pay in advance to warrant multiple editions, then there would not be any of the actual troubles about low sales. The possibility of only one edition limits the ways how a hypothetical publisher could attract buyers (little investors). Since these buyers would be the hardcore fans then the best choice would be going with a BD release (if the source material allows this). And these buyers would want to get some benefits from paying in advance, the first (only) that comes to mind is the assurance that they will pay less money than what will be the price of the set after it will be released.

This method could work for some series from the past that never got a proper release. As far as I know something similar was tried for Legend of the Galactic Heroes years ago, and it dissolved in a bubble due to insanely expensive rights costs.



Teo
 
I would probably not be interested. The large extras like the cosplay and meetup aren't at all useful to me, nor are incorrect versions when all I want is a disc release. There's also the problem that if it's a show I'm willing to pay a lot for, it is unlikely to be to the taste of the UK fanbase at large.

Ultimately if I'm going to throw money at something I could just import it from somewhere in 99% of cases, and only be mildly inconvenienced by the suboptimal language options. I can't imagine anyone would get enough to cover expensive mastering and licensing costs at the outset from a few generous benefactors.

R
 
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