Viewster's Omakase Details Revealed

Censoring stuff like that is going to get them a load of ****. Totally backwards because all the people asking for a separate service are already complaining so deleting the comments are just going to turn them off the brand all together. They're all asking a legit question and them deleting comments show they don't really have a good answer.
 
Thing is, if the question is particularly rude or aggressive I can get why they would delete it, but one of the questions I saw earlier has gone and it was a perfectly reasonable question.

I personally don't use Viewster as I barely stream things, but ad free HD streaming could have got me to sub anyway (I have a Crunchyroll sub that I barely use, don't mind subbing though as what's £40 a year in the grand scheme of things), but at this point I think I'll just go back to ignoring the fact Viewster is even a thing.
 
I'm mixed. I'll admit to being someone who received one of the Alpha boxes and generally being impressed by it. There are a billion Lootcrate knock offs now which run with 'what can we find clogging up warehouses that fits a generic theme?' but the Alpha box was well focussed on the Hatsune Miku theme and had some nice stuff.I think the fact said billion Lootcrate knock offs exist is partly why Viewster are trying this. I think if we're honest a key demographic of anime is teenagers with disposable income, something MCM proves every year. With that in mind it makes sense to at least experiment with a business model of "Want to access to the shows you love AND get cool related merchandise from it?"

That said I can completely appreciate those saying "I just want to support the shows, not fill up space I don't have with stuff I didn't ask for". In that respect I think all we can do is hope that as this rolls out and feedback continues Viewster will listen and offer a tier for those who simply want the digital content and not the physical merch.

For me personally right now, the rub is the price. I appreciate they've tried to do it in a way that means UK fans don't get stung by the demonic forces of custom charges and are saying if this pans out they'd like to create a means of straight UK distribution to do away with the higher price for us but £31 is a lot to sink in for a service where you might not like everything you're getting. Part of the appeal of the Lootcrate model is the idea of getting back more than you paid. You have to factor the digital content and postage in of course but I have to wonder if UK fans lose out on wow factor thanks to the nightmare of international customs charges.
 
I think where they have got it wrong is the same as several other companies in that they assume that the anime streaming services are all interchangeable. And perhaps they are, to some people who don't really mind what they're watching. But for many of us, we're forced to use this service to watch that show or another service to watch another show, and we're lead by the content, not the model. Companies trying out weird experiments to stand out in a market aren't appreciated because the content already stands out thanks to all of these hateful exclusivity contracts they all keep signing.

I'm only ever going to like a couple of shows Viewster pick up per season, because I don't watch non-simulcasts and I don't like every anime out there. Nothing they can do will change this, but I'm locked in with them regardless and will pay whatever I must to get rid of ads if they make the option available.

A new - or less discerning - fan would likely be delighted to get a box of miscellaneous merchandise if they could afford it, I remember back when it was all new to me too and I used to pick up all kinds of weird stuff. At some point you have to start saying no, though, unless you live in a mansion, and since the entire market they're in (streaming) is rooted in the fans' urge to move away from huge physical collections and embrace immediacy it seems like a contradiction to tie it in with something so clunky. Please, please make it optional. Rivals like Animax UK wish they could have this many people begging to give them money in the face of so much resistance.

R
 
I don't think that Aniplex UK wishes anything. That entire operation comes off as brain dead as its forefathers in their last days with OPM being the one zombie victim you wish had made it to the end getting it cause the writer was PO'ed that day.

Seriously though CR has this right in that the CR market is an opportunity to get swag at a significant markdown for subscribers and it is entirely optional.

Viewstrer need to look at the ball & crate and go back to the drawing board before they make any more of an arse of themselves.
 
To be honest, I think the biggest problem is price, it works out a triple the price of Crunchyroll, when the service is only as good, probably worse.
 
The other frustrating thing is that Crunchyroll - as the clear market leader - while having by far the most functional player / breadth of catalogue, has made absolutely no expression of interest in making a specific marketing outreach to the UK. While I suppose their one-size-fits-all approach works to a certain degree, you can see how much an 'engaged' company like Viewster has made a difference in just one short year by building from the ground up.

Now, imagine if Crunchyroll - with all the clout they have - had actually bothered to put the effort that Viewster have, into the UK market. Now that would truly be something.
 
With Crunchyroll I think their eventual plan is to get 'all regions outside Asia' rights to everything and they've lost interest in pursuing individual regions when things are made more complicated. Local companies licensing things separately throws a wrench in that as it teaches the Japanese side that there might be more money to be made dividing everything up instead. And I have no idea why the FUNimation situation is even allowed to happen at all.

The industry is fighting against itself in many respects, which sucks for us.

R
 
Rui said:
With Crunchyroll I think their eventual plan is to get 'all regions outside Asia' rights to everything and they've lost interest in pursuing individual regions when things are made more complicated. Local companies licensing things separately throws a wrench in that as it teaches the Japanese side that there might be more money to be made dividing everything up instead. And I have no idea why the FUNimation situation is even allowed to happen at all.

The industry is fighting against itself in many respects, which sucks for us.

R
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I think the answer is in the question. FUNimation has money and will spend it, the UK is a small territory, who cares if they can't stream it? I imagine it's a bigger deal when they do it to the entirety of South America though. If they actually cared about streaming shows over here, they'd be putting shows that don't have a UK home up on Daisuki, they aren't, even with they're producing English subtitles for other territories. (Blood Blockade Battlefront had English subs on Daisuki in Asia.) Clearly, the UK is an afterthought.

Also, FUNimation has a good reputation, they dub most of their content and it generally gets a bigger push than it would from other companies.

I don't know, but FUNimation seem more than willing to let Madman have their content for streaming, so I'm wondering if Manga UK could have done something, but dropped the ball, and now, based on their admittedly very vague comments on ANNCast, it seems FUNimation are planning to enter the UK market themselves.
 
Buzz201 said:
I don't know, but FUNimation seem more than willing to let Madman have their content for streaming, so I'm wondering if Manga UK could have done something, but dropped the ball, and now, based on their admittedly very vague comments on ANNCast, it seems FUNimation are planning to enter the UK market themselves.
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FUNimation made comments about moving into the UK market awhile ago when they stepped up their streaming efforts in general and considering we've seen no sight of it, I don't see it actually happening.

No one seems that fussed about the UK market if it's complicated really, and I think in a lot of ways Viewster themselves prove that with how US focused they've become as of late.
 
Demelza said:
FUNimation made comments about moving into the UK market awhile ago when they stepped up their streaming efforts in general and considering we've seen no sight of it, I don't see it actually happening.

No one seems that fussed about the UK market if it's complicated really, and I think in a lot of ways Viewster themselves prove that with how US focused they've become as of late.
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I don't know, the brand manager on ANNCast (I've forgotten her name) seemed fairly confident that they would be announcing some form of international expansion in early 2016. To be fair, they've given dates before and Justin Rojas didn't seem to know any more than she did (he didn't really answer the question), but she seemed confident it was actually happening.

Also, the recently announced Universal deal would certainly make things easier for them to move into the UK if they wanted, and it would explain why they currently have no UK distributor, but are still continuing to acquire UK rights to titles.
 
Lutga said:
The other frustrating thing is that Crunchyroll - as the clear market leader - while having by far the most functional player / breadth of catalogue, has made absolutely no expression of interest in making a specific marketing outreach to the UK.
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They did make a push into the UK when they launched the .co.uk site and set a £ price. They've also advertised for UK marketing staff at least once (it's up again now as it happens, but also covering the Scandiwegians). At one point they were also doing UK-exclusive daily deals (MVM discs, but not with tremendous prices). Rob Pereyda (now with Viewster) was always very supportive of the UK while he was there, and pushed to get us access to as many titles as possible.
 
Shiroi Hane said:
Lutga said:
The other frustrating thing is that Crunchyroll - as the clear market leader - while having by far the most functional player / breadth of catalogue, has made absolutely no expression of interest in making a specific marketing outreach to the UK.
Click to expand...
They did make a push into the UK when they launched the .co.uk site and set a £ price. They've also advertised for UK marketing staff at least once (it's up again now as it happens, but also covering the Scandiwegians). At one point they were also doing UK-exclusive daily deals (MVM discs, but not with tremendous prices). Rob Pereyda (now with Viewster) was always very supportive of the UK while he was there, and pushed to get us access to as many titles as possible.
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From what I've heard, they started making a push towards getting some European-only titles, they were restricted to premium members because of the costs involved, but they had to stop because there was so much bitching from North Americans that it became a PR problem for the company...

I have no idea how true that is though, but it has been discussed on Crunchyroll's forums during the endless flow of complaints about their NA-only titles.
 
At some point all the services (besides Animax because, frankly, that should just go away) need to get their heads out of their asses and actually provide the service they're being paid to do in their entirety to the UK (or would be handsomely rewarded outside of America) UK Viewers will watch shows illicitly (which in some cases means at all) and/or watch something that isn't Japanese and animated.

The fact that the two shows I wanted to watch this season (Heavy Object and Failed Knight) are not legally available in the UK whilst Viewster are screwing off with this nonsense is galling to an extreme.
 
Rob Pereyda, back when he worked for Crunchyroll, highlighted the fact that for the licensor the costs of just signing a deal for a smaller region can completely outweight any benefits of doing so. It's different when it is included in a larger region (i.e. Europe for Kaze), or when a physical license is also involved (i.e. Anime Limited).
 
From my interactions with them over the last year I'm convinced that Viewster are sincere about covering the UK. It's not perfect, partly for logistic/cost reasons of the industry that others have mentioned, but they seem to genuinely want to cover a market that some would ignore. Streaming in the UK is a nightmare but I think thanks to the presence of Anime Limited, Manga/Animatsu and MVM this is arguably the best time to be a fan since the turn of the century anime boom. The folks based here really do fight our corner and things that would have been a pipe dream for UK fans for so long are actually happening.
 
The thing is, the reality of streaming companies is that unless you're a mega player like CR, it's unlikely your ad revenue is seeing you break even, so for Viewster, they probably have a limited amount of venture capital or money from whatever source is bankrolling them - and that investment needs a return, and if suddenly it looks like USA numbers are the only way of hitting that target, that's what they'll focus on.
 
Seems I'm unable to watch The first episode of Seraph of the End's second season unless I have an Omakase subscription.so far it's the only one it won't let me watch atm,if this is the case for Blood Blockade Battlefronts last episode I'm gonna be a little annoyed

Edit:Snow white and Key The Metal Idol are also ransomed off as well.
 
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