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Post by Icctrombone on Jun 29, 2015 23:15:44 GMT -5
I just recently subbed to Marvel Unlimited for a year and I am finding I like the experience. There are frustrations that certain things I want to read (older stuff not new) are not available, but there is so much available I can make due. I was curious about that. How deep is their back catalog? Do they have the anthology titles, like Marvel Premiere and Marvel Spotlight? Short-lived titles like Claws of the Cat or Skull the Slayer? Any of the black and white mags? If they mostly have recent titles and the usual popular "classics", I doubt I would bite. They have almost all those bronze age books. It's really amazing. |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 29, 2015 23:30:32 GMT -5
I was curious about that. How deep is their back catalog? Do they have the anthology titles, like Marvel Premiere and Marvel Spotlight? Short-lived titles like Claws of the Cat or Skull the Slayer? Any of the black and white mags? If they mostly have recent titles and the usual popular "classics", I doubt I would bite. They have almost all those bronze age books. It's really amazing. See Bronze is where things get spotty-most of the Marvel classics are there-Spidey, FF, X-Men etc. the usual suspects. Dr. Strange-Strange Tales and the first half of the '68 series are available, but not the Marvel Premiere run or the '74 series or Sorcerer Supreme series, but all the post 2000 stuff (JMS, The Oath, Waid's Strange etc.) is. A bit of Tomb of Dracula is there, but not Werewolf by Night. Not much of the Jonnny Blaze run is there, only 1 issue of Fear with Man-Thing is available, etc. Marvel Premiere has select issues available (about a dozen maybe) but not all the run. You can filter the search to only Unlimited on the PC though once you get the initial result. If you are browsing from a PC, it lists the series when you browse, but some are only available on a pay per issue basis. If you use the app from a device, only what is available on Unlimited shows. Specifically, neither the Cat nor Skull is available. Marvel Spotlight only has 2 issues (30 and 33 ) available on Unlimited. Marvel Premiere has a handful of issues (1-3, 15, 28-30, 56) Marvel Preview (the mag) has only #11 (a Star-Lord story) available but the reprints of the Star Lord stories Marvel released over the past few years as floppies (Tears for Heaven & The Hollow Crown, but not Worlds on the Brink) are available. Yet on the flipside, a ton of Golden Age and pre-hero Atlas issues are available through Unlimited. So it depends on what you are looking for. -M |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 30, 2015 2:16:46 GMT -5
What Marvel could do to keel MU and Comixology both desirable is what was mentioned earlier. New stuff on Comixology, classic stuff on MU. They have a ridiculously huge catalog so there's no reason one has to cannibalize the other.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 30, 2015 2:47:20 GMT -5
What Marvel could do to keel MU and Comixology both desirable is what was mentioned earlier. New stuff on Comixology, classic stuff on MU. They have a ridiculously huge catalog so there's no reason one has to cannibalize the other. So existing customers who pay $10 a month/$60 a year to get access to all the available classic catalog and all the new books as they arrive (6 month lag) would have to pay more to two separate corporate entities to get the same service they have had all along? That will go over well with your customer base and won't lose you any customers...NOT! -M |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 30, 2015 3:01:19 GMT -5
What Marvel could do to keel MU and Comixology both desirable is what was mentioned earlier. New stuff on Comixology, classic stuff on MU. They have a ridiculously huge catalog so there's no reason one has to cannibalize the other. So existing customers who pay $10 a month/$60 a year to get access to all the available classic catalog and all the new books as they arrive (6 month lag) would have to pay more to two separate corporate entities to get the same service they have had all along? That will go over well with your customer base and won't lose you any customers...NOT! -M Yeah just like the people who buy floppies have enjoyed prices going up about six hundred percent while the cover price of Usagi Yojimbo has gone up about seventy five percent in the same time frame. Marvel isn't concerned about that, and knows their fans will pay for both. |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 30, 2015 3:25:59 GMT -5
There is a difference between the price of the good going up and Marvel saying, oh you can only buy these products here and pay this much, and then you have to go here to buy the rest and pay again. Customers may overlook price, they won't overlook inconvenience and a change in an already paid for service. If you have one stop shopping and suddenly you don't, you may do without rather than making a second stop, especially if the second trip is more inconvenient and and costs you more. It's not a price issue, it's a change of service and taking away something they already had and then charging them more on top of it. How many people would keep cable if they had a bundle deal and suddenly the company said, we are not bundling anymore, are dropping landline service so you have to go to our sister company and pay them for that and you still have to pay us the same as what you were when you were getting more and then pay them more on top of it just to get the service you already got. Subscriptions are not a good, they are a service, and when you give less service and charge more you lose customers. People have a different mindset when it's goods they don't want to do without , so yes they might grin and bear a cover price increase, but service providers get a different reaction. In today's market you can't make getting your product more difficult and expect to succeed. Splitting up how you provide the access to your product is antithetical to the way modern business operates.
-M
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Post by Deleted on Jun 30, 2015 3:32:33 GMT -5
Yeah, Marvel's not concerned. They've already curated the market they want. The market that buys any and everything no matter how much they complain about it in the forums. It can be the worst comic they've ever read, they're buying the next issue. It can cost $11.99, they're not dropping it.
They'd lose minimal customers in that scenario.
Their other option is completely abandon MU and allow Comixology to handle everything of course. Fighting Comixology on the subscription model is not a viable option though. And I don't think pulling their product from Comixology is a smart option. But it may be one they resort to, like they did with bookstores.
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Post by Randle-El on Jun 30, 2015 10:37:44 GMT -5
I can't really see the Comixology subscription model working without access to a back catalog, unless it allowed you access to the same new releases that are available in your LCS. Even then, there might be limited appeal if it meant that newly released books would stop being available after a certain amount of time -- unless that window was very long (say, a year). Pricing is an important consideration too. Part of the appeal of MU is that you get access to the back catalog and relatively recent books at a price that is commensurate with the digital experience. One of the longstanding arguments against digital is that it shouldn't cost the same to read a digital comic as to purchase a physical copy. Digital all-you-can eat subscription plans make this possible if the plans are inexpensive enough and you read enough books to drive down the cost-per-book.
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Post by Trevor on Jun 30, 2015 11:08:30 GMT -5
There are so many possible ways they could do this that its almost pointless talking about it until we get concrete facts.
About the only concrete thing we have to base speculation on is Marvel's service. And correct me if I'm wrong, but there they grant you unlimited reading access to everything that they've digitized so far? After the six month waiting period right? Nothing on Comixology is not in MU? But lots of stuff makes it to MU first, right?
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Post by impulse on Jun 30, 2015 16:00:27 GMT -5
This is very promising pending details on content availability and price. I've wished for a long time that the publishers would start including a credit for a digital copy with a physical purchase to placate collectors like us as well as allow us to move into the 21st century.
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Post by thwhtguardian on Jun 30, 2015 17:49:56 GMT -5
This is very promising pending details on content availability and price. I've wished for a long time that the publishers would start including a credit for a digital copy with a physical purchase to placate collectors like us as well as allow us to move into the 21st century. I think Marvel already does that with most issues |
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Post by Trevor on Jun 30, 2015 18:29:41 GMT -5
Yeah, Marvel has been doing it with most singles and many trades for years; and DC has combo packs too, although they may be phasing them out (perhaps because of this?).
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Post by impulse on Jun 30, 2015 22:54:29 GMT -5
Ah, nice. Maybe if I still bought more Marvel titles I'd have realized this sooner.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jul 1, 2015 10:08:46 GMT -5
This is very promising pending details on content availability and price. I've wished for a long time that the publishers would start including a credit for a digital copy with a physical purchase to placate collectors like us as well as allow us to move into the 21st century. I think Marvel already does that with most issues Marvel does this (I think) with every $3.99 book... that's their justification for the price. I think the codes in the comic expire after not too long (maybe 6 months), so you can't buy them from the bins. Some trades have codes, too, but I've not noticed any rhyme or reason to it. At one point on CBR they had a thread for people to trade digital codes from their physical issues (I'll give you my Thor for your Ms. Marvel every month kinda thing)... not sure if that's still there. |
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Post by thwhtguardian on Jul 1, 2015 17:50:00 GMT -5
I think Marvel already does that with most issues Marvel does this (I think) with every $3.99 book... that's their justification for the price. I think the codes in the comic expire after not too long (maybe 6 months), so you can't buy them from the bins. Some trades have codes, too, but I've not noticed any rhyme or reason to it. At one point on CBR they had a thread for people to trade digital codes from their physical issues (I'll give you my Thor for your Ms. Marvel every month kinda thing)... not sure if that's still there. The trades are rather haphazard, I recently got the Godkiller Thor Trade and the first volume of the new run of Guardians of the Galaxy and the Guardians one came with a code for some of the digital only stories while the Thor book had nothing...but both were the same price. |
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