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Post by Randle-El on Jul 12, 2014 14:56:23 GMT -5
I think the original point Shaxper was making about digital comics being wiped out was that once you lost your local copy of them, you couldn't get them back easily without re-buying. But actually Comixology acts also as a cloud storage for your comics too. You can re-download deleted copies again for free, on multiple devices. And as someone else pointed out, they are owned by Amazon now so the likelihood of them going under has just gotten a lot smaller. And if anything, they would get sold off and acquired by someone else, not shut down completely.
Having said that, I prefer to use Comixology for books that I don't care as much about but still are occasionally interested in reading -- the odd Avengers title here or there, the occasional event book after it's gone on sale. Anything that I really value I have physical copies of.
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Post by mrc1214 on Jul 12, 2014 15:13:57 GMT -5
(I also just weighed in right now because one of my comics went missing and I have no earthly idea where it is.) That is something that happens to me all the time. That's the reason I'm in the process of moving all my books out of longboxes and into magazine boxes which will be stored on shelves. Back to the topic I prefer physical copies of older comics. As far as newer books I'm so far behind on whats new in the comic world I'm just going to get digital copies of stuff I really went to read. |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jul 12, 2014 15:24:38 GMT -5
Comixology, esp being owned by Amazon, isn't going away, and I feel safe with my purchases there. OTOH, I wouldn't feel safe with another competitor, not at that level, like say iVerse. Not picking on them, I just don't feel safe utilizing their services. It's just too big a phenomenon / paradigm shift to just blip away. Not happening, and worst case scenario, there'd be a class action so fast... I would have said that about Borders a couple years ago. Or Nook. Who knows what technology might appear in 3,5,10 years time that could make the current method obsolete. Is it more likely that you'll spill a drink on a particular comic than lose your online stuff? sure. But a disaster like a fire/flood/etc. would effect digital as well.. you'd have to get a new laptop/tablet/whatever device to read them... Digital comics can't be read without an device of some sort, electricity, and (most of the time) an internet connection. Plus, all those things that can happen to real comics can be covered by insurance, if you're so inclined. I also find it much easier to share actual comics with my kids, wife, friends, etc. which is nice. Maybe it's a generational thing... I don't like music and movies online either... if I'm going to pay money for something, I want something in return, not such access to someone else's stuff. Of course, I never used to rent movies back in the day either, so maybe I'm just weird. |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 12, 2014 16:08:23 GMT -5
You'd have to get a new laptop, but your files will be replaced for free.
Also, insurance isn't as easy as it sounds. The insurance company will have maximums they will pay out for particular things. When I was 19 my moms house got robbed. She lost all her jewelery, her inheritance from her mother. Lots of gold. I lost about 100 DVD's. DVD's were pretty new at the time, it was the late 90's. I think they gave me $4500 for the DVD's and maybe half that for my moms jewelery, which was ridiculous.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 12, 2014 16:36:23 GMT -5
You'd have to get a new laptop, but your files will be replaced for free. Also, insurance isn't as easy as it sounds. The insurance company will have maximums they will pay out for particular things. When I was 19 my moms house got robbed. She lost all her jewelery, her inheritance from her mother. Lots of gold. I lost about 100 DVD's. DVD's were pretty new at the time, it was the late 90's. I think they gave me $4500 for the DVD's and maybe half that for my moms jewelery, which was ridiculous. Yep, you have to have collectibles insurance for things like comics or art |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 12, 2014 16:58:16 GMT -5
If you rented a video it was for a pre-established set period of time.
I guess it depends on your viewpoint of ownership, and the idea that only physical objects hold value. I can login to any computer, phone, or tablet and download any comic I've ever purchased for free, anytime, anywhere, for as long as Marvel and/or comixology exists. Just because there isn't an extractable file involved doesn't change my accessibility to the product.
Which doesn't even take into effect the Complete Series DVDs I've got that have PDF copies of every single issue of Cap, Avengers, Spider-Man, etc
I don't purchase anything with the expectation that it has a lifetime guarantee.
I think because I'm a lifetime comic fan, and I've purchased my favorite comics over and over in so many different formats (comic book, essentials, hardcovers, digital, omnibus, TPBs, lost comics, damaged comics) that I don't really sweat the possibility something I paid for might not last forever
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Post by Deleted on Jul 12, 2014 17:08:20 GMT -5
I would be much more likely to buy digital comics if I could buy downloadable PDF copies directly from the creator. And I've done just that with Marc Hansen and Ralph Snart Adventures. I'm not sure I like Comixology. I'm hoping at some point the various publishers will just sell digital comics on their main website. For a lower price than print, on day of release. There's absolutely no reason a transfer of file should cost as much as the purchase of a physical product from a retailer after it's been manufactured, shipped to a distributor, and then shipped to a retailer. The cost of manufacture and distribution of digital is a small fraction of print. Appeasing distributors and retailers is the only reason digital is priced at the same rate. I'm hoping Diamond starts to seriously lose it's stranglehold on physical media distribution and Comixology loses their stranglehold on digital distribution. Until then I'm buying floppies of the few series I absolutely love, trade waiting the ones that come out with nice looking hardcovers at a competitive price, and buying most everything else as a used trade.
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ironchimp
Full Member
Simian Overlord
Posts: 456 
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Post by ironchimp on Jul 12, 2014 17:44:19 GMT -5
i dont know why the publishers didnt just set up a joint alternative to comixology and keep all the profits and not send stuff to comixology to sell. too late now that amazon owns it.
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Post by Randle-El on Jul 12, 2014 17:50:13 GMT -5
I would be much more likely to buy digital comics if I could buy downloadable PDF copies directly from the creator. And I've done just that with Marc Hansen and Ralph Snart Adventures. I'm not sure I like Comixology. I'm hoping at some point the various publishers will just sell digital comics on their main website. For a lower price than print, on day of release. There's absolutely no reason a transfer of file should cost as much as the purchase of a physical product from a retailer after it's been manufactured, shipped to a distributor, and then shipped to a retailer. The cost of manufacture and distribution of digital is a small fraction of print. Appeasing distributors and retailers is the only reason digital is priced at the same rate. I'm hoping Diamond starts to seriously lose it's stranglehold on physical media distribution and Comixology loses their stranglehold on digital distribution. Until then I'm buying floppies of the few series I absolutely love, trade waiting the ones that come out with nice looking hardcovers at a competitive price, and buying most everything else as a used trade. I only buy digital when Comixology has their sales, so I agree w/you that digital is not worthwhile unless it's cheaper than print. It's also well-known that the only reason why retailers aren't coming after Comixology with pitchforks en masse is because they price the same as physical comics. However, I can see another argument (and not an entirely unreasonable one) being made that the price point of digital includes the cost of the data centers to host all of that content, as well as the ability to have access to your books on any device, and to download as many times as you want. Whether or not those costs justify the price being the same as physical is another argument. But to be fair, I think we also often forget that hosting all the data and providing the bandwidth to make it available costs money. |
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Post by Icctrombone on Jul 12, 2014 17:58:07 GMT -5
Everything changes with time. It's possible in 15 years, printed comics will be like cassette tapes and the newer generation will never know it existed. Printed comics has it's pros and cons, just enjoy it while it's still here. I'm used to having physical copies and I'll probably keep it that way. But I will say moving long boxes everytime you relocate is a drag.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 12, 2014 18:27:58 GMT -5
They could offset that cost by simply sending you a downloadable file. When I buy a new issue of Ralph Snart Adventures for a buck fifty, the creator sends me an email with my comic attached. In fact, it's most likely automated, which means he does nothing. The comic is hosted offline on his hard drive. Memory costs next to nothing these days.
It may not be a feasible business model for Marvel Comics. But I imagine someone with a library as big as Erik Larsen, Mike Mignolia, or Robert Kirkman could pull it off easily.
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Post by Randle-El on Jul 12, 2014 18:46:00 GMT -5
They could offset that cost by simply sending you a downloadable file. When I buy a new issue of Ralph Snart Adventures for a buck fifty, the creator sends me an email with my comic attached. In fact, it's most likely automated, which means he does nothing. The comic is hosted offline on his hard drive. Memory costs next to nothing these days. It may not be a feasible business model for Marvel Comics. But I imagine someone with a library as big as Erik Larsen, Mike Mignolia, or Robert Kirkman could pull it off easily. If you go by the model where your money just buys you the one digital copy, sure it could conceivably be cheaper, but then you could argue that you'd lose the ability to store issues in the cloud and re-download whenever you'd like. Again, I'm not saying that I disagree with you -- just pointing out that for what they're charging, they can make a valid argument that there are costs to what they are offering that might not be readily apparent because it's not a physical product. We assume because it's not physical that therefore there should be no costs beyond what it takes to produce the content, but we forget that there are costs to providing the content digitally as well. For example -- storage is cheap when you're talking on the level of individual users. I can go to the store and buy a 4 gb flash drive for a couple of bucks. But I wouldn't say it's accurate to characterize it as "next to nothing" when you're talking on the order of magnitude of data centers. You have to take into account power to run the servers as well as as well as cooling -- not trivial at those scales. By the way, Image sells PDFs of all their comics, though I believe it's at the same price as print. |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 12, 2014 18:51:07 GMT -5
I think I could store it in iCloud or Dropbox. I haven't though. If I had a sizable collection I would figure something out. With my photos I just put a copy on every hard drive I have.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 12, 2014 19:03:34 GMT -5
Diamond and retailers are the main thing keeping the comic industry alive, you can't undercut them by pricing digital cheaper (except for the sales, which I also prefer).
Back to the original topic, I prefer the ease of buying new releases on my tablet, without leaving the house. I prefer not having a longbox of modern issues that I will never reread, since anything I love enough to read again I will buy the trade, hardcover, or omnibus of.
But I've also stopped buying DVDs since I can plug my tv straight into my computer and watch stuff that way. Physical copies get scratched, lost, broken, especially when you have little ones.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 12, 2014 19:15:58 GMT -5
I think Diamond and retailers may be what pidgeonholed comics as a medium and industry into a mostly garbage niche market with an ever shrinking population of readers comprising of 86% men in the first place. I wouldn't be sad to see that distribution avenue lose it's grip on the industry.
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