CBR: Why Dark Horse Got Their Digital Strategy Right the First Time

[CBR News]

Brigid Alverson examines Dark Horse's revised digital pricing strategy, as well as fan and retailer reactions, and wonders if Dark Horse didn't have the right idea before adjusting its course.


Full article here.

[Lemurion]

I think you're right. Digital is worth less to most people than print - and I think DH would have benefited enormously from the policy.

[Michael P]

Well, I'm glad somebody said it.

[Xiroteus]

Since they are selling them directly that is even more reason to be cheaper. For something that has less costs involved and with less control over what I buy it needs to be cheaper.

[Mordalo]

In the end, it will be the consumer, not the retailer, who'll decide the price.
If more people start to buy digitally, then the price may drop. Only time will tell.

Personally, I still love physical media, but given financial concerns, especially in this day and age, if I can get it cheaper digitally, I'll go digital.

[chrisgiff]

I wish DH would have just told the retailers that wanted to boycott them to go f themselves. The retailers were only hurting themselves by acting like that. People would just go to the next shop down the street and buy that issue of Buffy.

[Xiroteus]

In the end, it will be the consumer, not the retailer, who'll decide the price.
If more people start to buy digitally, then the price may drop. Only time will tell.

Personally, I still love physical media, but given financial concerns, especially in this day and age, if I can get it cheaper digitally, I'll go digital.

The only reasons I think digital can compete with print at the same cost is for those who like saving space and those who like the ease of use, download and done.

The space saving is highly appealing.

[AvengerG]

Nice that the comic media websites are starting to point out the idiocy of companies paying these 3rd party apps for distribution when they could do it themselves much cheaper and better. The math on a 99 cent downloadable comic is pretty simple. DC/Marvel gets about $1.20 now on a $3 comic. Minus off printing and transportstion costs not to mention the cost of dealing with the man-babies running the comic shops and they're probably getting less than 99 cents today. Go digital with their own distribution apps and they'll be making more money. Simple math.

[doughnut42]

I think Dark Horse's main digital problem is that they limit their comics to their own app. They don't put their comics on on comixology, which everyone else is doing now. They expect me to use their app for their comics, instead of one app for all of my comics. Can you imagine if the music industry did this and instead of using iTunes to download all of your music you had to have a different program for every different record label? That's why I'm not buying any of thier digital comics right now, but I'm spending plenty on Red 5, IDW, Image, etc. because they're all easy to buy and manage on comixology.

[slaader]

Comixology is actually an excellent application. The Dark Horse one continues to be slow, clunky and the GUI doesn't look nearly as good. The simple fact of the matter is Dark Horse gets more exposure through Comixology than it does on its own.

Not integrating with comixology at this point is EXACTLY like retailers saying they won't carry your stock.

[gzapata]

The only reasons I think digital can compete with print at the same cost is for those who like saving space and those who like the ease of use, download and done.

The space saving is highly appealing.

Agreed if your only looking to take lapsed comic readers or current ones, not if your looking to expand from the current little niche of readers

The fact is that the shops that announced they weren't going to stock dark horse books were just shooting themselves in the foot and acting childish. Was this how cd stores acted toward itunes?

I would guess that a bigger base of Dark Horse fans are like myself and buy in trades anyways and selling cheap digital comics would fit into my current model of trade waiting as I still will happily like to read their stories as soon as possible if it didn't all together mean I spent almost $40 on just one story

[jumborgace]

I disagree that comic stores (in their present form) are not/should not be going away. I do agree that Dark Horse (and everyone else) SHOULD go direct distribution wheverever they can. Naturally this isn't as easy as it sounds as there are other factors like some people can't afford $300-$600 for a tablet PC or some simply don't want to read it on an LCD, etc.

But I think that Comic shops need to modify their business model and transform to the next generation. This will happen eventually no matter what it's just a question of how long it takes (Look at Borders).

I see the LCS as a place to purchase dead tree back issues and specialty items likes toys and statues and such. Because no matter how awesome that Christopher Reeve statue is there is simply no way you can put it on your shelf without owning the 3D representation of it. And since it is unlikely for Wal-Mart or Toys R Us to carry it that leaves Amazon, EBay and your LCS. Likewise, Borders is gone and Barns and Noble may be on its way out but used book shops will be with us for a long time, because they sell specialty items to a clientele that appreciates them.

(The following, whether right or wrong, is completely my own opinion/theory)Looking at it in a larger social context if there are less clerk jobs available (at the LCS or elsewhere), or warehouse jobs or truck driving jobs or printing jobs or secretary jobs,etc. it means people (read: the youngsters) can't simply aspire to be content doing ringing up merchandise all day, because the jobs won't be there. Instead they will need to get an education and, who know maybe they'll be the ones to cure cancer or solve world hunger. Isn't that what most (good) science fiction tells us: once we, as the human race get our priorities in order we can become something great?

Anywho, these are just my 2 cents worth and only time will tell whether I'm right or wrong.

Cheers.

JumborgAce

[PreacherCain]

I can see why DH backed down; it's ultimately an unknown quantity and they might not have the ability to sustain any kind of boycott of their comics and trades from retailers for any length of time. Yes it would have been a big, brave move but for a smaller publisher that could very quickly turn into a big dumb move.

Ultimately, however, I completely agree with the article. Digital is not going away. It's going to get more popular as tablets become better value and better made.

For me, I only have one small comic shop where I live and it mainly sells DC/Marvel stuff (by the way, Marvel comics being priced so high means that here I pay the equivalent of about $6.50 for a 20 page comic!) and frankly, any time I've tried to put anything on a pull list, they'll end up either not bothering to get it or not keeping it for me (Criminal, Incognito, Hellboy, DHP, lots of Image stuff). As a result, I generally end up waiting for the trade and buy that online. Or in the case of Criminal and some others, I'll actually buy the single issues from US sites and ship them over here (it works out cheaper!). Because, you know, I can't actually wait for the trade cos' those comics are so good

So digital is quite attractive to me. Soon as there's a decent comic-friendly tablet that's at a reasonable price, I'll be buying it. I buy mainly Dark Horse/Image/Rebellion stuff and I personally think A LOT of potential digital readers would be more interested in their material than Marvel and DCs output. Much like with trades, I'd wager that digital copies of Scalped, The Unwritten and Criminal (plus many more) would out-sell the superheroic counterparts in Marvel/DC in digital (if marketed with a bit of enthusiasm!)

[Kiryu]

Huge agreement here. I was initially waiting and buying DC Comics at the $1.99 discount but even at that price I felt it wasn't worth it because I can still remember paying $2.50 for a comic with more pages.

At $0.99 a comic I would be buying digital comics. I already do not buy any $3.99 comics and honestly $2.99 for 20 pages seems like a really bad deal to me so there are a lot of comics I'm interested in but never try.

$0.99 is an impulse buy. There are plenty of comics I pass on that I would try at $0.99.

But whatever, I'll stop buying comics and soon certain people will be paying $5 for a 20 page Avenger story.

[AvengerG]

I think Dark Horse's main digital problem is that they limit their comics to their own app. They don't put their comics on on comixology, which everyone else is doing now. They expect me to use their app for their comics, instead of one app for all of my comics. Can you imagine if the music industry did this and instead of using iTunes to download all of your music you had to have a different program for every different record label? That's why I'm not buying any of thier digital comics right now, but I'm spending plenty on Red 5, IDW, Image, etc. because they're all easy to buy and manage on comixology.

Why would you want to manage your collection through an app? What a waste of an opportunity. Comics are going to have to find a common file type and adopt it like the music industry did with mp3. You should be able to download what you buy to your hard drive, save it and use any comic reader program to read it. CBR and CBZ are already there with lots of free readers (and free comics until the industry wises up like the music industry did). Also, nobody should be able to take away something you paid for and when Comixology goes bye bye, so will all those comics you paid for. Proprietary readers are a waste. Trust me, if a comic is 99 cents through DC/Marvel or $2.99 through comixology or iTunes, you'll figure out how to download from various companies and organize your comics on your own hard drive.