Support NeoGAF

[LordOfLore]

Thought it would be a good idea to do a thread now that both of the largest publishers have made clear their initial digital plans for 2017 onwards.

io9 article.

For the past few years, DC has had an ongoing project to “draw the line” at keeping many of its comics at the $2.99 price point—but for a bulk of its DC Rebirth titles, that line is about to be crossed. The reason for crossing it, however, is at least a somewhat positive one.

Starting from April, 16 of DC’s ongoing monthly series (not the series that currently serve up two issues a month like Batman, Wonder Woman, Superman, and so on) will be increasing their prices by a dollar, from $2.99 to $3.99, although one, All-Star Batman, will reduce its current $4.99 asking price to $3.99. Here’s the full list:

All-Star Batman
Batgirl
Batgirl and the Birds of Prey
Batman Beyond
Batwoman
Blue Beetle
Cyborg
The Hellblazer
New Super-Man
Red Hood and the Outlaws
Super Sons
Supergirl
Superwoman
Teen Titans
Titans
Trinity

The reason for the dollar increase? Physical copies of these books will finally come with a “free” digital copy of the same issue, allowing readers to maintain a physical collection alongside building a digital library of books, an avenue of comics reading that’s become steadily more popular than physical books in recent years.

The timing of DC’s announcement is particularly is interesting because Marvel actually recently announced a controversial reversal of its digital code plans. Currently all Marvel comics offer a free digital copy with physical issues, but the company is changing that in February. While there’s no price change coming in with it, codes will now offer digital copies of one of three select comics from Marvel’s back cataloge(CW2 #0, Captain Marvel 2016 #1 and the old first Old Man Logan issue for now, LoL's Note).

Marvel believes the move won’t dwindle support for local comic book stores, as the free samples will supposedly encourage people to go out and buy physical trade paperbacks instead. Naturally, DC believes the opposite, which is why they’re adding the new digital codes to promote to people who are still subscribing physically to monthly series. Either way, if you’ve been used to picking up physical books from either Marvel or DC lately, you can expect some changes in the coming months.

 

[Duane Cunningham]

If I ever win the lottery, I'll read new comics. They're too expensive to buy new in print OR digital. Ten dollars a month for everything works for me, even if they're six months late.

 

[Pai Pai Master]

If I ever win the lottery, I'll read new comics. They're too expensive to buy new in print OR digital. Ten dollars a month for everything works for me, even if they're six months late.

Yup especially with the quality of some of Marvel's output lately...It's just not worth it to me to buy new comics.

 

[A_Dang]

I jumped on the comics train for the first time a few years ago (thanks to lurking on comic-gaf). My first comics were X-Men Legacy (Spurrier run, Del Mundo covers pulled me in), and I quickly added a bunch of the other main Marvel books. The added value of the digital codes was a huge deal to me, and found it baffling that DC didn't follow along. That kept me going up until a month or two ago, where after waning interest, I've just not picked up my comics from my local shop.

This choice from Marvel has almost sealed the deal with me to just be done with comics. I was already on the fence, but I guess now I'll just passively track with them and buy stand-out runs in collected form.

 

[Matty77]

Yup especially with the quality of some of Marvel's output lately...It's just not worth it to me to buy new comics.

Also in this boat. My big wish is for DC to come up with something like Unlimited, I would even be willing to pay a little more as long as it had the Vertigo catalog.

 

[Merriweather]

Pretty much the only physical comics I'm buying were Marvel books, because I felt like I was getting a better deal buying floppies with the codes. Now I guess I'll jut buy digital and wait for sales.

 

[LordOfLore]

Update, holy shit they are keeping the digital prices low.

 

[Shaanyboi]

Update, holy shit they are keeping the digital prices low.

Yay!

 

[BossDarkseid]

Update, holy shit they are keeping the digital prices low.

wtf that's awesome for me...nice.

 

[Tatsumaki Senpuukyaku!]

an avenue of comics reading that’s become steadily more popular than physical books in recent years.

This isn't true. It's less than 10%.