Comixology Impact: Buying Behavior and Perception

BlackUmbrella

As a lifelong comics buyer and collector, I have been pretty surprised at how digital media has completely dismantled my collector mentality on every front - except perhaps music (although I find that recently I'm as quick to look up a song on YouTube or Spotify as to go to my own mp3 collection). This probably has to do with the fact that I get a DRM-free copy of the files when I buy music. Otherwise, I have very little desire to buy physical copies of films, books, albums or comics except on rare occasions. And I used to be a pretty meticulous and hard core collector of these things... it was a real point of pride to have the results of my endless hunting and acquiring in my house.

Comixology has helped me to realize that, for me, paying for and reading a comic is more like buying a movie ticket than buying a bar of gold. I pay, I consume it, and I move on to next month's offerings. It's always been like that, except that I used to have boxes of bagged and boarded comics I'd never read again.

What's now happened is that I no longer buy anything I don't have the intention of reading right away. Occasionally a 99 cent sale will get me to buy a few books in advance, but for the most part, there is in my mind very little difference between books that I have bought and books that I have not, because there is little assurance that I will own them forever anyway. In a sense, everything Comixology offers is in my collection, because in a couple of taps I'm reading it. There's virtually no difference in terms of accessibility.

So buying any comics in advance has become a bit like buying tons of movie tickets today for movies I plan to watch in the future... it's fairly ridiculous. I find myself rather surprised at this state of affairs.

John_Steed

100% agreed. I also arrived in the digital age.

These days I only buy physical copies of things that are uberspecial to me - be it in comics (collections in HC or awesome stuff like Chris Ware's "Building Stories"), music (box sets of favorite artists) or movies (special-special-edition with tons of extras) Everything else is just a link away.


But once in a while I still need the haptic pleasures....

Comic_Break

For me, I find that digital has replaced the $1 bins. I would always shop the $1 bins at cons and pick up series that I had heard good things about but had never got around to reading. Now, I'm doing the same but digitally. I stock up whenever there's a Comixology .99 sale and they sit there waiting for me to read, just like the physical copies would before.

Torchsong

There have been several threads (on previous iterations of these forums) about how many of us have shed "the collecting monkey" off our backs. Sometimes it was simply getting older and realizing you just didn't want to have these stacks of longboxes around. Other times it was a change in priorities - marriage, kids, financial situation, etc. - that led to many of us "culling our herds" of not just comics, but DVDs, toys, etc. Much of this posting came around before digital became what it is now - in fact there were just as many threads about people saying they could not and would not ever embrace digital.

I've culled my herd many a time, but I've never fully said goodbye to it. I don't feel like I have to. If I like a series enough, I'm happy to buy it in print. There too, I've embraced and loved the books I subscribe to digitally. And, much to a publisher's delight, if I'm reading a series digitally and really enjoy it, chances are I'll pick it up again in print format. There are some things I like owning on DVD as well, just to say "I own them" even if they are just a Netflix click away. I supposed I haven't completely said goodbye to storable media. :)

But it's awesome we live in a world with all these options open to us, isn't it?

kfreeman

Definitely on the boat here. I still buy physical copies of a few things--books that are special editions or nifty hardcovers for my shelf, or books whose digital price never goes down (I'm looking at you, Marvel). For Dark Horse, whose singles drop $1 to 1.99 after one month, I just wait a month before I purchase them. I also stock up on sale books when things I want go on sale.

And I am almost to the point now where I have replaced every physical book that I wanted to replace with digital. My bookshelves and closet space thank me for this. I probably have about 800 digital comics and trades now.

mwhitt80

Torchsong said:

There have been several threads (on previous iterations of these forums) about how many of us have shed "the collecting monkey" off our backs. Sometimes it was simply getting older and realizing you just didn't want to have these stacks of longboxes around. Other times it was a change in priorities - marriage, kids, financial situation, etc. - that led to many of us "culling our herds" of not just comics, but DVDs, toys, etc. Much of this posting came around before digital became what it is now - in fact there were just as many threads about people saying they could not and would not ever embrace digital.

I was think about this the other day. I have one desire to bind most of my single issues into book form. I've gotten rid of just about every "loose" issue/miniseries in my collection.
The thing that broke my desire to collect was when my wife and I changed all our dvds from their original cases to slimline cases.

Hex

Call me a curmudgeon, but I just can't get into digital comics.

In every sense of the argument, digital wins. Logically it makes sense, but it just doesn't do it for me. I have read a few issues on my iPad, but I walk away felling "meh". There is something about the ritual of going to the shop, chatting with the dudes behind the counter, the satisfaction of browsing the racks (or digging through bins), and coming home with a stack of issues. I think if I was to switch to all digital, I would most likely slowly fade away from reading comics.

BlackUmbrella

Hex, I still go to the shops now and then. And I buy things when I go, almost out of a sense of obligation not to walk out without supporting them. I miss the stores more than I miss the actual comics, I think.

But in my case the digital comics on my Kindle Fire have revitalized my reading, and I'm enjoying them more than I have since I was a kid. At one point I had about 5 titles on my LCS pull list, then the economy crashed at the same time prices went up and I just quit buying. I was borrowing trades from the library, and that's what I planned to do until the New 52 hit. Now I buy about 20 DC, Marvel, Image and Valiant titles, and I actually want more titles than I can afford.

Chuck_Melville

I only look at the digital freebies of books I don't ordinarily get, just to see if they're worthwhile. Otherwise, I don't bother with digital comics. They're no good to me if I can't put 'em in a box. If I were actually getting the digital copies by actual downloaded copies as opposed to just having them hanging in the cloud somewhere, available whenever I wanted to look at them, I might be a bit more open to them. But the current model is a 'you're only leasing them, not owning them' set-up, which doesn't suit me at all.

But, overall, I want the physical copies.

John_Steed

...our entire existence is temporary.....on the other hand...one can be put in a box at the end....when I think about it....I wanna be hanging in the clouds somewhere....

need a happy pill

Hex

Until they are significantly less expensive than the physical copies I won't be buying many digital comics. Let's face it... it costs less to produce and distribute a digital comic than a printed version, and that should be reflected in the price.

Gargoyle

I've never had much of a collector mentality so comiXology has been mana from heaven for me. The residual value of most comics is so low that the fact digital isn't resellable doesn't trouble me. I've got about 2000 trades and if I could get them all digitised and have them disappear and free up space I'd jump at the chance.

I'm quite a patient reader anyway so I tend to wait for sales and then stock up. I've bought a couple of thousand issues or trades from them so far. The one thing I won't do is pay £2.49 for a 20 page comic as I simply do not believe comics are worth that much money for something which can be read in as little as 5 mins.

Chuck_Melville

Hex said:

Until they are significantly less expensive than the physical copies I won't be buying many digital comics. Let's face it... it costs less to produce and distribute a digital comic than a printed version, and that should be reflected in the price.

Not that much less to produce -- you still have to pay the creative, editorial and managerial people, after all. If anything, the savings from not having to physically print a book should go to a wage increase for all these people, especially the creators.