IGN: No more Simpsons released on DVD Finally. What the heck is a "DVD" anyway? Get with the times, grandpa!
Oh well. If they don't want my money to add to their already over-inflated bank accounts then to hell with them.
As someone on a budget, DVD sets of long-running shows has always been out of my reach. I've long since come to terms with it and at this point, if it isn't on streaming, I'm not going to watch it. With shows like the Simpsons, I'd previously given up hope that I'd see the older episodes again, though then FXX and the FXNow app came out. As we speak, my kids are watching the episode where Marge becomes a policewoman on our cable's On Demand service. It's a different world. At this point, I still favor physical media. If my internet goes down (which means my cable does, too, since it's the same company), I can still pop in a DVD/Blu-Ray disc. Not to mention, they don't slow down, buffer. And since many come with codes for free digital copies, I get the best of both worlds. However, I am upset that they are resorting to the piracy boogeyman. The DVDs have been coming out for what, 15 years? At this point, anyone who doesn't have them, likely will never buy them. And I don't know anyone who was dying to get the current seasons on DVD.
As someone who's been buying and rebuying tv shows and movies on recorded media since the damn Betamax came out, I'm pretty sick of "the format is dying" announcements. There are things I've bought on Beta, VHS, Laserdisc, DVD and Blu-ray now. Hell, I even have a "selected scenes" Super-8 reel from Star Wars!
The piracy argument is at least partially disingenous at best, as a lack of affordable physical media will actually drive certain segments of the market towards piracy. It's simply no longer viable for them to produce a physical item and go through the logistical and general commercial motions of selling it, with different middlemen taking their individual cut. Digital sales are where it's at, you can't get closer to pure revenue as a content provider.
Exactly. No more DVDs just means more people will download it. I download shows until they come out on DVD because I don't feel like spending $2-3 on a digital episode, just to buy the DVD set in a few months for 50 cents and episode.
And, yet, charging the same or slightly less for the content drives people to piracy. Not to mention that certain services only allow you to play on certain devices. I use a Chromecast to stream to my non-smart TV. That means relying on the Google Play store if I want to stream content I purchase to the TV. It also means paying $12.99 for standard definition for a movie like X-Men Days of Future Past, while HD is $14.99. It's cheaper on Amazon, at $9.99 for either HD or SD. However, this way, I can't stream it to my TV, though I could watch it on my phone, tablet, or computer (as long as they are HD compliant).
Hollywood always wants to blame piracy for their lack of sales of certain titles. I won't speak in this post about the ethical probloems of stealing but I will say that Hollywood always sees the end of their financial world. VCR's were going to kill them, allowing people to record things. Instead it opened a huge market for VHS tapes and recordable VHS tapes that last over two decades, only being stopped by DVD's. And even then there was a world wide black market of illegal copies. Online downloading was going to kill them, yet VHS sales increased when unlawful downloading was taking hold with places like Napster. And we still got DVD's and now Blu-ray's and various online pay/stream servicables like Netflix and Hulu. I'm surprised they are't complaning now that Spotify is like TV and recording programs like Audacity are like VCR's. Audacity will kill sales, OMG! Youtube will destroy them, oh nos!
I wonder what the DVD sales are per season? As somebody who was there when the show began and tuned out pretty much after season eight, save a few Halloween specials (until those became unfunny, too), I wouldn't purchase anything beyond season eight. I have a hard time imagining sales of later seasons, especially newer ones, are that good. It's just not as good at it was in the beginning. Hell, I tried to watch part of a new one about a year ago that people were saying was funny and like the old show. I couldn't finish, I had to turn it off. Yikes. It embarasses me to suggest this show to people now.
Probably abysmal. Fox has scaled back or ended entirely its DVD / Blu-ray sales of its other television programs due to terrible numbers.
I watched a few episodes on the FXNOW app this morning. It's aggravating to get started, but it is a nice feature. I wish they'd add Chromecast support, so I can watch it on my dumb TV.
Word. I'm still getting some of the older seasons. But I'd rather watch them on DVD then on an app. Guess the latter is the 'safer' option to try and prevent piracy. But I doubt they'll be able to. People will still resort to illegal means to get stuff. I'm not even bothering with the app. Considering the limits for wireless, cap wise. It's not worth it.
Slightly OT: I wonder how it'll affect other shows that are on Fox? Will they only be available via streaming?
FXX has every episode of The Simpsons, but while there are a lot of other series via their streaming service, they're very incomplete, so I'm not sure what they plan to do.