Axel came out in a Q&A and said he thought their digital product provided the same value as their print books, and so they would maintain a "Parallel Price Strategy". Man does he not get digital.

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They'd make more money if they lowered the price. I know there are a lot of people like me who download comics who would buy them online if they were less expensive.

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I guess it matters how much the physical publishing and distribution costs contribute to the cover price. If I had to guess I would say its probably not that much, if any, after considering advertising revenue. So if the majority of that cover price represents the creative and editorial costs of producing the comic then I think his argument could be valid. I think there are a lot of nuanced aspects and costs that come with the field of digital media that might not be apparent at first glance (I'm reminded of the TV writers strike a couple years ago, which was mostly about negotiating royalties from digital services such as iTunes and Hulu).

I guess I'm playing devil's advocate but without the numbers in front of me it's tough to make an argument either way.

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That is a number I would like to see, cause I would actually guess the high price is cause of printing and distribution. Heck, they sited the raise to 3.99 as being needed cause of increasing paper cost.

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JQ said in numerous interviews that the $3.99 cover price was a reflection of manufacturing costs.
Certainly there are other costs but that was his go to excuse when it was brought up while he was EiC.

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Do not bore me with such trite cliches. For I have you in my clutches, and should I choose, I could snuff out your insignificant lives in an instant.

I stand corrected. I did a little digging and found another forum that has some of those numbers and some other tidbits:

http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/to ... t-margins/

In light of this, I find myself more on the skeptical side. I guess thats the problem with playing devils advocate...sometimes he stabs you in the back with his pitchfork...

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ITs hard to play devils advocate for Marvels digital pricing, cause basically its just wrong. Digital distributed product should always be cheaper then physical product, becasue the distribution method is so much cheaper.

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Also you can't hold digital media in your hands.

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Also, isn't digital print basically just rights as opposed to a product you own?

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Do not bore me with such trite cliches. For I have you in my clutches, and should I choose, I could snuff out your insignificant lives in an instant.

I think that's still kinda up in the air at the moment. Quite often the services you buy digitally distributed stuff from use words which suggest ownership of a product rather than "subscription to a service" or whatever, to the point where if you took it to court you might actually win. Nobody has really tested it yet though.

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