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Originally Posted by J Harker  Wonder if its a tactic to try and get more copies sold up front rather than to people like me that have no shame and more often than not catch up during their sales. |
That is indeed the idea. Pay a realistic price early in the release cycle and you'll get the best possible product. But if you wait with the cynical intention of paying as little as you can get away with, it's increasingly likely that you'll get less in return.
It's the inevitable result of the unfortunate combo of situations whereby the physical-media market is inexorably shrinking but BDs are significantly underpriced relative to their production costs - and this has a disproportionate impact on independent labels because they can't achieve the same economies of scale that the majors can with their massive print runs.
So all independent labels are wrestling with similar issues - they're just addressing them in different ways. In recent months, the BFI has made a substantial shift towards a "limited BD edition followed by an unlimited DVD one" model, whereas Arrow is at least proposing to keep the BDs permanently in print (at least for the duration of their licence), but not necessarily always with the booklets.