Revealed in an e-mail sent out to their various users and subscribers, comiXology has officially announced the first major change to come out of their acquisition from Amazon.com. And that first change? A complete redesign of their digital interface via a new app. As of now, the current comiXology app is redundant, no longer to be used. You can find the new app in the iOS app store now, which is basically a trimmed down version of the traditional comiXology app focusing on the aspects that allow you to read your digital comics.
The change that comes with it, though? As of now, you can no longer use the app as a digital storefront. You can browse what is in the app store, but you can not purchase things, only adding them to your wish list so you can go to their site in a browse and purchase it through there. That’s a pretty big deal: you can only buy comics on comixology.com.
What does this mean? It means that you can no longer use your iTunes accounts to purchase comics.
This is good and bad. On the one hand, it means that more money of your purchase goes to the creative teams; in fact, I’d been exclusively purchasing my comics on the site and then syncing my purchases to do so. When buying through Apple, they get a 30% cut of the profits, and considering I mostly get 99 cent digital comics from Monkeybrain it made sense to cut out that middle man.
However, on the other hand, now people that just casually read comics on their iPad or whatever device can not purchase comics directly — which is a huge setback. You should still be able to get some of your comics in the iBooks store, but the amount of conversations we’ve had with people on this site who love digital and use comiXology is directly proportional to the amount of people who like that they can read a comic and immediately purchase the next issue as a matter of convenience. When you take that away, when you add another step to that, you essentially block access to the material. Not to be overdramatic, but I can’t help but wonder how far back this could set back the digital movement.
It’s essentially the ultimate first world problem, but I do sympathize with those who prefer the convenience of buying comics directly in the app. Digital comics can often be a snap judgment purchase, especially for the casual reader who is just trying things out and browsing and buying. It may not be how I do it, but I get it and it makes a lot of sense.
comiXology goes a bit more into it in a blog post on Tumblr, going into the steps that you’ll need to take to update. Looking through some of the immediate reactions to this news on Tumblr, the reaction looks fairly negative, but I suppose it’s understandable why. That said, most of the creatives I’ve seen respond to the comiXology update seem in favor of it.
But, hey, want a consolation prize? Well, if you have a comiXology account and you’ve made purchases, comiXology is giving you $5 in promotional credit. So that’s, like, 5 Monkeybrain books you can try out for free!
We’ll certainly be following this story as it develops further.
