DC Comics Changes Same-Day Digital Comics Pricing Policy

DC Comics' pricing policy for digital comics has changed. Earlier today Comic Book Resources broke the news that DC has extended its window for reducing prices on its same-day digital comics released on ComiXology. In the past, these titles would drop in price by $1.00 after four weeks on the digital comics service. Now, the company has lengthened that period to eight weeks.Comics Alliance reached out to DC for confirmation, and received a statement similar to the one issued to CBR.

"Digital comics is still a very young business and as such we are constantly evaluating the best business models and pricing strategies," said a DC Entertainment spokesperson. "Moving forward, all same-day digital books released on May 1 or later will drop in price by $1 two months after the initial release date. We will continue to offer an extensive back catalog of titles at a discounted rate, and all of our digital-first titles are available for $.99 per weekly issue. Even with this change, our digital pricing model continues to remain one of the most consumer friendly with respect to our competitors."

While the parity pricing timeline may prove frustrating to fans used to the previous structure, it's worth noting that DC did maintain its strategy for more than two years after the launch of the New 52 and is still implementing a discount unlike many of its closest competitors, including Marvel, which doesn't systematically discount its digital titles.

The strategy is especially timely given the recent wave of DC Digital press. Earlier this week DC Entertainment President Diane Nelson told Wired that "Just three years ago, we weren't in the business of digital publishing at all, or not meaningfully. Now there are a million downloads a month of DC stories from our digital publishing. It's not an insignificant business anymore." It's rare that such sales figures are mentioned publicly, and it should be interesting to see if DC's new digital pricing practices will have any kind of impact -- positive or negative -- in the near future.