criterionforum.org

I gather the reason is that they're disproportionately expensive to manufacture on a per-unit basis and this is a business in which margins are inexorably tightening all the time. And Deaf Crocodile is already operating within decidedly niche territory in terms of what they release.

See also the fact that they're being very selective about what they put out on 4K UHD (which also sends the per-unit manufacturing costs sky-high), although happily that still includes the likes of Krakatit. Whoever would have predicted the first UHD release of a Czechoslovak film to be of an obscure Otakar Vávra film from the late 1940s rather than something far more obvious from a couple of decades later?

That the change is being made for reasons of expense seemed pretty self-evident, even if certain members of that other forum are unable to accept that (even after a detailed post from someone involved in making the decision). The increased move toward custom packaging and sales gimicks in recent years feels very much like the comic book industry in the ‘90’s before its bubble collapsed. Scaling things back right now feels like the only sensible decision if you’re interested in maintaining a label long term.