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Game of Thrones was nearly "destroyed" by pirates illegally streaming HBO content
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this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2023
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ
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Incredibly relevant: https://theoatmeal.com/comics/game_of_thrones
It's been said a million times, but piracy is an accessibility issue. Chasing your favorite shows across streaming platforms is exhausting.
I've always lived by lord GabeN's "piracy is a service issue. You have to offer a better experience than the pirates"
That dude is one in a billion. I am kinda scared what will become of valve once he retires or even dies. I swear to god if I lose access to my steam library I will never buy a single damn piece of media ever again.
Can we say Gabe's practice can translate to movies\shows? His products are at least 10hr worth (thus worth subscribing and enjoying an occasional sale), can be further promoted by having multiplayer, cloud saves, achievements...
It's true this old blood can't understand pirated MKVs are better than streaming-only DRMed shit. But is there anything they can really do to make their services work?
I think that it's not a problem of a service itself if it's not too shitty, but promotional campaign with memes like the one of Squid Games. One can be a Hitler of streaming platforms, but if this show is the new Lost, you'd make a bank anyway.
Once upon a time we had netflix. Almost everything you could want to watch was on there because they were just about the only show in town. During that time there was precious little reason to download most shows.
Now in order to have access to the thing you want to watch, you're expected to pay for 5 or 6 separate streaming services, by which point you end up at the same insane price point as paying for the full package of cable/PayTV channels.
They had a good thing and they ruined it with greed, just like everything else under capitalism. Glorious state streaming network should be only show in town, comrade.
I was super into piracy when I was ~12, but as Netflix took over and you could get everything you want with 2-3 subscriptions totalling <$20 per month I eventually stopped because it was easier, a much better experience, and worth the money. Now that there are too many services to count guess who has an RPi BitTorrent/Plex server? I'd prefer to go back to the old Netflix way of things as it's so much easier, but there isn't any option more convenient than my current setup.
If I could pay $50 a month and get everything I want content-wise I would, but I cannot. Not counting that half the subscription services are awful to use, or are missing major portions of series,. I've even started pirating content I pay for access to because I don't have to deal with DRM bullshit.
With Steam though I'll pirate a game, and if I like it I'll go buy it because it's a better experience. Gaben is 100% correct that you have to provide a better experience than pirates, otherwise why would anyone pay for a worse experience?
Sure, they just have to start thinking outside the box they built around themselves for once.
Here's an easy one: watch parties. You and your friends can watch the show together far away. You have integrated voice and video chat maybe, and pausing pauses for everyone.
Free shows or free teasers for shows. Not paying for a sub? You can watch the first 2 episodes of Brooklyn 99 for free, and avatar the last Airbender is free to watch or whatever.
That's not even scratching the surface. Netflix spent so much time building features that nobody uses (trivia and Minecraft story mode have almost good software behind them, why can't you do it easily with friends?), They could do something good but won't because God forbid they lose out on short term profit.