As of
last night, the first four episodes of the new Game of Thrones season, nearly
half of the ten total episodes, have been leaked online to various torrent
sites. After appearing online yesterday afternoon, the episodes have
already been downloaded almost 800,000 times. This is bad news for HBO, which
is attempting to marry the recent debut of their HBO Now streaming service with
season 5 of Game of Thrones. They are relying on the new season to push
their $15 a month, standalone HBO Now service. HBO Now will allow people whom
are not subscribed to HBO on their cable devices to have
the chance to stream HBO shows and movies at a monthly cost. But now
pirates who may have been considering making the switch to a legal means of
consumption can now watch the first four episodes of the show right this
moment, so it may negate their motivation to try out Now. How this
happened isn’t a mystery. The press has had their hands on four episodes worth
of press screeners for a while now, so someone that was trusted with those
review materials clearly should not have been. CEO Jeff Bewkes
stated, “Our experience is [piracy] leads to more penetration, more paying
subs, more health for HBO, less reliance on having to do paid advertising… If
you go around the world, I think you’re right, Game of Thrones is the most
pirated show in the world. Well, you know, that’s better than an Emmy.”
For
anyone who calls themselves a true fan, watching four episodes of the show
right now and waiting a month for the others is an awful way to
experience the show. Game of Thrones is one of the last true
“event” shows where it’s something you want to talk about Sunday night or
Monday morning with friends and strangers alike. It’s a core part of the
experience.
