'Game of Thrones' on HBO HD - NO SPOILERS or Book Discussion - Page 43

TV Notes
HBO's 'Game Of Thrones' On Track To Be Crowned Most Pirated Show Of 2012
By Andy Greenberg, Forbes.com

Brace yourselves, HBO. The pirates are coming.

With its popularity swelling and no easy way to watch for viewers without cable, HBO’s hit series “Game of Thrones” is inspiring massive levels of piracy, according to numbers from the **********-tracking and analysis firm Big Champagne. By the firm’s rough estimate, the second season of the show has been downloaded more than 25 million times from public torrent trackers since it began in early April, and its piracy hit a new peak following April 30th’s episode, with more than 2.5 million downloads in a day.

“It certainly appears to be the most pirated show of the year,” says John Robinson, a senior media analyst with Big Champagne. He says it’s too early to measure definitively, but the company’s data so far as well as the popularity rankings on download site the Pirate Bay point to “Game of Thrones” as filesharers’ favorite show of 2012. “The fact that it’s consistently at the top of the Pirate Bay’s top one hundred TV show chart seems like a pretty in-your-face leading indicator of the huge volume at which this is being shared.”

According to the **********-focused blog and measurement site Torrentfreak, the first season of “Game of Thrones” was the second-most pirated show of 2011 behind the sixth season of Showtime’s “Dexter.”

But Big Champagne’s numbers show that downloads of the second season of “Game of Thrones” so far consistently top “Dexter”‘s piracy numbers from the same point in its season last year. (See chart above left.)

It’s worth noting that ********** is just one way that shows are pirated online–I was able to find streaming episodes of Game of Thrones on sites like free-tv-video-online.me and zzstream.com after just a few Google searches. But those streaming options are even tougher to track and measure than **********.

While “Game of Thrones”‘ filesharing rates are probably driven in part by its appeal to the young, geeky male demographic that’s most prone to using torrent sites, HBO hasn’t helped the problem by making the show tough to watch online for the young and cable-less. The show isn’t available through Hulu or Netflix, iTunes offers only Season 1, and using HBO’s own streaming site HBO Go requires a cable subscription. (The situation was captured in the widely read comic strip The Oatmeal, in which the author attempts the rage-inducing process of trying to watch “Game of Thrones” online before giving up and downloading it from a sleazy porn-ad covered torrent site.)

“This is absolutely a reaction to the show’s not being available elsewhere online,” says Big Champagne’s Robinson. “It’s a very tricky game trying to create this kind of scarcity.”

Update: Forbes contributor Erik Kain elaborates on why HBO has “only itself to blame” for the show’s piracy.

Update again: Reddit’s “Game of Thrones” forum has some interesting discussion around this post. Many of the users admit to pirating the show and explain why they do it.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygree...-show-of-2012/

Jon Snow without the Watch is like the first half of the worst romantic comedy ever. Just so tedious. I miss his sidekicks and the rest of them.

First half of this episode dragged on because of that but it picked up later.

The Qarth situation had me confused. So was Xaro always planning to steal the dragons and was he to lying to Dany throughout? He seemed sincere before so I initially took it that the agreement was made when he discovered the warlocks took the dragons. Watching it again and it sounded like Xaro colluded with the warlocks before Dany arrived in the city.

The dead kids at the end I assume are supposed to be the Stark boys, but I figure they are the kids from the farm and Theon is using them to keep folk from knowing he actually couldn't find the Starks.

Agreed. I don't think they would have made a point to show the two boys running by in the scene before otherwise.

Also, Theon needs to die like, right now. I hope Robb doesn't show him any mercy if he gets his hands on him.

ETA: Also agreed, the Jon Snow storyline is extremely boring right now.

Snow must have regretted not killing the woman just because she's so annoying. I was hoping he'd change his mind and lop off her head just to stop her talking.

Not enjoying Theon's prominence either. The actor's delivery I find to be kind of wooden for any scenes where he has a lot of dialog.

Taking anyone for their word in this show minus a few people is what will end up getting you killed. Trust no one especially those you don't know. Why would you take him as sincere? Because that is what he portrayed to Dany? We have no knowledge of him or his past. The collusion was 2 fold. One was to take over Qarth 2 was to get the dragons and Dany.

She was playing her part to break him down slowly. Her talking meant she was still alive and biding her time. Her being "annoying" was brilliantly played and as we see led to the capture of John.

Tywin and Arya scenes are still amazing and still in the same room. Well done.

I'm not talking about trust, I'm talking about the dialog exchanges where he is acting like he has no clue who was responsible and promising to find the dragons to maintain his authority and respect.

If Xaro was going to steal the dragons and take a title from the very beginning then why hide his intentions? Faking ignorance seems to be a waste of time. All he had to do was call a council meeting at any time and kill them.. The pretense was unnecessary. As soon as Dany turned own his marriage offer Xaro could have taken over the city and taken the dragons, Dany and her people by force anyway. This way Xaro has now pissed on any allegiance or compliance Dany might have given by killing all her friends.

There's annoying as a character and annoying as an actor.

She's not in the former category.

Yeah, I'm really enjoying those scenes... I'm curious to see where this goes. On one hand, Arya is getting bold and I think she is going to blow her cover if she doesn't cool it. On the other hand, I suspect that Tywin already knows.

Maisie Williams is a good actress. Especially as this is her first gig. Those scenes are played well.

Faking his intentions led to the gathering of the 13 where he staged a coup. Without the 13 there is no one else for Dany to turn to. If he went and killed the 13 one by one he would not be as successful as he was. At this time he doesn't need an allegiance with Dany she was a pawn in the bigger game

Have you seen her in other roles? If her character is annoying you then her acting has worked. ;-)

Totally agree.

no way those were the Stark boys...I hope. I think the dragons hold some other value to the King of Qarth--he has enough money, but wants more power...I think he still wants to marry Dany and take Westeros, and the dragons are leverage.

+1



I think he is fine.
You can see the panic and uncertainty in his eyes, which is what the character is supposed to be feeling in a situation way over his head.



Best scene in the episode.



Me thinks too.

There's no way Tywin knows she's Arya Stark. He's made it clear he knows she's not a lowborn daughter of a stonecutter, but he thinks she's just some minor lord's child caught in the crossfire of his war. But if he knew her true identity she'd be shipped off in chains to King's Landing. Or at least kept in chains at Harrenhal. No way would he let her roam around freely.

Agreed. At the very least he could offer both daughters for Jamie, esp. now that he's in the hands of their mother as opposed to Robb.

I surprised that Tywin didn't ask Arya for the knife.

Why would he. She was using it to eat and doesn't see her as a threat.

She certainly is and she is holding her own in very complex conversation scenes with Charles Dance, a superb actor. It's like watching a sparring match between two very cagey fighters.

Go watch The Golden Child then re-read what I wrote.

I've seen the Golden Child. Just doesn't fit in this show IMO ;-)

Then you would get that Charles Dance's character in that movie main goal was to get a knife.

Absolutely. For such a young age, Ms. Williams is already proving to be an exceptionally nuanced artist. What a cast of characters!

I totally spaced why Charles Dance looked so familiar to me, but I could not remember why.

"My dear, sweet brother Numsie!"

I think Xaro did what he did in front of Daenerys to impress her even more, maybe he had been planning this for months and when she came it was the excuse to just do it.. and adding 3 dragons to his cause and a possible wife...

Poor Snow is in big trouble right now... girl played him like a puppet..

Of course she did, he's a Stark and none of them are bright enough (ie Ned) to handle unscrupulous folks. Not to say, she was doing anything, but surviving, but JS put himself in this situation and we could see it coming from a mile away. He voluteered to kill her without any intent to do so. Botched the intent(what was his goal anyway?), gave away any leverage, let her get away, captured her, let her get away again. The guy's a useless tool, not very bright and burdened with the Stark sense of honor in a world that has no place for it. If he'd found his ranger companions, they'd have just killed her anyway and he would have lost even more respect. I hate it when characters are written to be dense, making bad decisions rather than no decision at every turn.

Speaking of which, the last scene with Jamie and Caitlin - she asks for Brienne's sword.....

Is Jamie no longer a hostage but an ex hostage? Or is he a mute? Amputee??? Eunich????? Not quite so good looking????????

I can't see her executing him, he still has too much value as a hostage, but I can see her making him suffer....or at least shut up

The Stark men may be too honourable (trusting?) for their own good but Gods protect those that cross (most of) the women of the family......Sansa could use some lessons from her little sister

Gawd I love the way they have put these episodes together, every one leaves you wanting more. Next week can't come soon enough!

^^^
... and before you know it, the season would be over. Don't want to wait a year for this show to come back again.

I hope Boardwalk Empire starts back soon, to tide me over till this show comes back.