I think that statement is really rather silly. It's a bit like saying "anyone who is going to drink coke is already drinking coke". There's a ring of truth to it, but it still falls flat.

Edit: a few things: arguments based on the behavior of "the majority" and arguments founded on the principle that 100% of all people who have ever been Game of Thrones viewers are completely and utterly committed to viewing every single season are rather weak. Viewership of shows changes from season to season. More so, not every TV show viewer is the sort of person who must start a series from the beginning. Pulling in folks who are caught up on Game of Thrones but haven't been hooked on the current season and pulling in folks who will begin mid stream (and then maybe go back and watch from the beginning, or not) adds to their viewership. More viewers means more purchases, more purchases means more dollars.

Not to mention the value of retaining their existing viewership base.

These are all the same reasons why coke continues to dump massive amounts of dollars into advertising despite already being well known and having a huge chunk of the soft drink marketshare. In fact, the returns on investment for advertising already popular products tends to be higher than for products just entering the market, because the numbers are so big. There are millions of Game of Thrones fans. If even a few hundred thousand existing fans who might have held off on watching the new season are kept on the hook and if even a few hundred thousand non-watchers gain interest in the show via starting with the new season and if only a small fraction of those folks end up purchasing the discs, or HBO (in whatever form) then that's a considerable amount of money in HBO's pocket that would have been left on the table.

Which isn't saying it wasn't an accident, but business wise this is still a win for HBO.

I don't watch game of thrones. If I was going to start watching it, I would start at the beginning of the series instead of just jumping straight into the leaked episodes. By the time I get to the latest season, they would be formally released.

If you were going to start, it might be because the folks at the water cooler were excited about it - and this leak makes that more likely. People who'd dropped off might be reminded there's a new season coming and feel inspired to catch up. It's a great way to build hype for the "real" start of the new series.

I think accident is more likely, but HBO doesn't lose much - anyone who watches these episodes is going to want to watch the rest of the series and is going to pay HBO (or else would never have done so)

Yeah I'm with you, tho only people who seemed interested in the leaked episodes were big fans.

Except for the fact that this is a TV show, and the majority of people who want to begin watching it will want to start at the beginning with season 1.

Do you not realize how complex the workflow pipelines are for a film or TV series of any kind? And how shows involving a lot of special effects like GoT are orders of magnitude more complex? For the publicity and marketing side of things we like to send actors out on talk shows to talk about character and costumes and drama and so on, and maybe show a few shots of a giant camera on a greenscreen stage to talk about how innovative things are, but there's a vast amount of painstaking digital troubleshooting and assembly work by hundreds of people involved in the manufacture of the product. I think you underestimate the degree of engineering knowledge that obtains in the entertainment industry, and at how many different levels that engineering knowledge is applied.

I am hooked on GoT, my response to HBO is thus:

"Dear HBO, as a subscriber to HBO since 1983, I am saddened for this leak. As a huge fan of GoT, I am delighted, thank you, I will still watch all episodes in HD and DVR them every Sunday."

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HBO should allow for HBO GO users to see the whole season at a time - the same way netflix does.

There is no reason to meter out the story. Netflix dumping a whole season on the wire when it gets released is the best release method ever.

Sorry, but I couldn't disagree more. Ever since Game of Thrones started, I have gathered with various groups of friends nearly every Sunday to watch the episode as it airs. Watching Game of Thrones has become a social event primarily because the release structure forces everyone to always be at the same point (even if some have read the books).

In contrast, after House of Cards s3 was released and we watched a few episodes together, it became a free for all. Having a conversation about the show with anyone is practically impossible unless everyone has seen the entire show.

Linear TV is over though. You can easily setup watch clubs or movies without having some exec throw your series around and invade your schedule and stretch it across a season.

Entertainment, in such a busy world, should be available at the leisure of the viewer, not some game rigged to keep interest over a time. Personally I'd rather watch the whole GoT season now to avoid seeing spoilers.

I think because of binging, better quality content is being created that is more complete and movie like. This content is meant to be consumed as a whole complete series and written as such, rather than hacked together a few weeks out and more plot holes or unnecessary episodes. Shows are so much better consumed in whole rather than across many many weeks, it leads to a stronger buy into the characters and the writing.

With binging, full availability, people can also easily catch up this way and watch older series more readily together. What we are moving to is a much better system than linear broadcast television which was only that way because there was limited network and resource availability, also it was all about the ads. I am sure there will be more watchers groups setup to binge together because so much more TV is available this way.

> Entertainment, in such a busy world, should be available at the leisure of the viewer, not some game rigged to keep interest over a time.

Well, it can't be. It has to be made first. No matter what, there will always be some kind of a delay in when you can watch the next X of Y, simply because we haven't invented time travel yet.

And I absolutely agree that the broadcast model -- where you see the thing only if you're at your TV at the right time -- is a thing of the past, but there's no reason that means serialization (which is what I think you mean by linear) should go away.

> I think because of binging, better quality content is being created that is more complete and movie like.

I won't argue, by any stretch, that scripted serialized storytelling (non-film) hasn't gotten markedly better over the last few years, but this kicked off long before Netflix dumped an entire season of HoC into your lap and can largely be credited to the shows that really raised the bar, like The Wire, The Sopranos, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, etc. All of those were serialized. Netflix is a johnny come lately to this trend.

And there is actually value in having time to digest what you just watched. You're more likely to think critically about it and less likely to just swallow it as some giant mass of stuff. The social aspect of being in sync with other people -- even people you just met -- can mean finding new ways to think about the story that you didn't have before.

All the netflix model does is make it so our episodes of TV are impossibly long, and their impact on popular culture much much less. People absolutely talk more about shows they're actively watching during a season.

+1 for enjoying scheduled programming.

I don't believe this model will ever go away because of things like live sports. You can't "on demand" a live basketball game and part of the joy is enjoying the results unfold together.

This is something I had not ever thought of, so thank you for that.

As a father of three small kids, I don't have the luxury of a weekly viewing parties. I find solace in the times when I have several hours to binge watch at my own pace.

This thread is just some incredibly nice and cordial and thoughtful discussion, thank you everyone.

I personally prefer the Netflix format of all at once (especially with how little each plot line moves forward each episode) but I can understand a metered approach. You can generate much more hype and social media buzz if you trickle it out over time.

By distributing it gradually, the get more subscribers. I know plenty of people who pay HBO only during the time of the year that GoT is broadcast. That's about 3-4 months.

I recall the the last episode was postponed one week last year due to some strike or something alike, forcing people to pay an additional month of HBO. I heard a few complaining about this extra cost (and the fact that there was no episode that weekend!).

I worry more about torrent piracy in Australia — with impending Dallas Buyers Club lawsuits, I'm recommending everybody I know find it through alternate means or investigate VPNs. No matter how it was leaked, no doubt they're monitoring the swarm like hawks.

Only discovered GoT a year ago, and caught up by binge-watching all the episodes in less than 2 weeks.