The hotly-anticipated fourth season of HBO’s Game Of Thrones is set to debut in April. To the annoyance of many Australians, this year’s season will be shown exclusively on Foxtel, which means you no longer have the option of buying the episodes on iTunes shortly after transmission. Foxtel is offering an olive branch in the form of a Premium Movies & Drama package spearheaded by Game Of Thrones for just $10 per month. The downside is that you need to be a Foxtel Play customer to take advantage of the deal.
[credit provider=”HBO” url=”http://www.hbo.com/”]
From April 1, new and existing Foxtel Play customers will be able to access Premium Movies & Drama content for just $10 per month. The $10 deal will remain active for the full run of Game Of Thrones season four, along with other popular shows such as Mad Men, Girls, House of Cards and True Blood.
Even if you ignore all the other goodies, this still works out at a very reasonable $3 per episode. However, you’ll also need a Foxtel Play subscription which brings the total to a minimum of $35 per month. That’s a lot of dosh to pay if you’re only interested in Game Of Thrones and nothing else.
It also limits what kind of hardware you can view the content on compared to the old iTunes model. (Access to Foxtel Play requires a broadband connection and only works on a handful of compatible devices including LG or Samsung smart TVs, the Xbox 360 and Macs/PCs.)
Unfortunately, the only non-illegal way to access the show immediately is via Foxtel — your other options are to pirate from a torrent service or wait for the Blu-ray/DVD. On the plus side, Foxtel Play has no lock-in contract which means you can cancel your subscription as soon as Game Of Thrones finishes. It’s not ideal, but better than paying $74 per month for Foxtel proper.
Do you think Foxtel Play’s Game Of Thrones deal is good value for money? What else would the company need to offer to make your pay for the show? Share your opinions in the comments section below.
See also: Foxtel Play: Lifehacker’s Complete Guide | How To Watch Game Of Thrones In Australia Without iTunes | Get Your Game Of Thrones Fix With These Similar Works Of Fiction | How To Avoid Game Of Thrones Spoilers | Top 10 Fantasy Writing Tips From ‘Game Of Thrones’ Author George R.R. Martin
Comments
24 responses to “Get Game Of Thrones From Foxtel Play For $3 Per Episode (Sort Of)”
They had some clown on the ABC news this morning, comparing it to an ecosystem, and saying that the new laws will benefit original content makers. The only ones who will get a benefit from this nonsense will be the middle men like Foxtel and the big corporations…. 🙁
In this case, it was the original content creator that disregarded Australian customers and forged the exclusive deal with Foxtel.
But, at least HBO doesn’t actually care about Australian piracy – http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/why-hbo-doesnt-care-that-game-of-thrones-is-the-most-pirated-show-ever
Considering Season 3 on iTunes costs $34, I’m pleasantly surprised!
Does Foxtel Play stream in some variation of HD?
Edit: No … Boo Foxtel! Far less surprised now…
The maximum data use per hour on a PC/Mac set to High Quality is 1.3Gb per hour.
The 400mb per hour in low quality looks pretty reasonable on my 60″ plasma so 1.3Gb should be *almost* HD. It would be nice if foxtel revealed the exact resolution specs of their stream.
Maybe HD streaming is due later this year, who knows.
As an existing Foxtel Play customer, this is an excellent deal and I will be getting on it as soon as it’s available!
If Game Of Thrones really is “the only thing you watch” then obviously piracy is your friend, and if you really like the show you’ll be able to justify the cost of a box set on DVD/BluRay. You’ll need to factor in the extra cost of $40 a year for a VPN though, if Brandis has his way with copyright law.
I think you would find more people are willing to pay to pirate than are willing to pay to have less.
I don’t know how you or anyone else can justify giving them money when netflix gives similar content at 10% of the cost, without adds and all on demand and when foxtel does nothing but screw over consumers time and time again. Putting the best shows in forced upgrade packages, forcing you to pay for stuff you don’t want and worst of all killing all local competition and even blocking netflix to operate locally.
I’m ashamed of you for supporting a corrupt monopoly such as foxtel, who are holding Australia back from getting fair pricing and fair content where customer convenience is king.
Seriously any and all foxtel subscribes should feel disgusted for their behavior, I don’t care if your on a 7 figure salary and money is no object. Supporting such a trash company is truly only punishing yourself and the rest of Australia.
I wrote the comment you replied to over a year ago and im no longer a foxtel play customer, although I am considering signing up to get sport (esp AFL in HD)… Maybe.
I am currently debating whether to get Stan, Netflix or presto or all 3.
pfffft,
*opens Sick Beard to confirm GoT in Show List*
I hear you fella
I think I would rather eat a three month dead, riddled with rabies rat than support any company run by Murdoch.
“HBO shows such as … House of Cards”
*netflix shows
Mad Men isn’t HBO either. Next time do your research! 😛
Foxtel can go die in a bus fire. Netflix couldn’t come fast enough.
Monopoly of distribution rights should be utterly illegal.
i’m sure netflix will be nerfed in AU, foxtel owns the broadcast rights for many programs so I doubt netflix will be able to show as much content as the US version.
Pretty much this. If Netflix ever comes to Aus, I’ll just keep my US sub and DNS spoofer sub. Netflix Aus would be worthless with how many exclusive distribution contracts are given out over here.
What a crock, I would never pay this ridiculous price and neither should anyone.
I BOUGHT ALL the season on bluray and have spent a roughly $3.5 per episode. This to PHYSICALLY OWN the show, with special features and all in glorious 1080p. All but the first season were bought on release too (Just got s3 for $35 at launch).
So even when we did have the Itunes way of downloading why would ANYONE have paid literally MORE for less?
Personally I will continue to Pirate and watch Game of thrones, in whatever quality i like, at which ever time I like and on whichever device I like all while I burn Foxtel affiliated individuals via spit roast. Nothing short of being able to use a service like Netflix (But with downloads, My speed isn’t good enough to stream) at a similar price will ever stop me from doing so.
Until such a time, all money that I would have spent on such a service will continue to grow my ever increasing amount of tv shows on physical media. I’m sitting at well over 110 season in my personal collection right now along with several 100 movies. So i’m by no means a free loading pirate. More like I watch anything an everything i want when I want and if Your stuff is good enough to watch again I buy it (which gives far more money than a simple Free to air TV add would have generated for the owners of any such show).
Sure it might not be legal, it might not be justified, but really this is 2014. We shouldn’t have geo blocking, inflated regional price gouging and 6 month delays on shows. Nor should we be forced to watch X show at X time or miss it forever. Nor be forced to pay $100’s+ per month for the privilege of doing the same thing with the shows taken hostage by scumbag murdoch while still having adds forced down our throats and inconvenient show times.
Personally I would call it justified, but unfortunately the law is the law and right and wrong don’t take part in it.
WOW THATS A GOOD DEAL NOW THEY CAN TAKE MORE MONEY FROM ME THAN JUST FOR BASIC FOXTEL FOR JUST ONE SHOW!!! I FEEL SO LUCKY TO BE ABLE TO PAY MORE.
Did you pay the Australian price?
So what I s Foxtel Play’s quality like. I remember trying Foxtel on the 360 when it came out and I was very disappointed. Also is its streaming only? Or can I download full bitrate to play later like the iTunes/mkv versions offered.
What would you prefer, 10 different ways to get foxtel, or 10 alternatives to foxtel. Until Rupert ends his monopoly on media little will change in Australia.
Well the good news is the creators of the show are getting their money from Foxtel, so pirates are ‘thieving’ from them instead (assuming they would pay Foxtel if they couldn’t thieve…which they wouldn’t)
I was happy to pay for direct content via itunes (or any other provider that can get in here) but will not pay at least 3x as much to receive an inferior product, the technology is there and exists to provide on-demand content to Australians, but development of the market is blocked by the monopolistic tendencies of one media organisation who try to force feed us their business model – this would be fine if they could enforce their preferred model like the old days, but they can’t
The only way to prevent Foxtel from doing this in future is to refuse to give in now
I’d rather just watch it as it comes out (through whatever means I see fit) and then pay for the dvds later like I’ve always done. That’s the best way in my opinion to support the show.
Isn’t this like third line forcing (which is outlawed as part of the Trade Practices Act)?
http://www.goodlawyers.com.au/legal-questions-and-answers/88-what-is-third-line-forcing
Lessening of competition (Good for Murdoch) and worse for consumers… a dysfunctionaing market