Download the episodes and watch them all at once, back to back?

Others will not be able to afford Cable, may have to wait to view the current episode, or have no digital availability in "your region" etc.

Make these shows available worldwide, at the same time digitally and otherwise and piracy will drop.

Or at any rate, those that pirate will not have been customers able or willing to purchase in the first place.

I'd love to know what countries pirate game of thrones the most, whether it is the United States, or countries outside the US.

What the MPAA and the Networks have yet to explain is why:

A) I pay as much or More for my cable television living outside the US?

B) The US Channels including HBO, Showtime (simply not available), Starz, Discovery, National Geographic and educational channels show premium recent shows and the channels I get outside the United States show older series and movies?

C) Why I speak English yet I am lumped in Latin America where many shows are in Spanish with no subtitles, and foreign language films are unwatchable because there are no subtitles.

D) My Cable companies publicised that they tried to negotiate with US firms to allow them to show the US Feeds and were told that they simply were not available outside the US, fullstop. Pay a million, pay 40 million...they aren't available, take this content which we package for you because we have already shown it to our own people.

E) Why does Netflix Latin America lack over 25,000 movies and series titles that are available on Netflix USA, but I pay the same subscription fee?

F) Why is the content on Hulu not available worldwide?

G) Why can I pay 800USD for an iPhone, 250USD for a Kindle Fire, and 800USD for an iPad but I can't purchase the latest apps or add my credit card to the iTunes store because I do not live in the United States?

H) Why can I purchase a Kindle Touch but cannot purchase over 30,000 books because I am not a US citizen? Why when the Kindle was first available was I paying a dollar more for every book purchase from Amazon?

I) Why are unabridged DVD and BluRay collections in some cases available only in the United States? Why is Amazon prevented from shipping them outside the US?

I'd love a follow up question to the so called "authorities" as to why Foreigners are made to pay more for substandard services and products (in my view, showing old movies at current prices is a scam) and this is not considered a violation of Trade agreements. Under WTO agreements you cannot sell a higher quality product to your own citizens and create an inferior product for export (and especially not at the same price).

Answer those questions, and then we can start talking about why non-US citizens (i.e. the other 6.7 BILLION people in the world) may pirate content when they may be able to afford the products.

Secondly, take a look at this Oatmeal comic which brings the point home as well: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/game_of_thrones

Sorry, no sympathy for an industry that made record breaking profits last year while crying about how much money it was losing, and doing its best in my view to racketeer profits from overseas markets through an opaque system of IP licensing and distribution.

What has an even larger impact on the bottom line of Developers than Second Hand Games, or Piracy, is Distribution Restrictions which can cause both of these issues.

If you live outside the United States, Canada and Mexico currently there is NO WAY to get a digital copy of Fable III. That means the other 6 BILLION people in the world have no way to get this outside of waiting for the game to reach their stores. Maybe. (I'd be waiting a long time where I live, since there really are no major chains that support PC Gaming).

So I can SEE that the game is available on Direct2Drive, Steam (actually steam hides games that are geo-restricted from you). And I have the Credit Card, and the money to make the purchase...but I cannot.

But I do have 100Mbps internet available to my doorstep. So what do you think myself and other 6 Billion people are going to do after being bombarded by marketing online and at major game review sites on the internet? Charge me a dollar extra if you want to, to compensate for the bandwidth it would take you to beam the game to us rejects out here?

So in my view the Developers and Publishers can shove it. They create a situation, create a problem and then complain about it, and the RIAA and the MPAA ram legislation and onerous copyright laws through courts; and attach rider agreements to Trade Agreements demanding changes to Copyright Laws in poor and developing countries.

This doesn't get into the "special" business arrangements that Developers have with their customers, where they want to "license" their products. Why we put up with this unfair and onesided arrangement is beyond me.

All the Licenses in the world didn't help me when Sony got hacked and my Credit Card and personal information ended up in the hands of hackers did it?
But Lionhead wants to prevent me from selling my game to a friend or to a store when I'm finished with it because it is "Licensed" and not "owned"?

There was a time when Customers had rights. I could record a song off the radio and put it onto a tape and play it in my car. When I was finished reading a book, I could keep it on my shelf and give it to my little brother, or hand it to a friend. Developers, Publishers and the Cartels which represent them are taking those rights away through Technology. DRM, DMCA laws etc.

Did I mention they could go shove it?

I don't know if "honey but we made history!" is going to work :-\

In my view, I can't think of any party based game that would not benefit from having co-op included. That is, any game where your 'main character' is followed by a group of AI controlled characters could benefit from Co-Op through that campaign.

Having the ability for a human player to jump in is fun. I've heard developers say that the second player feels left out, because the main character makes all the decisions...but that was never my experience. In all these games, there is the quest story..and then the combat. Yes, there may be some feeling of being left out of the story, but normally players communicate about the choices, and come to a compromise. The idea is that with Co-Op play you will most probably be playing with a friend. You just need a few nods to the fact that there could be co-op, to get the thing integrated. We have never seen a game like Neverwinter Nights 1 or 2 since those titles hit the market. And afaik they both sold fairly well. NWN 2 would still be on the radar if ATARI had not apparently decided to kill it off (Now they are going with Cryptic for NWN 3 as a MMORPG model with a "foundry" style mission builder like STO and City of Heroes...which I fear will tank).

Bulletstorm is another title that I think could have benefited from a Co-Op mode, regardless of what the Developers said. Could you imagine teaming up to do kill combos etc. ? It could have been the next Borderlands.

No. The real reason this isn't included in more titles in my view is this: PROFIT.
That's all it is. It costs more to implement proper networking code, making the necessary commitments to UI etc. through the campaign, additional Q&A testing. Then there is the game length and difficulty. Many games boast 10 hours of play time, but this isn't actually 10 hours of pure content. This includes how many times the average person will need to REPEAT existing parts of the game to get past them (see Speed Runs). So having two capable Human players play a game, will cut that playtime in most cases (if the game isn't written to scale hit points, tactics, weapons etc. when it recognises two human players). So you actually need to have more GAME in there to support two human players increasing costs again. Then if your game is created for the Console (which most are these days) you need to also pass through an additional layer of QA testing, etc. to make sure it works seamlessly.

All this is why I think the biggest impediment is simply Profit., not about games needing co-op or not. Adding co-op doesn't remove market share, all it does is add to it.

Games I would have liked to play Co-Op : Dragon Age Series, Mass Effect Series, Bulletstorm Campaign, Crysis + Crysis 2 campaigns,Grand Theft Auto campaigns. Now did any of these *need* co-op? no. They would have just been far better for having it, in my view. But where Bioware is concerned, we have Knights of the Old Republic for that eh? :-) Comes right back to PROFIT.

It isn't just cutting prices, it is making content available WORLDWIDE. Outside the US you cannot see Series and view television shows on Hulu. There is NO option for this type of service. If you use Amazon, you can't read all the books, or see all the shows, or listen to all the music. There are Region locks on everything. So even if you as a Non-US citizen WANT to pay, these companies block you.

Effectively saying we don't want your money. But then they turn around and count a download from your region as part of billions of dollars in lost sales due to piracy.

How does that make sense?

There is no physical product to move. You can charge 1 dollar extra to cover any additional bandwidth from outside the US. There are so many things that can be done, but instead there is a blanket refusal to provide the content. Whether it is books (educational or otherwise), Game downloads, Movie Downloads, or Music DOwnloads. People outside the US go through great lengths to be able to PAY for their music on iTunes for example. It's ridiculous.

Newsflash. People aren't going to say "Well I'm not from the US therefore I should not be watching these shows" . They are going to find a way to get this content. And in doing so they are going to fall prey to malware, trojans, and all manner of nasties that are embedded in blackmarket content and methods of obtaining it through websites, torrents etc. And that starts a vicious cycle.

Is it that the powers that be see a gold mine in starting a War On Piracy, the way there is a War on Drugs, and a War on Terrorism? None of which ever solve the underlying issues and have proven to be the worst way to address the problem...but they do enrich certain segments of government and the corporate market.

At any rate the goals of Governments and lobby groups does not seem to be to maximise sales and boost profits, the goal seems to be to criminalise an activity in order to support and promote bad business practice through legislation. In that scenario neither the public nor the artists win.

They *skirted* the law by setting up shop in a sensible country, rather than in the US ;-)
Whilst the enormous and very willing US market makes it very attractive for these ventures, the legal and political shenanigans represents a risk.

In my view this is a complete non-issue surrounding transactions that have taken place for decades before the rise of cell phones and facebook.
Methinks someone just wants their cut and is using children to attempt to legislate a mechanism of control.

If these companies were to move their operations to , let's say Sweden, would the FTC even have jurisdiction over in-game transactions?

Another problem with the Total Multiplayer model is that if everything is controlled by EA's servers, you can't use mods. That's a huge plus for PC based gaming, being able to modify many titles to adjust the gameplay to what you want. For example I've modified most of the Tom Clancy games to unlimited ammo for my friends and I. Why? We just prefer playing them that way. Is it wrong? If we enjoy it then not at all. I have also used 'Realism' mods in those games as well. Look at a game like Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2. Or Elder Scrolls series. Fallout New Vegas. Without that Speed mod for Fallout New Vegas , I would never have gotten as far as I did, because I find travel time to be highly annoying. Similarly with Dragon Age.There are lots of mods, one key mod is Skip the Fade where you can skip a highly annoying part of the story. Having everything controlled by the Publisher removes all that player choice from the games. (Now please note, I am not talking about cheating in multiplayer to gain an advantage over other players.That's wrong).This is a grab for more money, and more profit by tacking on microtransactions to every single game that is published. But the consumer loses. We have seen that even a great title like Halo Wars is likely to be shut down. I can still go back and replay Neverwinter Nights 1 adventures if I want to. I can still fire up Oblivion. If all these games were controlled by Publisher's servers, they would not still be around because it would no longer be profitable to maintain the servers. Again, this is a lose lose scenario for the consumer.

ISPs spend more money and more R&D finding new ways to detect file sharing than on finding and stopping DDOS attacks, Malware or Spyware.

It has been proven that the losses which the RIAA quote are fanciful at best and totally false at worst.Yet no one mentions the very real and measurable losses that Spyware, malware, and DDOS attacks cause businesses and home users worldwide.

There was a time when the hardware and software to do inspections of networks to determine if file sharing protocols were used, what was being shared across torrent networks, to identify music in videos for copyright infringement and a host of other methods did not exist. R&D was done, probably hundreds of millions were spent, and now these technologies exist and are in use today (and much to the dismay of toddlers and grandmothers sued out of house and home they work). So the argument that 'It's too hard...' or 'We can't easily find them' isn't valid.

Websites distributing Viruses, Spyware and Malware can stay up for a decade with no media attention, and no law enforcement attention. But try posting a site that offers a few albums for download and the cease and desist notices fly fast and furious.

The issue of DDOS, Spyware, Malware and Viruses transmitted over the internet is a far more immediate issue facing internet users internationally, and yet it receives almost no attention by the government.

Why is that?

This is the type of law and the type of legislation which scares the MPAA and the RIAA. The fact that other nations have not followed the United States' and the EU's adoption of draconian copyright law which removes the rights of the Consumer does not fall in line with the business strategies of these international cartels.

ACTA is meant to supercede any existing copyright laws of a country which signs to the treaty. So Canada, India and others can have whatever fair and just laws they wish, it will not matter once they are made to sign the ACTA agreement.

What's happening is very insidious, and it is something that citizens must guard very carefully against. The period of economic growth and innovation which we have seen via the Internet is based in no small part on Fair Use.

Three things threaten this:
1) Problems with The Patent System
2) Unfair and Draconian Copyright laws.
3) Any loss of net neutrality.

It is actually a tourist attraction.

Countries such as Germany mandate that their roads, the famous Autobahn, must constitute a certain percentage of pitch from Trinidad. The Asphalt from the pitch lake is internationally acclaimed for its high percentage of asphalt resins and world renowned for its quality.It is also the world's largest and most consistent deposit of natural asphalt.

It is used in New York's Kennedy and La Guardia airports,to line the George Washington Bridge,and as previously stated in the German Autobahn system to name a few.

In the face of all this the cavalier and in some sense derogatory terminology used by the poster is both unfortunate and inaccurate. One suspects the author has never actually visited the Pitch Lake in Trinidad. It doesn't smell, it is not filled with noxious fumes. The area is quite pleasant and forested.

The pitch lake represents a little understood and fascinating eco-system, and it's great that it is finally being researched. It is incredible when one imagines how much of our past can be found in its depths,claimed from the earth tens of thousands of years ago, resting somewhere within it.

That's far less likely to happen when you modify the original IP and add your own unique elements than if you make a wholesale copy.

Why copy the original and have the hassle of dealing with copyright in the first place?

Instead: Create Your Own IP.

Radical idea I know..but bear with me.
Create your own IP that is similar to the original, and then even make some improvements based on current technology trends. Have similar though not identical storylines, change the names of places and persons up etc.

People that care and played the game 18 years ago will remember and recognise it for what it is. People that never did can still enjoy it regardless.You lose nothing.

There is much less risk to you and your team of no one ever seeing your hard work.

How many times have we heard of this happening, why do groups of talented people persist?

NEVER donate your time, especially not 8 years, to someone else's IP.

Had they put 8 years into making adventure stories for say Neverwinter Nights 2 or something they probably would have been able to strike a deal for paid expansions (Like Mysteries of Westgate).

Or had they put 8 years into their own IP. All it would have taken was to change the names, places...move the story around a bit. They could even have said that it was Inspired by Kings Quest etc. etc. (Torchlight inspired by Diablo).

This is really very sad.But the corporate beast has no feelings and no loyalty.

All the popular Piracy statistics relating to loss of profit are lies. It is only because Corporations ensure laws in their favor that organisations such as the RIAA and the MPAA can make the sort of claims for damages that they do. When a youth in India downloads Call of Duty and then leaves uTorrent running, that isn't a loss worth 500,000USD. There are many places and many individuals both within and outside the US and the developed world who literally cannot afford these games.

Becoming involved in electronic entertainment can lead to an interest in computing, a career and innovation for the industry as a whole. If not by Piracy how else would someone living in a third world nation gain the necessary skills to advance and gain employment, if they are never exposed to Windows 7 or Microsoft Office for example? Would they even be interested in computers at all if they are never captivated by Dragon Age? You have developers in Poland, and Russia who create amazing games for us all to enjoy. Anyone ever did a poll to see how many of them purchased every bit of development software that they used through their youth?

I have quite a few friends who's introduction to Computers, Programming and Development came through an interest in playing games. Has anyone ever done a survey to track someone who claimed to Pirate games in their youth, and whether they become paying customers as they get older and can afford it? Do they buy a Game Console...do they buy two?

We have a new Digital Divide being perpetuated by the top First World Nations through Copyright law and Trade Treaties. An insidious and growing division which keeps the latest advances in hardware, software and content within the territories of the First World and the United States in particular.For example take The iPhone which is thought to be one of the more innovative gadgets of our time.It almost single handedly brought the media connected touch screen smartphone to the market, and made multitouch the wow feature that it is today. Can you say that you are in the Tech industry if you've never seen one or used one? iPhone Application Development is a new field, and if you can't get access to an iPhone...you really can't be a part of that market. Yet the iPhone was locked to the United States and a few other choice providers for at least a year. The only way to access this hardware was by breaking the law....through Piracy. And yet through that Piracy you had developers worldwide starting to write applications, starting to learn about developing for the new and burgeoning mobile marketplace. In the little island of Trinidad a blog started up that followed the iPhone, linked to the latest applications etc. and it was very well followed. The blog owner even developed his own themes etc. which other iPhone users took advantage of. Should Apple pay him for that service,give him the cost of the iPhone back? Where is the Loss of Profit?

Does anyone remember Shareware? One of the quickest ways to get your games in the hands of potential customers. Would ID have been as big if it hadn't been for shareware? What went wrong? Now we have a BitTorrent network that can provide the ultimate shareware distribution platform, yet Publishers and Developers do not take advantage of it. Instead they spend Millions adding DRM, then fielding the Tech Support calls;legitimate customers have to fight with horridly slow download speeds through Direct2Drive, Steam and others during big releases. And all so that the money keeps revolving through the hands that, of course, truly deserve it.The customer gets left out in the cold, pulling wads of money from his pockets just for entertainment with more problems and frustrations. Loss of Profit?

When a Publisher decides to release a game Digitally only in the United States and ignores the Rest of the World...is it a Loss of Profit when someone in New Zealand downloads the game to play it? The Publisher has already made a decision that they don't want that sale, is it a loss of profit in that circumstance? Does that count as part of the Million downloads of a game that publishers bandy about?

Our copyright laws are driven by the Greed of corporations, not common sense or reality. There have been no honest surveys, no honest discussions and no honest analysis regarding Intellectual Property and Copyright in the digital age undertaken and published by any of these Corporations who claim billion dollar losses due to Piracy. DRM and the 'War On Piracy' is simply legislating a business methodology and removing consumer rights through the technology of DRM with the help of pampered politicians worldwide and an apathetic public. The rules and logic behind distribution agreements are carefully and purposefully hidden from us the consumers who ultimately pay for all this.

Piracy exists, but it is not a scourge of the corporation that it is made out to be.In fact it may help the very industries and economies that try in vain to destroy it.

Apple locked the phone to AT&T and locked it internationally as well.

This created the conditions for a large black market to flourish both within the US and Internationally.

You will find iPhones in every country of the world, whether they have agreements with Apple or not.

Within this black market, you have the Pirating of games and other content. Of course, if people have the phones but cannot purchase the content, they're going to pirate it. One can argue till blue in the face about the legality and morality of it, that's what people are going to do.

There need to be numbers released as to the demographics of the users of these Pirated applications. Do they all have legitimate iPhones in countries that support the iPhones application store?

Can they purchase these products if they wanted to at equal cost?