Games of Thrones Season 3 kicked off last night, and millions watched. Lots of them were watching illegal downloads.
Yet HBO says they're not going to switch to an on-demand, a la carte model anytime soon. Your blogger hasn't watched it yet herself- but I plan to catch up to the folks in Westeros tonight. This season, which is being compared to "Empire Strikes Back", is based on approximately the first half of A Storm of Swords, the third in the series of A Song of Ice and Fire novels by George R. R. Martin.
"Storm" is a fan favorite with a lot of dark twists and reversals of fortune.
Personally I had to stop reading it at one point because it was just too awful. But watching the show sucked me back into the skilfully built world and finely drawn characters, and I picked the book back up while the show was on hiatus and finished it and then went on the next.
So I'm prepared for a lot of grim business this season, and we're talking fates worse than carbonite. At least we'll meet Jojen and Meera, and Dany has prettier clothes- lots of blue, gorg with her white hair!
It's expected that Game of Thrones will continue to be the most pirated show around, but HBO seems willing to suck up the unpaid views- despite the fact that so many would happily pay any reasonable, on-demand type sum. Didn't they read this?
