Good thing they were fast enough to destroy it with the shittiest last season ever.

Zero sympathy. If they wanted to reduce the amount of illegal streamers, all they've got to do is make their content more accessible.

Release it on multiple streaming platforms, not just their own. Ensure its released globally at the same time. And get rid of the geo-blocking.

The lack of reasonable legal alternatives is what drives piracy.

Instead it was destroyed by two greedy fucks rushing the ending two seasons early so they could move on to their next cash grab flop!

Game of Thrones was destroyed by the writers lol

Incredibly relevant: https://theoatmeal.com/comics/game_of_thrones

It's been said a million times, but piracy is an accessibility issue. Chasing your favorite shows across streaming platforms is exhausting.

luckily the showrunners were around to finish the job

There was a point in time when GOT was only available via an $80 a month pay tv subscription after the earlier seasons were aired on regular television. Once again, piracy is an access issue - not a theft issue.

TIL 2.2bn in profit is basically poverty profit, not even worth doing it ... and all because of them evil pirates who would have totally payed for Netflix if they couldn't pirate it.

However, I really loved all the memes and r/freefolk, great stuff that got exponentially better with each season.

They fail to mention that when GoT started in 2011, HBO wasn't available at all without a cable TV subscription, so people who had already dropped cable didn't have any other choice. HBO streaming without cable didn't become available until 2015.

For a while there it was nigh impossible to legally get access to GOT in certain countries. Not to mention, when your only option is an insanity expensive streaming service, and the only thing you want there is one specific show, you’re likely to look for alternatives.

Bullshit. While it was the most pirated show no doubt, It did drive HBO subscriptions and BluRay sales. The drastic fall off in show quality after season 4 did it in.

get your credit card stolen.

Let's see... I don't provide my credit card to anyone when pirating. The only way they are getting my credit card is breaking into my house. (no, mkv files can't have viruses).

But I do need to provide my credit card info to HBO, which they store, on their likely poorly secured servers.

The number of credit cards stones from data leaks very likely exceeds the number of them stolen because someone got duped when trying to pirate.

I'd argue it was destroyed, in the last 2 seasons.

I wasn't even able to stream it legally in Canada. The only way I could watch it legally was to get a cable subscription and a $15/mo HBO package. Fuck that!

It was only possible to watch GoT in the Netherlands when you were with one specific provider. That's what caused piracy.

Luckily, the writers got there first.

We were so close to saving the world from the travesty that was the last couple seasons… I weep for what shouldn’t have been.

The show was destroyed by two mediocre fuck face showrunners who were more interested in harassing the naked extras on set then running the production lol

I don't think HBO was even available in my country when GoT started. Towards the end it might've been. But you still had to also have the TV service from a specific ISP, not JUST the Internet service. Now there are more options, but it's still always bundled with some other shit you don't need.

Damn, we should have tried harder to destroy it before Season 8 aired then. /s

As an example, the only reason there was ever any interest in Top Gear stateside was because of piracy. In my youth, that was the only way to watch it, and it showed the BBC that there was an interest, which led to it being made available through legitimate means in the US.

Piracy isn’t about free shit.

It was the most pirated series, because it was also incredibly popular.