Game of Thronesseason 7 is finally here and, not surprisingly, it is a huge hit for HBO so far. The network had absolutelymassive ratingsfor theGame of ThronesSeason 7 premiere, shattering records and was watched a reported 16 million times across all of their platforms. The fantasy series is as popular as ever. Especially with those who want to watch the show illegally but don’t want to pay for it.
According to a recent report fromBusiness Insider, theGame of Thrones Season 7 premierewas pirated a staggering 90 million times. That is a truly monstrous number and one that is sure to get the attention of HBO and other networks. The numbers were compiled by MUSO, which describes itself as “world’s largest database of metadata on real-time behavior across the piracy market.” Here is how they arrived at the 90 million figure.
“Game of Thronesseason 7 episode 1 was streamed 77.9 million times, torrented on public trackers 8.3 million times, directly downloaded 4.9 million times, and torrented on private trackers 500,000 times.”
The largest number of pirates chose to stream theGame of Thronesseason 7 premiere online, which makes sense. Streaming is the easiest way for most people to watch stuff these days, be it through proper channels or pirating. As thrilled as HBO is with the huge ratings thatGame of Thronesis getting, they have to be just as concerned about these big numbers. This is also not the first time that it has been reported thatGame of Thronesis easily one of themost pirated showsaround. Here is a little more insight that MUSO had to offer about the numbers.
“There is no denying that these figures are huge, so they’re likely to raise more than a few eyebrows in the mainstream industry, but it’s in line with the sort of scale we see across piracy sites and should be looked at objectively. What we’re seeing here isn’t just P2P torrent downloads but unauthorized streams and every type of piracy around the premiere. This is the total audience picture, which is usually unreported.”
Even with the piracy,Game of Thronesis the kind of show that any network would kill to have. That is why HBO is currently developing four differentGame of Thrones spin-offs. Not all of them are expected to air, but withGame of Thronesseason 8 set to be the last in the series, HBO is going to want to continue the show somehow. Plus, both season 7 and season 8 ofGame of Thronesare shorter than the usual 10 episodes.Game of Thrones Season 8is only going to have six episodes, but the episodes may be a lot longer than we’re used to, which would help make up for it. Just longer episodes for people to pirate.
