Beastcast podcasts default to premium (but can still be played anyway?)

Someone else mentioned to me that they weren't able to listen to the Beastcast using the site's UI.

If you're logged out and navigate to a Beastcast podcast in either of these two ways:

1. Podcasts > Shows > Giant Beastcast

2. Podcasts > Latest > find episode 187 of the Giant Beastcast

...you get the "YOU NEED PREMIUM TO VIEW THIS" page.

The podcast defaulting to the premium version is probably a mistake. However, it's also not readily apparent from a UX standpoint that the podcast page can be switched to the free version -- or that a free version is even available -- to folks who aren't signed in with a premium account. The free/premium switch is easy to overlook when you're confronted with the message about signing up for Giant Bomb Premium. I could image a scenario where a premium member tries to share a premium Bombcast/Beastcast page to a confused non-premium user.

One last thing -- on a premium Beastcast podcast page while logged out, it looks like I can still click the background area to play the podcast, anyway. See https://www.giantbomb.com/shows/episode-187/2970-18656/premium-podcast and click any blank space on the right half of the podcast background image.

• Operating System: macOS Mojave 10.14.2
• Browser: Safari Version 12.0.2 (14606.3.4) (sorry)
• Extensions: Still happens if they're all disabled.

This also happens on mobile. I've been so confused as to why the playback buttons didn't show up and just started playing the podcasts anyway, until I checked the URL and deleted "/premium-podcast".

It is especially confusing on mobile since pressing the upper part of the podcast background image makes the podcast start, and not some small area around the lower right corner.

• Operating system: Android 8.0
• Browser: Firefox and Brave browser
• Extensions: Doesn't seem to matter. I have uBlock, HTTPS Everywhere, Decentraleyes and more on Firefox, but Brave browser doesn't support any extensions on mobile and is also based on Chrome.

Edit: Alright look, I don't really know what I'm looking at below but I got curious and inspected the elements on the webpage.

If I click around the green little circle in the top left corner of the first printscreen below, then the text highlighted in orange flashes once in synchronization. I'm guessing someone who actually knows how code works can take it from there.

Both strings flash at the same time after a click and the end of the first highlighted string changes to "playing".

The upper string flash slightly before the lower string after a click and the end of the upper string changes to "paused".

@snwk47: @drwaffles: thanks for the heads up, we'll try to get this looked into! I believe we have a ticket in for defaulting to non-Premium; I'll see what's up with being able to play these regardless of your Premium status.