Hey, some things are changing with our Premium service!

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rorie

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#1  Edited By rorie

Would you like to know more?

Giant Bomb Premium has been an integral part of keeping this site in the business of making silly videos for many years now. Many of you have helped contribute to the success of the site by plunking down cash, and we greatly appreciate your willingness to do so.

That said, the premium service as it exists has always been a bit wonky. Subs don’t always renew when they should, and sometimes they renew when they shouldn’t. Memberships disappear at odd times for no apparent reason, or they extend well past their expiration date without attempting to bill a subscriber. Want to update your credit card information? That form hasn’t worked in, like, six months. It’s kind of a mess!

A lot of these issues have arisen because we do most of the heavy lifting of subscription management internally, only sending information off to our credit card processor when we have to bill someone. As it happens, there are companies that do precisely the kind of subscription management stuff that we currently do ourselves, and as such, we’re going to be shifting our subscription services over to one of those companies over the next few days. This new partner (a company called Recurly) will keep track of all of your subscription info for the purposes of renewals and emailing you if your card's declined, etc.

What does this mean for you?

Well, first off, while we migrate our data to Recurly, we are going to extend the expiration dates of most subscriptions that are set to expire during this migration back a week or so to ensure that no one winds up being unable to renew during this downtime. If you were set to renew in this timeframe, you’re going to get some free time on your account.

Most of you, however, should see no interruption of service or even be aware that this change is taking place, as we’re aiming to make this transition as seamless and behind-the-scenes as possible. There’s always a chance of technical issues, though. Please get in touch atsupport@giantbomb.comif you run into any weirdness over the next few weeks.

Hey, my subscription went away! What’s going on!

One of the weaknesses of our current system of managing subscriptions is that some subs remain active well after they should’ve expired. As part of this migration, it’s quite likely that most of these zombie subscriptions will be removed from the system. If you find yourself suddenly subscription-less when the migration is complete (which should occur by next Monday), please look up the last subscription renewal email you got from us and check the date on it. If it looks like it’s more than a month or year old, then you likely didn’t get un-hooked properly and should sign up for a “new” subscription if you’d like to remain a subscriber. If you have any further questions, get in touch with me at support@giantbomb.com. Be sure to include your username in that email.

What else might get broken while this is going on?

You’re unlikely to be able to update your credit card number, change your plan between yearly or monthly subscriptions, or cancel your account during this transition. We anticipate wrapping everything up by Monday.

What about Paypal subscriptions?

Our new payment processor does indeed support Paypal, and we’re going to be working to implement that in the coming weeks, which will allow us to move away from the Paypal method of signing up through our store. We’ll update our payment methods when we manage to implement this.

What about gift subscriptions?

As with Paypal, we still plan on implementing gift subscriptions, but they won’t be available immediately when we go live with our new payment system. If you have outstanding gift codes that haven’t been used yet, get in touch at support@giantbomb.com and we’ll work something out.

How should I get in touch if I run into problems?

There’s this email address calledsupport@giantbomb.comthat you might want to keep handy if anything comes up! Otherwise, you can reply to this topic and I’ll do my best to answer any general questions you have.

Support@giantbomb.com?

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FLStyle

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I don't like change, change scares me!

(Thank you for this, nice to see improvements are being made.)

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doctordonkey

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@rorie said:

Would you like to know more?

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recroulette

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Thanks for the update Rorie, glad you guys are able to get help on that front now.

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tgammet

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good jerb

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hi_im_rob

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I hope this frees up your time to do more quick looks/UPF's Rorie!

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Hyuzen

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Hmm, this post needs more puppies.

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TwoLines

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Won't affect me, but it's really nice to see this kind of customer service. Thank you Rorie!

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JeremySpittle

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You reminded me that my sub is up this month. Being billed once a year for things is weird, I completely forget about paying things. Will things like the $15 shirt code and the reddit gold promo still be operable?

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mike

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I hope this frees up your time to do more quick looks/UPF's Rorie!

Now 100% of Rorie's time will be answering support emails about subscriptions.


Just kidding.

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me3639

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I just recently cancelled my sub because i dont think the content is worth it. the site has become too much wrestling, anime and old games for my liking. Im about moving forward, and GB seems to be looking behind. If i was mgr. i would currently have scheduled:

Breaking brad: Ziggurat on Hard

GBE: Vinny full play through of Bloodborne

As this is a community driven site, why was Thursday night throw down abandoned? So many popular MP out there and nothing? Seriously? Fighting games, shooters left and right and they dont wan to play with the community for a few hours?

Multiple quick looks of certain titles. Some of the games understandable only require :30-:45 minutes but to game like Pillars of Eternity and Dragon Age it isnt enough these are popular games that deserve more than the sub par qls they have received.

Series of jeff playing Nintendo shovelware.

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OGJackWagon69

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I really appreiciate the addition of full on paypall, thank you!

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paulunga

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@me3639: I'm the exact opposite of this person. I love the content you're producing right now.

I also like balancing out negativity. That's kind of a bonus.

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TruthTellah

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Glad to hear it! I hope the new system will be a bit smoother and take off some of the burden from you, Rorie. :)

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AMyggen

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@me3639: Way too much anime on GB, I agree. Was weird that last week's Bombcast was just Naruto discussions!

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chilibean_3

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Time until I get an email saying I should change my password?

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rorie

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Time until I get an email saying I should change my password?

All credit card data is stored off-site, so even if someone got your password, they wouldn't have access to any of your credit card details. Even I don't have access to full credit card details for subscribers and I interface with our credit card processor every day. Our current CC processor, Braintree, is owned by Paypal and has a page about their security here, and our new processor, Recurly, has some pretty good security itself.

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forteexe21

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So it should be safe to subscribe next week? Was planning to get a monthly plan sometime this week but i can wait. Also, disappointed on the lack of puppies.

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rorie

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So it should be safe to subscribe next week? Was planning to get a monthly plan sometime this week but i can wait. Also, disappointed on the lack of puppies.

Theoretically new signups should work sometime tomorrow or Thursday. They'll hopefully be definitely working by next week, though, yes.

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betaband

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Sounds good, Rorie!

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DriveupLife

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Rorie you da man as usual!

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memetic

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Mainwaring

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#24  Edited By Mainwaring

I am glad I can continue to rely on Giant Bomb for Starship Troopers references.

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Y2Ken

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Thanks for the update, Rorie! Hopefully this makes things easier on your end.

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onarum

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deactivated-583dfbc21c8a9

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I'M SCARED SOMEONE CALL OBAMA

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Doohickerdonald

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More puppies please!

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Code601

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Was just trying to update my card details for a resub in a few days, Thanks Rorie. I will check back again on monday.

Cats forever tho.

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fattony12000

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Yay! It's nice to have nice billing!

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klutchxls

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Hey, i just want to take the opportunity to say that my sub got all kinda messed up a few months ago and MY MAN RORIE fixed it wit a quickness. Not only a great site and community, but great service as well. Love the 'bomb!

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rand0mZer00

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I didn't realize things got that messy. Hopefully these changes make things go alot more smoothly for you Rorie.

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Tennmuerti

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As long as their credit card billing service is one of the smart ones.

I've had trouble in the past with billing systems that are too simplistic, that only do a surface comparison of your CC's bank country and billing/service country and instantly reject the card without actually even making the bank request for payment. Origin does that, PSN, some smaller companies that had to outsource their billing, it's just so stuck behind the times and an incredible hassle. The GB billing system was thankfully not one of those, so hopefully this new outsourced one won't be either.

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kerse

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This explqins why I was a subscriber for like 2 months after I cancelled. I always thought it was free time built up from downtime and such.

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zokamoka

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#36  Edited By zokamoka

Wait Rorie was doing all the billing stuff, yikes!
Well he can finally relax now?

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flameboy84

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Glad to hear. Thus far having been a monthly member and then progressing over to yearly I never had problems actually renewing as @rorie did a fantastic job at linking my account and all that jazz (I do remember my sub "badge" vanished and he fixed that) but anything that makes that workload easier to manage for you guys is good in my book!

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HoboKnight

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#38  Edited By HoboKnight

I emailed support, but wanted to post here as well. I resubbed at the start of February but tonight my account reverted to free. I double checked emails and credit card statements and I was definitely renewed for a year at the start of February. Hopefully this gets resolved soon

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TekkWizard

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#39  Edited By TekkWizard

@hoboknight: I've had this issue as well. Reverted to free today just one day after I renewed.

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libb

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#40  Edited By libb

@tekkwizard: Same here. I have an email from April 1st telling me they charged me for the month, but the billing page says I'm now a free member. Hopefully Rorie and Co. will get everything straightened out shortly.

EDIT: And now I look at my comment and I still have my subscriber badge. Hell if I know Chewbacca.

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Griffinmills

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Had a bad sinking feeling when I saw the title of this thread but the actual topic was about processing payments and sounds like generally good news.

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TyrellOCP

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#42  Edited By TyrellOCP

Thank you for keeping us informed, Rorie. Fingers crossed the transition goes smoothly and this is the last we hear about it.

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TekkWizard

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#43  Edited By TekkWizard

@libb: Yeah, It's weird. Would you mind letting me know if yours comes back? I just want to watch videos I'm paying for haha.

Just to clarify for anyone else with this issue, this is a new account I subscribed on April 11. I thought it would kinda solve everything to just go new, but I may have wasted money because it reverted to free after watching a couple videos. It's not the end of the world, but I wanted to put it out here.

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deactivated-605aadbc9fe23

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Didn't see this until after I subscribed. I signed up (finally) a couple days ago and have yet for my premium membership to kick in.

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neshcom

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#45  Edited By neshcom

Having issue loading premium contents too. Account page and method page say I've got yearly, but I can't get videos to play.

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DonMFJohnson

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I can watch premium content but my account page says I'm a free member. Also, no subscription management options are available. Guess they are working on it?

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TekkWizard

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@donmfjohnson: Looks like they're definitely working on it. I couldn't do anything before, but now I can watch premium.

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ThomasCro

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It's impossible to load UPF, the download speed is at 12kbps, is it because of this?

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Nodima

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@rorie

I was one of the few that slipped through the cracks and lost my monthly subscription, took a few days off and re-subscribed but I am still seeing advertisements before every video. Is this a change that wasn't mentioned, that monthly subscribers still see ads now? Or have I missed some setting I checked off two years ago and have totally forgotten about?

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rorie

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#50  Edited By rorie

@nodima said:

@rorie

I was one of the few that slipped through the cracks and lost my monthly subscription, took a few days off and re-subscribed but I am still seeing advertisements before every video. Is this a change that wasn't mentioned, that monthly subscribers still see ads now? Or have I missed some setting I checked off two years ago and have totally forgotten about?

Monthly members shouldn't see ads. Is this still happening for you? Try logging out and back in?