" I'm confused, why make something with a low view count sub only... wouldn't it make more sense to make something sub only if people actually wanted to watch it? Seems weird to me =\ help me understand dave! "
If we were trying to be a scumbag company sure. If that were the case you'd see paywalls on quicklooks and not content that is already provided free in parellel from two other sources (the live feed and the JTV archive). "
That's a bit extreme, I was just wondering the decision process for making something with a low view count something you pay for... Thanks tho. "
because the options were that or scrap it completely so they decided to make it a little extra perk for paid members....
i dont think the justin tv one is in HD either so as a paid member i who never watches it live i love the decision
Mmm, TNTs are much more interesting live anyway. But i guess this is a good way for people to watch them if they missed them without dealing with that JTV crap.
If the TNT stuff will be uploaded to the site in HD, I'll watch them now. I never liked going into the chatroom with Justin.tv. I watch the Happy Hours like this too.
" I'm confused, why make something with a low view count sub only... wouldn't it make more sense to make something sub only if people actually wanted to watch it? Seems weird to me =\ help me understand dave! "
If we were trying to be a scumbag company sure. If that were the case you'd see paywalls on quicklooks and not content that is already provided free in parellel from two other sources (the live feed and the JTV archive).
Yeah, if you were a scumbag company you'd threaten to take away big features like the bombast unless you got 5000 subscribers! ...wait a minute.
" I've been asking for this for weeks and suddenly last week it happened! The player on JustinTV sucks. Some of the videos don't even play properly. So thank you very much. The TNT is one of my favorite things to watch on Giant Bomb. "
" I'm confused, why make something with a low view count sub only... wouldn't it make more sense to make something sub only if people actually wanted to watch it? Seems weird to me =\ help me understand dave! "
If we were trying to be a scumbag company sure. If that were the case you'd see paywalls on quicklooks and not content that is already provided free in parellel from two other sources (the live feed and the JTV archive). "
And this is the reason I have no problem giving you guys money. Keep up the good work WM.
Alright cool. I'm glad you guys are up front about this stuff. As someone who can't really afford to pay for membership but still love the work you guys do and hope to support it. As long as the actual JTV part stays free to everyone I'm happy.
I understand what you did and it makes sense I just want to say that I personally would watch the TNT on the site normally if I knew it existed but by the time the last Starcraft 2 TNT was up I had already downloaded it from Justin.tv so there was no reason to do it again. If I knew it was planned each week, at least within a day of the Justin.TV archive, I would rather watch it on this site. Perhaps one day ill manage to scrape together the money for a subscription, even at only £40 its hard to make it work as a jobless bum, but I want you to I understand what your doing with it and love you regardless :)
To me, I feel like I'm paying for the ability to download it and watch it offline. Free users can go stream at J.TV, not a big deal. But good post I hope it clears things up.
man when i first read that headline i turned white. then after reading oooook. you're not taking away the justin tv player. luckly jtv works fine for me. i didnt understand why you guys need to be archiving until the int'l audience part. good on you guys whiskey media. my guess is there has always been a big European or outside N.A. audience for GB and this was your best solution.
" How do you feel about X19 offering an easy alternative that essentially bypasses your new feature :P? "
X19's archive only offers access to what is already available via Giant Bomb's JTV (and Ustream) channel. The only real difference is that it's a lot easier to navigate since most of the JTV stuff is mislabeled.
@yoshimitz707 said:
" @snide
If we were trying to be a scumbag company sure. If that were the case you'd see paywalls on quicklooks and not content that is already provided free in parellel from two other sources (the live feed and the JTV archive).
Yeah, if you were a scumbag company you'd threaten to take away big features like the bombast unless you got 5000 subscribers! ...wait a minute. "
Except they were never going to take it away; just delay half of it for a few days (which was also a bad idea, IMO).
The JTV player really kills both my connection and my mac. So i'm grateful that top men have decided to also host it on WM, I can finally download a smaller sized MP4 version. Cheers.
" The secret is that they will make TNT subscriber only to get on the friend list Then it will all end up like GameSpot "
I hope you're being sarcastic since what you just said makes absolutely no sense . . . <_<
Anyway, making the TNT archive here members only makes sense since as Dave mentioned, it's available at justin.tv (I never had issues streaming from there for the record) and is a big time/bandwidth sink. Also the fact that the guys just started to implement an archive here on the site some forty weeks or so after the TNT started seems to indicate that they were always planning this to be a member-only feature anyway (hence, the argument of them using it as a "carrot" seems to fail IMO) and the data they collected from last weeks "test" video only supported that. (i.e. the GB-crew has always said that members-only content on GB will consist of bonus content, not core/key content)
I often watch the live content again once it's archived just so I can see it without the little hitches you get from live streaming, so this is a very welcome feature in my book. Also, no Justin.tv ads, which is a huge plus.
Making TNT subscriber only pretty much negates the whole purpose of the TNT and completely goes against the GB's crew's reasoning behind members-only features. Though I suppose trolls have difficulty understanding logic.
This is awesome. Some of the archived TNT's on Justin.tv stutter and spurt like a mofo so I'd given up watching them there, plus there's the obvious bump in quality.
If I hadn't already subscribed when memberships launched, I would sign up now for TNT archives. Huge time saver, trying to get videos off of Justin.TV & then converting them is a pain. It will be much easier to download & watch them on my TV with ones from Giantbomb.
I'm fine with this. Make the initial TNT free for everyone and if they want to go back and watch an old episode then make 'em pay. I don't see the harm in it.
All I gotta say is keep up the work Whiskey Media. I'll throw some cash your way when I stop being broke.
" OK. Here's the scoop. I asked Vinny to make TNT archives subscriber only. It's not something we were regularly archiving anyway and there's still the JTV version of the archive that is perfectly viewable over at Justin.tv. The reason I asked for it was because the views on last weeks test version were low enough that we realized there's a pretty small audience that actually wants these things archived here on Giant Bomb. That's OK, we dig small audiences... but as a 2-hour feature it's both expensive for us to host, time-consuming to actually encode and is quite frankly impossible for us to monetize in any way in an archived format. From there it really came down to 2 options. Stop doing it (why spend so much time on something that most people won't watch) or do it as a perk for the dudes that are supporting us. Seemed like a pretty easy call. Mostly I get bummed that JTV doesn't allow many countries outside the US to even view archives of our content, so it would suck to just yank the cord on our International audience without an alternative. Again, following our up front policy of not taking things away this is an added feature to the site, not something we were doing regularly (outside of the first week or so, I'm pretty sure last week was our only time we'e done this). The live version of TNT will never become paid only. We will continue to make active efforts at Whiskey Media to provide new features every few months to the people that keep us from having to shill the normal gaming website way with horrible advertising and farmed top-10 lists for page-views. It's just a better model. We can spend more time making you happy rather than make you annoyed. We'll also be announcing some pretty bananas ideas next week for our subscribers and now that we're getting close to six months in we will start doing some live town-hall type Q&As where we can have a more active dialog about the direction of the Whiskey Media sites and the features you want to see as part of what you're paying for. Some of these we're planning to have open invites to actual come in and chat with us. Generally I'd like to have a bit more warning to you guys on features like this, but we just kind of ran with this one. Seemed like a pretty simple thing to do. As usual, I'm happy to answer any questions if you have them. "
That's alright. Just don't go deleting the archives off Justintv. Just don't.
@snide: Initially, the premium status of an official archive annoyed me, but reading your explanation, it makes sense. Thank you for taking the time to give a measured, good-natured explanation of the situation. Not many site-runners would be considerate enough to take the time to do that. You are so getting my $50, when I'm not broke and unemployed. :)
Wait, JTV says that people have viewed yesterdays TNT 16,000 times. That sounds not low in the slightest... though I don't know. Does that mean that people are only viewing it on JTV or something?
" I just don't understand. The Justin TV archive is garbage, and I am never here to watch the TNTs live. I thought that you guys putting up the archives last week was fucking awesome, but as much as I love Vinny and Will I didn't want to watch because I saw a bit of it live and was frustrated by their lack of Starcraft knowledge (not their fault). But that doesn't mean I wouldn't watch others if you continued to put them up. I'm fine with you guys not letting me watch Happy Hour, but making the TNT archive subscriber-only just seems like some kind of joke. If no one's watching it, how is it a good incentive for someone to become a member? "
I don't know that it's a huge incentive, more just a gift to current subscribers. Granted, other than the Happy Hour (which I figure is the main draw for most subscribers), this whole paid system is one small perk piled on another: HD videos, video downloads, RSS feeds, mobile site. In isolation maybe none of them are that exciting, but they all add up to a perfectly serviceable package. Dave's point is that, given the audience for TNT archives appears to be small (although I tend to agree Starcraft II may not provide the best data, given it's not a recent release and been done three times now), the majority of the unsubscribed userbase probably won't care, because there doesn't appear to be huge demand for this feature anyway. "
I just don't get the point. I had it last week, and now I don't have it. If no one watches it then why do they need a gate on it? I am feeling left out of something that they said would be available to all members, the TNT. I just don't understand it as a business decision, or as a membership perk decision, or anything. It just seems like a stupid idea that leaves people out who should not get left out.
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