The fourth and arguably best season of Game Of Thrones has just ended its run on Foxtel. You can now purchase the show from other content providers without paying an exorbitant monthly fee. Here are the details and pricing for each option, along with our verdict for which is best.
This year, Australians were denied access to Game Of Thrones on iTunes, which meant the only way to watch the show legally was through Foxtel. Thankfully, the exclusivity deal has now run its course, which means there are finally some alternative purchasing options available for people who refuse to pirate.
See also:The 25 Greatest Moments In Game Of Thrones Season 4
Foxtel
If you’re keen to sign up for Foxtel specifically for Game Of Thrones, you probably should have done so before the Season 4 premiere. That said, you can still access the episodes via this method if you want to.
The cheapest Foxtel Pay TV package which includes Game Of Thrones is $74 a month: in other words, it’s only worth considering if you enjoy a wide selection of their content. Alternatively, you can opt for Foxtel Play with a Premium Movies & Drama package for a total $35 per month. Again, this is really only worth considering if you’re a big consumer of TV shows and movies. Visit Foxtel for a deeper overview of what’s on offer.
Quickflix
Quickflix is one of the first Aussie streaming services to offer Game Of Thrones Season 4. Quickflix customers can purchase and stream the entirety of Season 4 through Quickflix’s premium pay-per episode and season pass service.
Individual episodes cost $2.99 in standard definition or $3.48 in HD. The season pass will set you back $28.99 (SD) or $33.99 (HD). Quickflix’s streaming service costs $9.95 per month, although you don’t need to be a Quickflix customer to purchase individual seasons or episodes. (If you want access to the full service, there’s currently a free two-week trial available.) Head to Quickflix’s website for more information.
Google Play
On Google Play, all ten episodes will cost you $28.99 in standard definition, or you can pay $2.99 per single episode. The HD version costs $3.49 per episode and $34.99 for the whole season.
Google Play’s Season 4 package also includes over 25 minutes of exclusive content, including a guide to the new characters and locations and the featurette A Slave To Grammar: Creating the Valyrian Language. You can get the full season here.
DVD or Blu-ray
If you don’t mind waiting a while longer, the show will be coming to physical media later in the year. You can expect the standard edition Blu-ray and DVDs to cost around the same as their digital equivalents, although there will likely be a bunch of special versions that cram in extra features and collectibles.
If Season 4 follows the same release schedule as previous seasons, you can expect the discs to appear sometime in February next year — quite a long, wait in other words.
Winner: Google Play
It’s a close match between Quickflix and Google Play, but the addition of exclusive video content makes Google the winner by a hair.
Comments
17 responses to “How To (Legally) Binge Watch Game Of Thrones Season 4”
“psychical media”.
Whoah, they broadcast it directly into your mind?!?
Well, I’m on T-Box package (far from great!) but I get all movie and drama, essentials, sport, etc. The best feature is the ‘on demand’ which is free and instant being that it streams off my telstra broadband. It now has all episodes of season 4 available. The first ep from the first week and each one added there-after, etc And they expire in three months or so! I guess I can binge if I want for that long, which I can wait til Blu-Ray. As for the stream advocating SD or HD, I have a 55 inch HD samsung and it’s certainly fucking watchable, not that I recall ever saying ‘wow that’s bad.’
With Google Play, can you download the episodes you’ve paid for DRM free or just simply stream them?
I would love to know that too
You can save TV shows to a mobile/tablet device for offline viewing, but I’d say it’s still encrypted to Google Play. I don’t have a PC anymore so I can’t check on there, but I doubt it’s possible to do this through the Web interface though.
Chromecast them to your TV. Beautiful.
Isn’t all this kind of moot now..? Afterall if you haven’t already paid for it, you’ve probably already downloaded it, so who’s left…? 🙂
Plenty of people can’t afford Foxtel but don’t want to pirate, for whatever reason. Also, if you downloaded the show for free, here’s your chance to (indirectly) throw ’em some coin in appreciation.
Also, and I think this is most important, by purchasing through google or quickflix, you’re showing that you are willing to purchase the content at a reasonable price, rather than being stuck with foxtel. Hopefully it will make HBO think twice about signing another exclusivity deal.
Not likely.
People don’t decline to take up Foxtel purely because they can’t afford it.
What has stopped me from signing up isn’t just the price, but that I’m required to bundle what I want with a large amount of what I don’t want. A shame, that is all.
I’m still waiting for a way to purchase shows like this in the form of a convenient electronic file that I can store on whatever physical medium I so desire. I mean iTunes and Google Play may well be great, but I don’t ant to have to stream something and chew up my data usage when i don’t need to.
Did iTunes miss out, or has it been delayed on the iTunes system?
And remember that Quickflix is limited in how they support different systems. i.e. no rental or purchase on PS3. The only reason I have yet to cancel my Quickflix I like to support the local guy, but haven’t watched anything there in 12 months. Time to save $15 a month….
You *can” download from Google play.
How? Would love to know as I have just discovered GooglePlay on my quest to watch GoT4 after bingeing on GoT3 last weekend.
How do you download it (so I can watch it again without extra data usage) and do you happen to know how many GB in an episode (or how do I find this out) as I have limited data. SD is fine for me.
Google Play only gives you HD on certain devices… otherwise it’s SD… and that’s rubbish. I want to watch it in HD at least on my TV.
As someone who always like to pay for I watch, this is exactly how I feel now
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/game_of_thrones
Local cable tv is dominated by one company, bad service, and you can’t comfortably watch what you like. I do a hack to stream Netflix, Hulu Plus, and I pay for other stuff on iTunes, or buy them on Bluray. I want to give these guys their money. But it seems they don’t want it. Only place to stream is Google Play, which is not available in my country unless I use VPN, which will kill the speed.
So guess how I will be watching it?