I have to PAY to view Escapist videos on the iPad?

[black-magic]

*shrug*

It's a luxury item, it's not a computer, you want usual computer content you buy a laptop, you chose wrong buddy, Escapist needs subscriptions.

 

[havass]

You have no idea how amusing this is to me. This is what you get for blowing your money on a device with a sub-par operating system and lock-out for the most popular format for internet video. I, with my mobile phone which actually incorporates Flash Lite, do not have these concerns.

This.
Why, why would you even think about buying an ipad? It's a luxury item. It has no real purpose. That being said, why did you not know about Apple not supporting Flash and that the videos on this site use Flash?

 

[Tirnor]

Wait for some gigantic company to buy us and provide our videos ad-free to everyone. Also ponies.

Would subscribers get pony rides then?

 

[Shirokurou]

F* the iPad.
They're trying to make an extra buck out of it, don't fall for it.

 

[Gigano]

I thought it was well understood and commonly accepted by purchasers that the Ipad came with certain restrictions on video formats.

Since there would thus be no reason to complain if the website didn't offer anything else but flash content, I don't see any reason to complain that it offers alternatives as a premium service. Certainly not when the ad revenue which a premium membership replace can't flow with other formats as explained in a post above.

 

[Cryo84R]

I've been a fan of The Escapist for a while now - started with Zero Punctuation, moved on to Unskippable, then Extra Credits. That's not too important for the moment, though, but note that the majority of what I consume on this site is video-based.

It's been my intention for a while now (since the release of the iPad made tablets a viable market by demonstrating the superiority of mobile operating systems over traditional ones for low-resource platforms) to buy a tablet. I was going to get an Archos 101, but the distribution for it was so terrible that by the time I had enough cash for the highest-model iPad the Archos still was nowhere near being delivered to me, so I took advantage of a relative visiting Singapore and got an iPad at a moderate discount.

So imagine my surprise, frustration and outrage when I discovered I have to pay twenty dollars a year for the privilege of watching content on The Escapist on my iPad. What's even more galling is that's the only feature of the subscription which I actually care about - it'd be less annoying if I regularly cursed the low quality of Escapist videos, or wanted to download the videos to watch later or any of the other features which you get for a subscription, but the only thing of that long list which I actually want is the ability to watch videos on my own computer.

As such, I feel like The Escapist is a highwayman. It's punishing me for the crime of buying one device over another. I can't be the only one in this situation. Is there an official response?

(I tried to search the forums to find any similar prior posts and came up with nothing, so I'm sorry if I've somehow overlooked an existing thread on the same topic.)

No you don't, just enable HTML5 video in your account preferences.

Love how the lot of you jumped at the chance to spew the usual uninformed anti apple BS that is so common with nerds.

The escapist does need to ditch dinosaur flash though.

 

[mjc0961]

I find your anger very interesting, by joining Apple's "ecosystem", you are in fact agreeing to pay Apple for almost everything you do. You have to pay itunes to buy music, you have to pay to buy ebooks from Apple, you have to pay to buy or rent movies from itunes, etc...

As much as I hate Apple, you're pretty much wrong about all that. You have to pay for that stuff no matter what device you get, nobody is giving away music, movies, and ebooks for free (legally).

Well, I wouldn't use it in that way either, or use an iPad period, but from what I can tell from the OP, the OP seems to. And that's his/her choice, and the escapist should do what it can to respect that.

It is. Again, it's not The Escapist's fault that Apple won't add flash support to their devices. They are respecting people who bought Apple's stuff by giving them an alternate way to view the video content instead of just saying "Too bad, get a real computer."

I'm not asking for special treatment.

Yes you are.

Love how the lot of you jumped at the chance to spew the usual uninformed anti apple BS that is so common with nerds.

Uninformed? So you're claiming we're all wrong and that Apple does support flash? In that case I would say it is you who is uninformed.

 

[Balobo]

I've been a fan of The Escapist for a while now - started with Zero Punctuation, moved on to Unskippable, then Extra Credits. That's not too important for the moment, though, but note that the majority of what I consume on this site is video-based.

It's been my intention for a while now (since the release of the iPad made tablets a viable market by demonstrating the superiority of mobile operating systems over traditional ones for low-resource platforms) to buy a tablet. I was going to get an Archos 101, but the distribution for it was so terrible that by the time I had enough cash for the highest-model iPad the Archos still was nowhere near being delivered to me, so I took advantage of a relative visiting Singapore and got an iPad at a moderate discount.

So imagine my surprise, frustration and outrage when I discovered I have to pay twenty dollars a year for the privilege of watching content on The Escapist on my iPad. What's even more galling is that's the only feature of the subscription which I actually care about - it'd be less annoying if I regularly cursed the low quality of Escapist videos, or wanted to download the videos to watch later or any of the other features which you get for a subscription, but the only thing of that long list which I actually want is the ability to watch videos on my own computer.

As such, I feel like The Escapist is a highwayman. It's punishing me for the crime of buying one device over another. I can't be the only one in this situation. Is there an official response?

(I tried to search the forums to find any similar prior posts and came up with nothing, so I'm sorry if I've somehow overlooked an existing thread on the same topic.)

No you don't, just enable HTML5 video in your account preferences.

Love how the lot of you jumped at the chance to spew the usual uninformed anti apple BS that is so common with nerds.

The escapist does need to ditch dinosaur flash though.

The only thing to say about Apple is negative.

 

[CopperBoom]

Sense of entitlement, much?
I mean, they have to pay to create the service and if ad revenues are not enough, they need to find a way to get you to pay.
You do not *have* to watch the videos if you are unwilling to pay the price; you can just sit there quietly doing nothing hoping they will either come around to serve you or die for not doing it.

 

[Cocamaster]

Love how the lot of you jumped at the chance to spew the usual uninformed anti apple BS that is so common with nerds.

Really? I wonder what part of "Apple doesn't support flash" qualifies as "uninformed anti apple BS".

As for flash being archaic, you know what else is? The telephone.

 

[Virgil]

No you don't, just enable HTML5 video in your account preferences.

That's actually only there because you're a PubClub member

The videos will work for PubClub members on iPhones/iPads/etc without enabling the HTML5 option though. They just work by hooking into the native OS media player instead. The only device I know of where this makes a difference at this point is actually the iPad, which will embed the video into the page for HTML5 instead of opening it up in a new 'window'.

 

[Hippobatman]

Is it just me or are people desperate to defend the Escapist lol?

It's just you.

Why?

Read post #31.


The Escapist relies on ads to keep them going. Ipad uses HTML5. Ads can't be shown with HTML5. Thus, The Escapist needs you to be a member of the Premium club, so you don't have any ads.

The bottom line is that it's not The Escapist's fault.

 

[the.chad]

Maybe just appreciate the escapist has given you an alternative option to viewing their videos?
The could've just totally disregarded the entire mobile market...

 

[TheAmazingHobo]

Love how the lot of you jumped at the chance to spew the usual uninformed anti apple BS that is so common with nerds.

Really? I wonder what part of "Apple doesn't support flash" qualifies as "uninformed anti apple BS".

I think he commented on how people said, that you cannot play escapist videos on the iPad (which he can do, being PubClub apparently).
Which makes his claim of the "nerds" being uninformed really kind of funny.

 

[gellert1984]

You also have to pay to watch The Guild through iTunes, I'm not convinced the escapist is to blame on this.

 

[Monshroud]

So imagine my surprise, frustration and outrage when I discovered I have to pay twenty dollars a year for the privilege of watching content on The Escapist on my iPad.

Our content, especially our video content, is ad-supported. The reason that we can provide all this content, for free, to anyone and everyone who wants it is because of the ads in the video player and on the site. Without those ads, we couldn't even afford the bandwidth to serve the videos, let alone what we pay the creators and our staff to actually make them.

Right now, HTML5 is a nascent technology. Advertising in HTML5 video is either prohibitively difficult or impossible, and HTML5 video is the only way to get video to play on the iPad. Without the ads to fund the service we would still have to pay for the bandwidth, but we'd get nothing in return. Unlike google with YouTube, we're not a mega-corporation with billions of dollars and unlimited bandwidth, and it's just not reasonable for us to cover that on our own.

The Publisher's Club membership [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/subscription/], as one of its primary features, removes all advertising from the site. Because PubClub members don't have to see ads, we can provide them with a lot of access that we can't give everyone else. HTML5 video, Podcast feeds, full-content RSS. Members can see the video on the iPad because they don't need to see the ads.

So here are the options we're left with:


Wait for Apple to introduce Flash on iOS, so you can see video through our normal, ad-supported video player. Complain to them if you'd like.
Wait for ad serving tech to catch up with HTML5 video, at which point we will roll out an ad-supported HTML5 player for everyone. Trust me, we want people to see the videos, that's why we make them.
Wait for us to come up with some kind of ad-supported device-specific app that will let you see the videos but also cover the cost of serving them. We're a small company and we do a lot, so don't expect this soon though.
Wait for some gigantic company to buy us and provide our videos ad-free to everyone. Also ponies.
Join the Publisher's Club and support us directly, removing the ads and getting all the content in as many ways as we can reasonably provide.


Don't get me wrong. I like the iPad. I own one, and use it, and would love to let everyone watch all our videos on it. If I had my way, there would be no ads on the site at all - they mess up my work and mean I get to do fewer cool things. But I also like having a job, and having all my friends have jobs, and being able to support people like Yahtzee and Shamus Young and the LRR crew. That makes the advertising a necessary evil, and one that we have to keep in mind with everything we do if we want our site to be around next year.

Man I was ninja'd! The Escapist isn't the only site with this issue by the way. There are other's that have the same problem with needing to show ads that are not available in an HTML5 format and have to use flash.

I think we can all agree that The Escapist needs to be paid and if your device happens to not support the technology that they use to make money, that is not their problem.

You could exchange your iPad for a Samsung Galaxy tablet though that should support flash and problem solved. =)

 

[fordneagles]

Short answer: YES

Longer answer: You do have a couple of other options.
1. You could jailbreak your iPad to support Flash
2. Get your hands on a computer that isn't an iPad
3. Suck it up because you failed to research the features you wanted comparatively to those the iPad actually has

No matter which option you go with, none of them involve coming on here and whining about paying $20 a YEAR to watch awesome videos. $20 these days won't buy you *1* DVD, but you can get a year's worth of videos from The Escapist and you don't have to watch that stupid DVD piracy warning on them either

 

[thenumberthirteen]

Interesting, I thought that they said that they wouldn't remove features when they introduced Publishers-club.

Mobile videos have never been a non-premium feature.

I agree that HTML 5 videos are an extra service. Most computers have flash, and as long as the vast majority of people can see the videos then that's fine. To me the Pub-Club features are worth the $10 I paid and are worth $20 if you're a fan of the site.

 

[teutonicman]

Well hold on can't you just watch them via the internet?

 

[Optimystic]

Correct me if I am wrong here BUT:

The Escapists videos are in flash, right?

Steve Jobs don't like flash, and decided that Flash will not be a part of his iProducts.


That means you can't open an Escapist video on your iPad through a browser.
This is not the Escapists problem though, it's yours and Apples problem, but the Escapist are nice enough to offer a secondary service to allow you to watch their videos on an iProduct. Notice how this is something they create EXTRA! and I do not find it wrong or thieving to ask you to pay for their extra work.

Besides, you get all the other content for FREE! on a computer (and most likely any other tablet)m so aren't you complaining about something that really boils down to:

"I use an inferior product, and want special treatment"

PS: I called the iPad inferior to point out that it lacks the capabilitys to run flash/the escxapist browser based videos.
It should not be read as me hating on Apple.

This, and thank you.
OP: Get a new tablet, e.g. the Galaxy. This is a problem with Apple, not the Escapist.