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

[IxionIndustries]

Your the one who bought Apple's shit, and that includes their ridiculous prices for apps.

Sorry to say, but you're gonna have to pay it. You have enough cash to deck out for a fucking iPad, so why ***** about the app?

Guess it's not really superior, is it?

 

[dannymc18]

I have a 6 year old Sony Ericsson, any chance of someone spending a lot of time, money and effort for free to allow me to watch Escapist videos on it?

 

[legend forge]

So you should get everything for free should you?

You knew going in the iPad did not support flash and you still bought it, if you didn't know then your pretty uninformed. The videos are payed for by ads here on the escapist, and the content makers need to get payed or the quality will go down or we won't get anything at all. Changing the file type is not free, it takes time and specialized software. Both of those cost money.

You do not *deserve* anything you get here, you're lucky you get it at all.

 

[CopperBoom]

Well that sucks. I don't really think that the Escapist is trying to make some easy money here. They're making it so that people can view it on their iPads and iPods and iPhones and iWhatevers. They probably have to pay some money to be able to do this and since they'll need the money back they have to charge users a bit of money.

Even if it was just a convience issue then why should we pay for all the things we do not want in the Publisher's Club? I still think for iDevices the App route is the best way. It does not have to allow you to save them and all that, just stream, and they can even have ads before the video so they keep earning revenue after the initial App purchase.

 

[tacomonkey 360]

That sucks how about you get an android device they run flash pretty well. ANDROID FTW!

 

[lacktheknack]

Sorry, but not enough people use the iPad as their PRIMARY COMPUTER to justify changing a "luxury tax" of sorts.

Seriously, I think may be one of maybe a hundred in the whole world.

 

[Thespian]

That sucks. I hate it when stuff like that happens. Often I can't watch videos because I don't live in the USA... But I guess it's not a terrible fee to pay if you are interested.

 

[Holy_Handgrenade]

It makes perfect sense to let people pay to get to subscribe to videos on their iPhone, but if your iPad is your primary computer, that is really annoying. I hope there's a happy medium here, but I can't think of any right now.

I believe the iPhone uses the "handheld" media type, whereas the iPad uses "screen", the same as a normal browser.

For the record, the "moderate discount" was about £100. Not much cheaper, sure, but still significant.

I'm not going to bother responding to any of the comments about "just don't use an iPad" for the simple reason that none of those people are going to leap into the fray to give me the money I spent on this device back along with however much extra it would cost me to get a Mac (or hardware than can run Mac OS X). I'm not asking for a special feature, just the ability to watch the videos on the site the same as on any other computer. HTML 5 isn't a premium feature over Flash any more than PHP is a premium feature over Perl.

Should have got a alienware m11x,the first gaming notebook this christmas like me. By the way never get a mac there opperating system is terrible and you can play around 30% of games on one. Oh and it's not the escapists fault for apple not allowing you to use flash on there ipads, you should have know that when buying one. They made away around this which they don't have to do but is something "extra" and ask you to pay for it sounds like a fair deal to me.

 

[Dys]

How is it the fault of the escapist if apple refuse to allow flash (the main language content and advertisements are transmitted through) support? The way I see it, if you're using an OS that is to 'exclusive' to allow the usual methods the escapist uses to fund itself and broadcast content (particularly advertisements), you should have to pay for that content by means other than the advertisements that your os has blocked.

Is it possible to set the iPad up to view the regular version of a site instead of a mobile version?

No, apple refuse to include flash support on their mobile devices.

 

[Deleted]

Well when you bought the iPad, you kinda signed an agreement allowing yourself to have an inferior internet experience.

hope this comment doesn't get me probed.

 

[Virgil]

Then why should we pay for all the things we do not want in the Publisher's Club?

That only makes sense if you assume that all the the features in the PubClub membership are created equal. In reality, they aren't. There are only two PubClub features that "cost" us directly - removing ads and high quality videos. The first one is obvious. The second one increases the bandwidth cost for those videos by 3-5x. For an individual user, the second one is minimal compared to the first, unless you're watching every video we publish a dozen times a day. All of the other features are, in essence, "free" once you take into account that there are already no ads for those users.

In reality, PubClub members are paying to remove the ads and for the high-quality video. Everything else is a free bonus we throw in because it's stuff that we think is neat, useful, or convenient, and it makes the whole package better without hurting anything. Dropping everything except "ad free video" in order to put it on the iPad wouldn't really make a huge dent in the price we'd need to go with to break even.

I still think for iDevices the App route is the best way. It does not have to allow you to save them and all that, just stream, and they can even have ads before the video so they keep earning revenue after the initial App purchase.

If we do make an app it will almost certainly be free and ad-supported, but what you have access to might be limited depending on what the ad options are on the platform. We have to look at the math and ask "What would happen to us if everyone looked at our videos through the app, and not on the web?" Depending on how that math works out, there might be all the video in there, or only a limited amount of older ones, or not any video at all if you're not a PubClub member. Or maybe we have to use a really low quality level instead. Or maybe we need to use in-app transactions and charge for limited-time video access to make it work. There's really no way for us to tell right now, since we aren't app developers.

 

[F-I-D-O]

I'm not complaining about having to pay any money at all (especially now; I didn't know it was that difficult to advertise via HTML 5, so thanks for opening my eyes), just that I feel like I'm being gouged for a whole bunch of stuff I will never ever use as part of the PubClub membership simply so I can view video in HTML 5. If there was an "iPad user" package which was just the HTML 5 video without everything else which comes as part of PubClub I'd be more than happy to pay for it.

I feel like I'm being gouged for a whole bunch of stuff I will never ever use as part of my Sports Illustrated subscription simply so I can read the articles about hockey. If there was a "hockey fan" package which was just the hockey articles without everything else which comes as part of a subscription I'd be more than happy to pay for it.

-m

There's USA Hockey, which is all hockey articles, but even then there are things I don't want to read.
In just about any subscription, there are things one won't use. Maybe an XBLA user doesn't want to use netflix. Maybe a PSPlus user doesn't want to play old PS1 games or use the extended warranty. I'm sorry you bought an iPad and can't view your favorite videos. But considering some people pay 15 a month to play WoW as a solo game, I don't think 2 a month to watch videos in a convenient format is that bad. Plus, if you watch them on a laptop/desktop, you don't need to worry about ads. So you don't want to use a special title or watch the vids in high quality. Honestly, it's not that big of a price to pay. I understand buying something new and not being able to use old stuff, but it's not the end of the world.
Or, just constantly email Steve Jobs in the hope he adds flash.

 

[Zepren]

Dude, it's 20 quid A YEAR. Man up.

 

[Life_Is_A_Mess]

Why do you have an iPad anyway? I don't see the point of those things.
20 dollars a year is a lot when you can watch it for free in a laptop, which is also portable .

 

[SenseOfTumour]

I'd equate this with blaming the 8 year old girl who stitched the shirt's seams because the T-shirts are overpriced when you get in thru the turnstiles at Disneyworld.

NOTE: Disney may in fact not have all their mechandise made by child slave labour (but they probably do [Lawyer's note: they definately don't and never have done,and this comment doesn't represent the Escapist])

I hate to parrot everyone else, but you can't blame the Escapist because Apple chose to lock out the most popular web video format in.the world so they can screw you in one MORE direction.

But then I've always been of the opinion that almost any MP3 player + some white paint > the iPod.

I'm not going to bash any more on the iPad however, eachto their own, but the blame does lay at apple's feet for trying to control a market that won't be controlled.

After all, the music and movie industry don't seem to be doing well at controlling it, yet they're still profiting.

as for defending the Escapist, hell yeah, I'm a huge fan of the site and its content, and when you consider just how much they offer for the sake of seeing a few ads, I'm going to stand up for it. (on top of that, they put up with me!)

 

[Sethzard]

It means you don't need to watch adverts and it supports the site. They need to make money, and for the quality of site, I think $20 a year is pretty reasonable.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Hmm, so it's a flash issue then?
Wasn't there a way to get flash on those I thingies, jailbreak + some custom flash build?
Actually just googled it, there is a flash for the apple stuff.

It always amuses me how hobby developers haveto fix sh*t for all the big brand names.

 

[Optimystic]

Huh. That?s not all that surprising. I bet it's free on the Galaxy Tab.

The Galaxy's browser (being Android) supports Flash. Because of this, it can get the same ads before and after videos that get delivered to PCs. The iPad can't, which is why iPad users need Pub Club.

So it's free in the sense that you don't have to pay out of pocket for it; you pay with your time (watching the ads) instead.