No HBO Go? Try Twitch to catch all the latest ‘Game of Thrones’ episodes

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Though there are like 500 streaming services out there, I think it’s okay to say that if you don’t have HBO GO (or HBO Now) by now, you should. Barry is one of the best shows on television. Veep might be the funniest. And there’s also this show called Game of Thrones on it that you’re either watching already or boasting about how you’ve never watched it. Not even a minute. God, you’re so cool.

But if you don’t want to fork out the extra whatever it is a month for HBO GO (I swiped my roommate’s password like a sane human being) and still want to be able to dish Game of Thrones theories* around the water cooler on Monday morning, then look no further than Twitch.

The Verge has some details on the emerging (and totally illegal) trend:

With just a few seconds of browsing Twitch’s “Just Chatting” category each Sunday night, it’s easy to come across an assortment of streams showing the new episode. There seemed to be more people streaming the premiere a couple of weeks ago than there were streaming the most recent episode, “The Long Night.” But “Long Night” streams still weren’t scarce. No search is required; just scroll down until a stream pops up.

Illegal streaming isn’t exactly a new thing on Twitch, of course

Users have been able to find everything from full seasons of South Park to the biggest sporting events on the platform for years, and the boxing match between Logan Paul and some other Youtube a-hole probably saw more pirated views on Twitch than it did legitimate ones on Youtube.

(Before you shed a tear for poor, sweet Logan, just know that the fight also sold more pay-per-views than almost every UFC card ever broadcast.)

Twitch is on the hunt for these type of accounts, especially on Sunday nights, but with the number of streams growing by the week, it’s becoming more difficult for the site’s mods to simply keep up. That’s not even taking into account the creative countermeasures some users are using to avoid being caught.

One streamer on the night of the season 8 premiere paused his stream and minimized the channel every once in a while and swapped VPN locations to mask his connection. He would also switch back and forth from the Game of Thrones stream to a random Reddit page from time to time.

As always, the Internet remains undefeated when it comes to skirting around – or outright evading – the long arm of copyright law.

*My theory? The Hound isn’t his actual name!

Have you ever watched a streamer streaming Game of Thrones or other premium content? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

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