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GIGA just posted on their website and twitter that they will not be posting still images for movies released after Sept 19th. No more info given at the moment.
https://www.akiba-web.com/information/i ... e=20230914
GIGA Not Releasing Still Images For New Movies
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MightyHypnotic
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Yeah, I'm super curious. It seems like such a strange move.
If it is to reduce piracy, I don't think that makes any sense. You can find still shots of the movies on a bunch of sites that also happen to offer to the movie for download... So if people wanted to look that up to find out if they were interested or not, driving them to those sites to do that seems counterproductive. I totally buy piracy as a very real problem for them but I don't see how still shot removal would move the needle on that in the right direction at all. Intuitively, I just feel like it'll make it worse.
Other possible alternatives I can think of it maybe it's due to some legal restriction thing they're trying to avoid having to deal with on their website. You never know what weird pornography laws various countries are passing and what hoops producers are being forced to jump through to do basic things.
And then maybe (and I feel like this is less likely) it has something to do with AI? Like maybe they don't want people feeding those images into those algorithms and making their own still shot superheroine content? That one seems like a stretch to me.
Or maybe it's to drive traffic to their membership-only behind the scenes footage stuff. Though I feel like they would have promoted that in that notification if that was the case.
The thing that makes the most sense to me is that it's just a cost reduction thing and they're struggling a bit. They still offer the the art on the back of the box which has a couple images. So maybe they're just trying to streamline the process of getting movies up on their site and not taking the time to gather stills and post them.
I kind of have a feeling it's none of the above. Weird, though.
Either way. I try to do my part. I'm a long time subscriber of their premium member service and don't see turning that off any time soon. Having access to stream their entire back catalog is too good. I do hope they don't go out of business. One, it'd suck to lose them as a content producer. And two, losing that back catalog would be terrible.
If it is to reduce piracy, I don't think that makes any sense. You can find still shots of the movies on a bunch of sites that also happen to offer to the movie for download... So if people wanted to look that up to find out if they were interested or not, driving them to those sites to do that seems counterproductive. I totally buy piracy as a very real problem for them but I don't see how still shot removal would move the needle on that in the right direction at all. Intuitively, I just feel like it'll make it worse.
Other possible alternatives I can think of it maybe it's due to some legal restriction thing they're trying to avoid having to deal with on their website. You never know what weird pornography laws various countries are passing and what hoops producers are being forced to jump through to do basic things.
And then maybe (and I feel like this is less likely) it has something to do with AI? Like maybe they don't want people feeding those images into those algorithms and making their own still shot superheroine content? That one seems like a stretch to me.
Or maybe it's to drive traffic to their membership-only behind the scenes footage stuff. Though I feel like they would have promoted that in that notification if that was the case.
The thing that makes the most sense to me is that it's just a cost reduction thing and they're struggling a bit. They still offer the the art on the back of the box which has a couple images. So maybe they're just trying to streamline the process of getting movies up on their site and not taking the time to gather stills and post them.
I kind of have a feeling it's none of the above. Weird, though.
Either way. I try to do my part. I'm a long time subscriber of their premium member service and don't see turning that off any time soon. Having access to stream their entire back catalog is too good. I do hope they don't go out of business. One, it'd suck to lose them as a content producer. And two, losing that back catalog would be terrible.
The preview movies used to have chunks of the good stuff so I would just watch those instead of buy the video. Now they have zilch except a fight scene.
They changed the preview video to versions depending on if you're a member. Could be they do this with the pics and put the preview pics as only member access.
Now I have an account so maybe what they are doing is not giving away pics to non-account holders cause that's just wasted band width and instead ONLY allow account holders to view. That makes sense. Account holders are there to spend money.
Could be the majority of their money comes from repeat customers so why offer up pics to people who won't buy.
They changed the preview video to versions depending on if you're a member. Could be they do this with the pics and put the preview pics as only member access.
Now I have an account so maybe what they are doing is not giving away pics to non-account holders cause that's just wasted band width and instead ONLY allow account holders to view. That makes sense. Account holders are there to spend money.
Could be the majority of their money comes from repeat customers so why offer up pics to people who won't buy.
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I could be so naive and wrong about about how things work, but I always think Giga could get away with just going all download. A new movie costs about $40. I'd pay $80 a month to just get access to everything as it comes out. Sure I'd be getting more than 2 videos a month out of that, but that'd be the equivalent of a guaranteed purchase of 2 videos a month, which almost never actually happens. Most months I don't buy any videos from them.
I often wonder if that's the way of the future, and a way to push back against piracy. Just figure out how much you'd ideally like people to buy a month and make that your membership price. The downsides would be having to maintain a volume and cadence of releases, as well as have the tech to offer streaming. But in terms of giga, I feel like those aren't issues.
No idea.
I often wonder if that's the way of the future, and a way to push back against piracy. Just figure out how much you'd ideally like people to buy a month and make that your membership price. The downsides would be having to maintain a volume and cadence of releases, as well as have the tech to offer streaming. But in terms of giga, I feel like those aren't issues.
No idea.
Again it could be you simply have to be a signed up customer and not a membership member to see pics. Well we'll see.
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Philo Hunter
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The announcement seems pretty unambiguous that no videos going forward will have pictures.
I'm kind of wondering if this statement didn't mean what we all thought it meant. Perhaps something got lost in translation. I can't help but notice that new movies posted after the date have still photos in the postings.
What I'm thinking they might have been referring to: If you open up the page for any movie, there is a "still photos" link on the left below the box art. It takes you to a second page that has photos listed. I'm not sure what's different between the stuff on that page and the thumbnails on the actual video page since I didn't even realize it was there before now. But maybe it just meant that they were going to stop updating that page. Because that page doesn't have the last 7 videos.
And that makes sense. If people are like me and didn't even realize the page existed, it's possibly not worth the effort of maintaining.
What I'm thinking they might have been referring to: If you open up the page for any movie, there is a "still photos" link on the left below the box art. It takes you to a second page that has photos listed. I'm not sure what's different between the stuff on that page and the thumbnails on the actual video page since I didn't even realize it was there before now. But maybe it just meant that they were going to stop updating that page. Because that page doesn't have the last 7 videos.
And that makes sense. If people are like me and didn't even realize the page existed, it's possibly not worth the effort of maintaining.
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ThatOnePervert
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The still photos page was another set of pictures, not identical to the ones on the main page for the video. They were sometimes useful for figuring out the content of a video when the main material was vague about it, but beyond that they were just additional previews. I don't see it as a major loss, but they did have their use from time to time if you wanted to avoid videos ending in a dead heroine or that seemed to lack a proper sex scene.bbsucks wrote: ↑7 months agoI'm kind of wondering if this statement didn't mean what we all thought it meant. Perhaps something got lost in translation. I can't help but notice that new movies posted after the date have still photos in the postings.
What I'm thinking they might have been referring to: If you open up the page for any movie, there is a "still photos" link on the left below the box art. It takes you to a second page that has photos listed. I'm not sure what's different between the stuff on that page and the thumbnails on the actual video page since I didn't even realize it was there before now. But maybe it just meant that they were going to stop updating that page. Because that page doesn't have the last 7 videos.
And that makes sense. If people are like me and didn't even realize the page existed, it's possibly not worth the effort of maintaining.