Dominion Strategy Forum
Miscellaneous => General Discussion => Topic started by: Beyond Awesome on December 29, 2017, 05:10:23 pm
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Anyone else have this? I highly recommend it. You can get a subscription for $9.95 or buy an annual membership off Costco.com for $89.95. How it works is that you download the app, and they ship out a debit card. You go to a theater, use the app to select your movie, the funds are loaded to the debit card, and you purchase the ticket.
Pros:
$9.95 to go to the theater as often as you want in a month
Cons:
Pretty much nonexistent customer service (if anyone runs into any trouble just go to the movie pass reddit page)
Can't see 3D/IMAX yet, but a more expensive membership will roll out at some point
E-ticketing is almost non-existent (some theater chains aren't happy about about MoviePass existence and don't want to work with them even though Movie Pass pays the theater full price for the movies people see)
Can't get a ticket for a showing in the future. Tickets must be purchased the same day you're seeing the movie.
No family pass. Everyone needs their own separate MoviePass account at this time
So far, this month, I've gone about 12 times to the movies. I enjoy the service a lot, and I recommend it to anyone who goes at least a couple of times on month average to get this. Heck, where I live, MoviePass costs less per month than a single movie ticket.
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Five years ago it was $30 a month. Now that they're owned by a data-mining company, they are just using all the sales data to sell to advertisers.
They WILL upgrade your account to a "premium" if you use it too much.
AMC is fighting it because it devalues their product.
You cannot use it on premium cost showings or at VIP style cinemas.
I could care less, honestly. Just don't expect the theater to help, or even know how to help. Exhibitors have less information about the program than consumers. It's just a MasterCard on the theater end.
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At the moment, they just have the $9.95 plan, so no premium plan upgrade. I've read the Reddit a lot. No one has been forced to pay extra since the new pricing model in August. They used to do that. Not anymore.
The card can be used in almost every theater, except for the most very expensive ones such as the Universal City Walk which charges $18 a ticket. My AMC charges $14+ for a ticket, and I can see movies all I want there.
For me, I have found immense value in it.
AMC originally fought MoviePass, but their stock has been suffering, and this month, the AMC CEO changed his attitude towards MoviePass saying they would take their money. With that said, I don't think AMC is the biggest fan of the service despite that MoviePass pays full ticket price to the theater.
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They used to do that, and they have been talking about doing it again.
AMC locations are very rarely VIP style theaters.
Again, they are just selling your information to advertisers. The subscription cost is to add supplemental income (and to prevent a huge pushback from theaters for that perceived value argument.)
10 year ago I had a plan for a "season pass" type loyalty program at my theater, but the amount of data collection we would need to prevent misuse was well beyond the effort I was willing to put into the program for a single 16-plex. We have since gone to the simpler "punch-card" type program that doesn't require any data tracking, or sign-up.
I'm still fighting against the push to go to assigned seating, but I know the trend is going to push me there eventually.
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That's a super cool deal! I wish we had something similar deal in Germany, that would save a lot of money for me (I go about 12 times per month aswell)
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How is this possible? Man, I don't understand economics.
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Advertising money. They're just selling user data to advertising agencies.
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But the advertising data is worth that much? Like, they could pay 100$ for one person's advertising data, right?
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The numbers don't make sense to me either. I could see if they paid the theatres a portion of the ticket price. That could still be beneficial for the theatre, especially for movies that aren't first-run. But paying the theatre in full? Wow.
There could also be the factor of people not using the membership to the fullest. Even then, that's $120 a year. Someone would have to watch fewer than 10 movies to underutilize it. Such people may not be likely to subscribe to this anyway, but I'm sure there are some who jump on it with the best of intentions (like gym memberships).
So by itself, it doesn't seem very sustainable. I have no idea how much is in data sales. I seem to recall seeing something about a list of e-mail addresses for $140. I don't know how many though. Still seems kind of low considering how much they can be asked to shell out to the theatres. But the overhead has got to be pretty low.
But there are some testimonies here about it being worthwhile. Something this hinky I imagine would generate quite a few warning messages if it were a scam.
Not sure I would partake in this, but I could see it being an interesting investment.
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It was not self-sustaining at $30/mo so they kept increasing membership costs until people stopped using it. They were then bought by a data-mining company who dropped the price to $10/mo which saw an influx of 150k subscribers in the first week or so.
And paying theaters a portion of the ticket price would not work for exhibitors. The studios get their millions of dollars from those ticket prices. Theaters have to pay out fees and taxes from their smaller portion of that ticket cost. Would the studios benefit by funding this program? I'm not sure. They already spend $200 million to make and market a movie, how much are they willing to shell out before they are guaranteed a return.
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2D movies are problematic, it's either a static picture or a straight line that changes during the movie. Probably not worth it.
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It was not self-sustaining at $30/mo so they kept increasing membership costs until people stopped using it. They were then bought by a data-mining company who dropped the price to $10/mo which saw an influx of 150k subscribers in the first week or so.
And paying theaters a portion of the ticket price would not work for exhibitors. The studios get their millions of dollars from those ticket prices. Theaters have to pay out fees and taxes from their smaller portion of that ticket cost. Would the studios benefit by funding this program? I'm not sure. They already spend $200 million to make and market a movie, how much are they willing to shell out before they are guaranteed a return.
At $30/month though, they were only attracting hard core movie goers. At the lower price point, they are really going after those who only go a handful of times a year.
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2D movies are problematic, it's either a static picture or a straight line that changes during the movie. Probably not worth it.
I dunno, that adaptation of Flatland was ok.
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But the advertising data is worth that much? Like, they could pay 100$ for one person's advertising data, right?
Well I would not sell my data for $100 a year to anyone.
Also I expect part of the scheme is to get a bunch of subscribers and then gradually increase prices hoping that people won't quit. Basic frog boiling.