MoviePass Discussion

sangreal · Apr 20, 2018

thediamondage said:
MoviePass is starting to use amazon's mechanical turk crowd sourcing service to validate tickets, its actually really hilarious. They offer 1 penny per validation, have over 14000 tickets up for validation as of this post all from 4/5 - 4/8. Click on preview and you can start seeing all 14,000 tickets in glorious sideways potato camera mode
https://worker.mturk.com/requesters/A1H87AJHW6B8Q6/projects

MoviePass is a great idea, but the execution is beyond dog shit. Why they went with this idiotic "give people a debit card, load debit card, HOPE THEY DONT ABUSE IT" system is insane. The smart thing, that would have gotten them bought out by a big company before too long, would have been to implement a secure eTicket that only allows check in on day of, awards no loyalty points (AMC/Regal/etc), and allows theaters to block off certain showings when they know they will sell those tickets out 100%. Fixes 99% of their fraud problems: there is no incentive anymore to buy tickets to shows you don't go (for loyalty points), you can't really "resell" tickets anymore, and you can't buy tickets for advance shows anymore.

MoviePass would work best as a bulk consolidator system, like exists in airlines, hotel, concerts, food, etc. Sometimes there are lulls in business and its nice to have a service sell those extra tickets at a deep discount, quietly, without heavily impacting your regular customers. Barging in and offering any 2D ticket but no way to upsell to a IMAX/3D/etc and movie theaters having no say in what screenings are allowed is just a poorly conceived business idea that cannot survive much longer.

I'm pretty sure the current 4 movies/month iHeartRadio deal is there to drive a big boom in business when they flop back to $6.95/mo 1 year prepaid ($90 total) as a ton of people who want to signup will jump on that deal. You get 1m new subs in on that deal and thats 90 MILLION they would immediately pocket, that'll last a few months at the current cash burn rates.

"Does the movie in the ticket match Check In if Movie Missing?"

:facepalm

gig · Apr 20, 2018

Alethia said:
Has anyone in here cancelled their sub? Is it easy or is it a customer service nightmare? I'd rather get out while I can before it's already imploded...

Get out while you can? Lol they're not going to hold you hostage if they go under.

Charpunk · Apr 20, 2018

Well I guess I should start using this way more often now.

snipe_25 · Apr 20, 2018

Charpunk said:
Well I guess I should start using this way more often now.

We're all crossing our fingers it lasts through the summer since there are so many good movies coming up making it easy to go often. Here's my "want to watch" list, for example:

Avengers: Infinity War
Tully
Deadpool 2
Solo
Ocean's 8
Incredibles 2
Ant Man & the Wasp
Eighth Grade

bender · Apr 20, 2018

Jezze said:
Theaters will crash hard if moviepass goes under. I'll go back to 1 or 2 a year if I don't have it.

I really surprised theaters haven't come up with a similar offering to Moviepass. I mostly go to the latest showings Sunday-Thursday to avoid crowds and outside of big releases, the theaters are 5-15% occupied. It's not uncommon to be alone in a theater if you are outside of opening week. I'd be thinking about an all you can eat service on off-peak days/hours to help drive customers back into theaters. I know once Movie Pass goes away, I'll be back to seeing 1-2 movies a year.

Psamtik · Apr 20, 2018

All I really need is for it to get me to You Were Never Really Here this week, but Moviepass has been a phenomenal value and I hope it holds on as long as possible.

Spectromixer · Apr 20, 2018

Cinemark has their own version, Movie Club, which I will likely switch to if Moviepass goes under. :/

SeanM · Apr 20, 2018

thediamondage said:
MoviePass is starting to use amazon's mechanical turk crowd sourcing service to validate tickets, its actually really hilarious. They offer 1 penny per validation, have over 14000 tickets up for validation as of this post all from 4/5 - 4/8. Click on preview and you can start seeing all 14,000 tickets in glorious sideways potato camera mode
https://worker.mturk.com/requesters/A1H87AJHW6B8Q6/projects

Lol they even botched their anti-fraud system so bad. What an embarrassment:

"Does the movie in the ticket match Check In if Movie Missing? Yes/No"

They'll always have the wrong showtime in this scenario too - when the user selects "unlisted showtime" MoviePass can only know when the user purchased the ticket and not the actual showtime. So this poor guy who did nothing wrong fails 2 of the 3 criteria.

So many people are going to get falsely flagged cause of this dumb oversight.

mrmoose · Apr 20, 2018

Wait, they can't even scan in the picture of the ticket and isolate the price themselves?

Zoe · Apr 20, 2018

mrmoose said:
Wait, they can't even scan in the picture of the ticket and isolate the price themselves?

OCR depends on predictable forms.

BigAssBoy · Apr 20, 2018

My guess is the ones marked as invalid actually get looked at by someone at Moviepass to see if someone is abusing the system.

Deleted member 25702 · Apr 20, 2018

I wouldn't be surprised if the mechturks were told to treat missing movie tickets a certain way. That seems like a small thing to assume they've messed up.

Surfinn · Apr 20, 2018

Does anybody else not like the redesign they did in the past few months? I've only used it once but had massive problems with movies not loading/the screen not advancing to where it needed to in order to check in. Seems like it's not quite as easy to use as it was before.

I had to restart my entire phone to get it to finally work and almost gave up/walked away. Walked in with a minute to spare before the movie started but showed up like 15 minutes early.

First time the app hasn't worked well for me

Zej · Apr 20, 2018

SeanM said:
Lol they even botched their anti-fraud system so bad. What an embarrassment:

"Does the movie in the ticket match Check In if Movie Missing? Yes/No"

They'll always have the wrong showtime in this scenario too - when the user selects "unlisted showtime" MoviePass can only know when the user purchased the ticket and not the actual showtime. So this poor guy who did nothing wrong fails 2 of the 3 criteria.

So many people are going to get falsely flagged cause of this dumb oversight.

What's super obnoxious about the first criteria is that the moviepass app takes the picture and it's always terrible quality for me...like three levels of jpeg bad.

Deleted member 388 · Apr 20, 2018

When are they asking people to take photos of their tickets? Or is this a thing that only affects extremely frequent users?

Kirblar · Apr 20, 2018

Kanik said:
When are they asking people to take photos of their tickets? Or is this a thing that only affects extremely frequent users?

Random people were put into it as a trial program.

Zoe · Apr 20, 2018

I never got the email, so I'm assuming I'm not a part. Is it obvious from the app?

Zej · Apr 20, 2018

Kanik said:
When are they asking people to take photos of their tickets? Or is this a thing that only affects extremely frequent users?

I think they've added at least two waves of people now. I'm sure it's going to mostly be frequent users. I don't think they've said if they intend on everyone doing it eventually.

Zoe said:
I never got the email, so I'm assuming I'm not a part. Is it obvious from the app?

Yes. A camera icon pops up until you submit a photo and another pop up before activating your card upon check-in says verification will be required.

Sweeney Swift · Apr 20, 2018

BronsonLee said:
My god, this thing is gonna drag down their parent company too

Already has. Moviepass' parent company lost 150 million dollars last year and an independent auditor "substantially doubts the company's ability to continue as a going concern"

Rapscallion · Apr 21, 2018

When I check in, it says that I'll have to take a picture...but then it never asks me to do so or even gives me an option as to where to send my photos. I've seen more than 2 movies since I've seen the thing say to take pictures, so it's not preventing me from continuing to go. Of course I'm also taking pictures of my stubs just in case.

Dyscord · Apr 21, 2018

Girlfriend and I wanted to sign up for Moviepass but now we have to wait for this promotion to pass. Why can't they offer the regular subscription along with the promotion?!

Compbros · Apr 21, 2018

Just saw a moviepass ad on facebook that said see a movie a week. Wonder if it's a mistake or a new way to stem the bleeding.

louiedog · Apr 21, 2018

compbros said:
Just saw a moviepass ad on facebook that said see a movie a week. Wonder if it's a mistake or a new way to stem the bleeding.

That's more than I use it now so that'd be fine with me. If I was seeing one movie a month it wouldn't be worth it due to inconvenience of buying tickets in person, even though it's cheaper than a single ticket. But right now I'm seeing 2-3 so I'd be okay with this change, depending on how they define a week. If I couldn't go on Sunday and then the following Saturday it'd be a problem.

Busaiku · Apr 21, 2018

compbros said:
Just saw a moviepass ad on facebook that said see a movie a week. Wonder if it's a mistake or a new way to stem the bleeding.

Isn't it cause they're doing the 4 a month thing now, not affecting previous customers?
I saw 11 movies already this month, so that'd suck for me.

Lurkyseas · Apr 23, 2018

I'm wondering if this is really worth it?

I heard from one Facebook poster that Moviepass makes money by collecting the data from what movies you watch, and then sells said data to different companies.

Kirblar · Apr 23, 2018

Lurkyseas said:
I'm wondering if this is really worth it?

I heard from one Facebook poster that Moviepass makes money by collecting the data from what movies you watch, and then sells said data to different companies.

It's worth it in that it saves you a lot of money while the company hemmorhages it.

Lurkyseas · Apr 23, 2018

Kirblar said:
It's worth it in that it saves you a lot of money while the company hemmorhages it.

Thanks!

this_guy · Apr 23, 2018

They obviously don't enough money selling data so I'm not worried about it.

Addleburg · Apr 26, 2018

Kirblar said:
Random people were put into it as a trial program.

I'm part of the trial program. It's kind of annoying to have to take a photo of the ticket every time I purchase one.

I kind of wondered if it was a way for them to "legitimately" ban some people temporarily if they don't provide ticket stub photos too many times in a row.

Mortemis · Apr 26, 2018

Damn, hope this thing at least lasts through the summer. I haven't used it as much as I'd like this year but there's a ton of movies coming that I'm interested enough to use it on.

Molecule · Apr 26, 2018

Really sucks that this service seems to be on it's way out. I used to only go to the movies for something I really wanted to see. I've been able to watch a lot of movies that I would normally pass on thanks to this. I wonder if there's anything they could have done differently? It sure doesn't help that people abuse this. And a movie a day is a little overkill. The 4 a month would be plenty. Or maybe decide on another number like 5 or 6 a month. I think my sub is still at 1 a day but I only go on weekends and I don't always go.

maruchan · Apr 26, 2018

Can I purchase a ticket for avengers right now for later tonight and not get in trouble? I know you cant do a day in advance out but are few hours okay? I saw some showtimes still have seats.

Sanjuro · Apr 26, 2018

They cancelled my subscription without reason and haven't gotten back to maybe about 3/4 messages.

It's obvious they are running from justice.

SeanM · Apr 26, 2018

maruchan said:
Can I purchase a ticket for avengers right now for later tonight and not get in trouble? I know you cant do a day in advance out but are few hours okay? I saw some showtimes still have seats.

Yep that's absolutely fine.

ArmsofSleep · Apr 26, 2018

Just got my subscription going (luckily subscribed before this dumb iheartradio promotion thing) and will be seeing 10 movies in my first month easily. It better not go under

RastaMentality · Apr 26, 2018

there's 2 million people with this thing. there has to have been a sizable impact on ticket sales right?

this company seems like something a huge corporation like Amazon/Google could pull off since they'd really be able to sell your data. But who knows. I hope someone fills the void.

PHOENIXZERO · Apr 26, 2018

Maaaan I should've just unsubscribed after seeing Black Panther on opening weekend. Tomorrow will be (if I see Avengers on opening weekend) the first time I've used it in two months and as I've said before, with the distance I have to drive to see a movie since my little local theater still hasn't reopened and I'm tired of waiting, it really hasn't been worth it. I'm probably like one of a dozen people they've actually made money off. I'm gonna have to start staying overnight in "the city" to use the card on two back to back days. >_>

Slixshot · Apr 26, 2018

RastaMentality said:
there's 2 million people with this thing. there has to have been a sizable impact on ticket sales right?

this company seems like something a huge corporation like Amazon/Google could pull off since they'd really be able to sell your data. But who knows. I hope someone fills the void.

Do we know what "data" this actually provides? Like... now people know when I go see movies and what movies I go to see. They can sell that to movie marketing companies but other than that what else could a big company get out of this?

Felt · Apr 26, 2018

PHOENIXZERO said:
Maaaan I should've just unsubscribed after seeing Black Panther on opening weekend. Tomorrow will be (if I see Avengers on opening weekend) the first time I've used it in two months and as I've said before, with the distance I have to drive to see a movie since my little local theater still hasn't reopened and I'm tired of waiting, it really hasn't been worth it. I'm probably like one of a dozen people they've actually made money off. I'm gonna have to start staying overnight in "the city" to use the card on two back to back days. >_>

Yeah this happened to me. They killed my local AMC theatre few months back and I was just sitting on the MP, once a month driving far to see a film. BUT, they added that AMC back with other local theaters, including e-ticketing, which has been all excellent. Haha, sorry to give you false hope.

Felt · Apr 26, 2018

maruchan said:
Can I purchase a ticket for avengers right now for later tonight and not get in trouble? I know you cant do a day in advance out but are few hours okay? I saw some showtimes still have seats.

I do this every time. Drop by the theatre early, buy the ticket, then go run errands and eat, and see that movie later.

RastaMentality · Apr 26, 2018

Slixshot said:
Do we know what "data" this actually provides? Like... now people know when I go see movies and what movies I go to see. They can sell that to movie marketing companies but other than that what else could a big company get out of this?

I guess seeing which movies you'd see if you had the ability to see anything. I'm sure Google would add in surveys (about trailers and such) like they do on YouTube. There's a lot of potential in an app like this to monetize but i'm happy they've kept it bare bones.

Supa Necta · Apr 26, 2018

Went to a kiosk this morning and was able to get Infinity War tickets for tonight. Very pleased they weren't all sold out.

PHOENIXZERO · Apr 26, 2018

Felt said:
Yeah this happened to me. They killed my local AMC theatre few months back and I was just sitting on the MP, once a month driving far to see a film. BUT, they added that AMC back with other local theaters, including e-ticketing, which has been all excellent. Haha, sorry to give you false hope.

Different situation, it's been two years since my little local theater closed after the owner died, new owners were supposedly going to reopen it in the Summer of 2016 after some remodeling, then it got delayed after an accident involving a cop hitting a minivan that went into the building and they decided to do a greater amount of remodeling to the inside, haven't updated on progress aside from when they put a new sign up last Fall. I'm just kind of over the point of waiting, it's not like I'd be able to use it everyday whenever it does reopen since it's just a single screen and they'll keep movies for at least a couple weeks.

Supa Necta said:
Went to a kiosk this morning and was able to get Infinity War tickets for tonight. Very pleased they weren't all sold out.

I didn't realize it was actually opening tonight so I'm heavily considering going in a few hours instead of going tomorrow afternoon which will make staying overnight a bit easier. Will still give me a nice amount of time by myself and be able to catch up on some TV I'm behind on.

maruchan · Apr 26, 2018

thanks everyone, bought my ticket for an 8:30 showing..

New002 · Apr 26, 2018

Been going HAM with Movie Pass sicne I got it a few weeks ago. Love that puchases count towards my Regal Rewards. Stocking up multiple free tickets in rewards before Movie Pass inevitably goes under.

Blackflag · Apr 26, 2018

louiedog said:
That's more than I use it now so that'd be fine with me. If I was seeing one movie a month it wouldn't be worth it due to inconvenience of buying tickets in person, even though it's cheaper than a single ticket. But right now I'm seeing 2-3 so I'd be okay with this change, depending on how they define a week. If I couldn't go on Sunday and then the following Saturday it'd be a problem.

Yeah I'd be fine with that. I see 1 or 2 a month.

Tetra-Grammaton-Cleric · Apr 26, 2018

I'm in the trial as well and it's honestly pretty painless. Just set the ticket down on the edge of something, snapped the picture, done.

But I'm well into the black with Movie Pass. I did the 80 bucks up front for a year deal and I surpassed that entry price threshold pretty quick.

Tetra-Grammaton-Cleric · Apr 26, 2018

bender said:
I really surprised theaters haven't come up with a similar offering to Moviepass. I mostly go to the latest showings Sunday-Thursday to avoid crowds and outside of big releases, the theaters are 5-15% occupied. It's not uncommon to be alone in a theater if you are outside of opening week. I'd be thinking about an all you can eat service on off-peak days/hours to help drive customers back into theaters. I know once Movie Pass goes away, I'll be back to seeing 1-2 movies a year.

Many have postulated that MP will eventually fall but their model will be picked up by theater chains and exploited.

I certainly could see that happening.

mrmoose · Apr 26, 2018

Tetra-Grammaton-Cleric said:
Many have postulated that MP will eventually fall but their model will be picked up by theater chains and exploited.

I certainly could see that happening.

I personally don't think an all you can watch option is viable at 10 bucks, and it makes no sense for them to do one at a price that is greater than moviepass, but once MP is gone I could see AMC and others rolling out something similar at a (hopefully just slightly) higher pricepoint, with maybe a few restrictions (like friday/sat night or something).

Carthago Delenda Est · Apr 26, 2018

thediamondage said:
MoviePass is starting to use amazon's mechanical turk crowd sourcing service to validate tickets, its actually really hilarious. They offer 1 penny per validation, have over 14000 tickets up for validation as of this post all from 4/5 - 4/8. Click on preview and you can start seeing all 14,000 tickets in glorious sideways potato camera mode
https://worker.mturk.com/requesters/A1H87AJHW6B8Q6/projects

MoviePass is a great idea, but the execution is beyond dog shit. Why they went with this idiotic "give people a debit card, load debit card, HOPE THEY DONT ABUSE IT" system is insane. The smart thing, that would have gotten them bought out by a big company before too long, would have been to implement a secure eTicket that only allows check in on day of, awards no loyalty points (AMC/Regal/etc), and allows theaters to block off certain showings when they know they will sell those tickets out 100%. Fixes 99% of their fraud problems: there is no incentive anymore to buy tickets to shows you don't go (for loyalty points), you can't really "resell" tickets anymore, and you can't buy tickets for advance shows anymore.

MoviePass would work best as a bulk consolidator system, like exists in airlines, hotel, concerts, food, etc. Sometimes there are lulls in business and its nice to have a service sell those extra tickets at a deep discount, quietly, without heavily impacting your regular customers. Barging in and offering any 2D ticket but no way to upsell to a IMAX/3D/etc and movie theaters having no say in what screenings are allowed is just a poorly conceived business idea that cannot survive much longer.

I'm pretty sure the current 4 movies/month iHeartRadio deal is there to drive a big boom in business when they flop back to $6.95/mo 1 year prepaid ($90 total) as a ton of people who want to signup will jump on that deal. You get 1m new subs in on that deal and thats 90 MILLION they would immediately pocket, that'll last a few months at the current cash burn rates.

Just did one and it was a stub for a completely different movie. Dude probably bought Infinity War tickets and just found a stub on the ground or something. I quit out. You have to enter an awful lot of information and it easily takes like 20 seconds to earn one cent. It would take forever to earn anything meaningful. What a racket.

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