How did game of thrones make money

I assume this rate continued, with a big bump for Season 5 and beyond. Leslie Gornstein. I think you’re right that ‘Game of Thrones’ is the most pirated show in the world. Our point was that the entire season was pointing toward this confrontation. In short, there are now 43 million people watching GoT in just the US alone.

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HBO’s «Game of Thrones» has a hefty price tag compared to the majority of other TV shows, and it’s only gotten bame with time. The final four episodes are 80 minutes long each, and one battle reportedly took 55 days to shoot. But «Game of Thrones,» which is based on author George R. Martin’s «A Song of Ice and Fire» books, had a more conservative budget in its earlier seasons. But for season two’s «Blackwater» battle, creators D. It did not allow us to do the battle from ‘ A Clash of Kings ‘ [book two]. Our point was that how did game of thrones make money entire season was pointing toward this confrontation.

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The different cities and nations across the Narrow Sea in Essos have their own various local currencies. The coinage used in the Seven Kingdoms is based on the Gold Dragon coin, which has two common smaller denominations: Silver Stag coins and Copper Penny coins. The Free Folk living north of The Wall have a hardscrabble, survival-based economy, with little settled agriculture. As a result, Free Folk villages that the Night’s Watch encounters are more interested in directly useful things that they can barter for, such as weapons, furs, or fine wines, and usually not coinage, which has little inherent use to them. There are many different systems of currency in the eastern continent, particularly in the merchant city-states known as the Nine Free Cities. Unlike Westeros, much of the economy of the cultures in Essos is based on slavery.

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The different cities and nations across the Narrow Sea in Essos have their own various local currencies. The coinage used in the Seven Kingdoms is based on the Gold Dragon coin, which has two common smaller denominations: Silver Stag coins and Copper Penny coins.

The Free Folk living north of The Wall have a hardscrabble, survival-based economy, with little settled agriculture. As a result, Free Folk villages that the Night’s Watch encounters are more interested in directly useful things that they can barter for, such as weapons, furs, or fine wines, and usually not coinage, which has little inherent use to. There are many different systems of currency in the eastern continent, particularly in the merchant city-states known as the Nine Free Cities.

Unlike Westeros, much of the economy of the cultures in Essos is based on slavery. As their name implies, the city-states of Slaver’s Bay are the heart of the international slave trade. While feudal serfdom is the social norm in Westeros, the laws of the Seven Kingdoms specifically outlaw slavery. Payment in slaves is frequently used as a form of barter in Essos. Some of the Free Cities are also economically engaged in slavery, but this varies among the different city-states.

Some such as Volantis which is closest to Slaver’s Bay are heavily reliant upon slavery, but others such as Braavos founded by former slaves who fled Valyria have banned slavery.

Qarth is a major trading hub located next to the Straits of Qarth, through which all east-west ocean traffic must pass. In practice, Qarth is the furthest east on the continent of Essos that merchants from Westeros have been known to travel, and is thus at the extreme east of the mapped world to men in Westeros Asshai and the Shadow Lands are located further east, but they are half-legendary to men in the Seven Kingdoms.

They are also heavily involved in the slave trade. Otherwise, each of the nine Free Cities as well as the cities of Slaver’s Bay have their own unique minted currencies:. The special coin that the assassin Jaqen H’gharone of the Faceless Men of Braavos, gave to Arya Stark is explicitly not normal currency. It is round and does not resemble a normal square Braavosi coin. Instead of «currency» it is a special token that the Faceless Men give to their allies or those they feel indebted to. Jaqen instructed Arya to present it to any man from Braavos if she needed help, and they would know this meant she was a friend of the Faceless Men.

The Dothraki are said to «not believe in money», instead taking what they want through raiding. The Dothraki do not so much function on the barter system, as they use the honor system: they frown upon «trade» but honor the exchange of gifts, such as tribute. Long ago the Free Cities decided that it was often less destructive to just give the Dothraki massive tributes in gold, finished products, and slaves, than to try to fight them off — though a Dothraki horde might still attack if they find the tribute insufficient, or if they just haven’t had a good fight in a.

The Dothraki will not reciprocate these «gifts» on an immediate quid pro quo trade. However, they will as a rule keep their word to eventually give a gift which they have promised, though they will do it in their own time. In practice, if a Dothraki horde has a particular need for a resource that it cannot obtain through direct raiding, i. Each of the Nine Free Cities has its own bank, for depositing and lending money.

The largest bank by far is the Iron Bank of Braavoswhich is as large and wealthy as the banks of all the other eight put. When King Joffrey succeeded Robert, backed by his mother Cersei and grandfather Tywin Lannister, House Lannister was really attempting to found a new dynasty and supplant House Baratheon.

A problem House Lannister encounters once Joffrey is in power is that essentially, half of the 6 million Gold Dragon debt was owed to themselvesand with Robert dead he can’t pay Tywin. This does not erase the mounting war debt to the Iron Bank of Braavos, particularly given that at the start of the conflict most of the realm beyond the Crownlands, Westerlands, and a narrow strip of the southern Riverlands does not acknowledge Joffrey’s rule.

Even after the slaughter of the Starks at the Red Weddingthe huge expenditures on the war, combined with the already shockingly high debts at the end of King Robert’s reign, have left the crown so heavily in debt to the Iron Bank that even Tywin Lannister is concerned.

After Tywin is murdered by his own son Tyrionand the Queen Regent Cersei Lannister is left in charge of House Lannister, the Iron Bank starts to lose its already dwindling faith that the crown of the Seven Kingdoms will be able to pay them.

With tensions mounting, the Iron Bank calls in one tenth of the huge total debts that they are owed. Cersei’s new Master of Coin Mace Tyrell informs her that the Iron Throne’s depleted treasury doesn’t physically possess even half of that tenth of the total money they owe the bank. The «thin man» at the docks of Braavos who sells insurance contracts to ship captains.

Business ventures across the Seven Kingdoms and the Free Cities often purchase insurance contracts from other merchants. In BraavosArya Stark is given a mission to assassinate a » Thin man » who sells insurance to ship captains at the docks because he swindled sailors’ families out of the money he had promised to pay.

George R. Martin explained that this was a key part of his attempt to make the series more grounded and realistic. Martin is fascinated with how morally «good» men such as U. President Jimmy Carter who even taught Sunday school for children can nonetheless be «bad» rulers because they are ineffective, either in politics or simply at pragmatic economic concerns — and how men who have privately committed morally «bad» actions can nonetheless be «good» rulers, citing how U.

The coinage used in the Seven Kingdoms is based on the Gold Dragon, and its various denominations, chief of which are the Silver Stag and Copper Penny. As their names suggest they are made of these precious metals. The Gold Dragon currency system is commodity moneybased on the inherent value of the amount of gold or silver in each coin, as opposed to fiat money — like modern banknotes — in which currency is assigned a theoretical value but is physically just a medium of exchange banknote paper currency does not exist in Westeros, or even in Essos, and no world culture has ever been described using paper currency in the novels.

That being said, sometimes possession is an abstract concept. Thus someone being paid thousands of Gold Dragon coins will not have to physically carry them around, but will be presented with official financial documents declaring the transaction much as a knight might find it difficult to carry around on his back a castle he has been granted, but can carry around a sealed charter as proof of the land grant.

Still, even large sums used in accounting — ranging into the tens of thousands of Gold Dragons — are supposed to represent physical gold coin reserves. Reflecting real-life medieval practice, the currency of the Seven Kingdoms is not based on a decimal system, but grew haphazardly out of many centuries of rival coinage systems becoming integrated, so the exchange rate between different denominations reflects tradition and not abstract sense. Each of the original independent «Seven Kingdoms» minted their own money, but the coinage system was unified under the Targaryen dynasty after the War of Conquest years ago.

The Targaryen Kings did not completely «nationalize» the minting of coins, as private mints also exist, but coinage is primarily minted by the kingship and is certainly regulated by it. There are a few other regional coins worth different combinations that might be encountered from time to time, a «Groat» equals 4 Copper Pennies. The books contain many more examples of different kinds of coins and the relative price of different purchases.

As in the TV series, the baker Arya asks for bread right before her father is executed and the war beginshe says that a loaf costs three copper pennies. During the War of the Five Kings food prices are sent skyrocketing in King’s Landing : when Tyrion first arrives in the city he observes that food prices have tripled, and continue to rise.

The shortages resulted from the war’s disruption of trade routes, particularly that House Tyrell closed off food shipments along the Roseroad when they declared for Renly Baratheonalong with the loss of food shipments from the Riverlands, which had declared for Robb Stark the Reach and the Riverlands being the two main breadbasket regions of the realm. The shortages were compounded by the influx of refugees from the Riverlands seeking the safety of the capital city, which overburdened its already strained food supply, eventually leading to major food riots by the starving peasants.

After the Tyrells ally with the Lannisters food shipments from the Reach arrive in the city again i. Even after this, however, Tyrion notes that food prices are still shockingly high: six Copper Pennies for a melon, a Silver Stag for a bushel of corn, and a Gold Dragon for a side of beef or six skinny piglets.

This was after the Tyrells were returning regular food shipments to the city, so the prices might have been higher beforehand, or they may have continued to rise to four or five times their normal value while Tyrion was Hand, so the exact ratio of these prices to their normal pre-war value is unclear. In the first of the Tales of Dunk and Egg prequel novellas, set ninety years before the War of the Five Kings, it is mentioned that a man could live well on three Gold Dragons a year — though relative prices may have changed in subsequent generations.

Supporting this notion is that in the Tales of Dunk and EggDuncan sold a knight’s horse for Silver Stags, which is about three and a half Gold Dragons. Thus the Gold Dragon apparently underwent significant Deflation in the past ninety years, though the devastation caused by the War of the Five Kings combined with foreign debt from King Robert’s reign leads to the rapid monetary Inflation which Tyrion noted in the food markets.

Another factor is that the first Dunk and Egg story takes place during the spring after the end of a years-long winter, when both the population and food supply would be lower, while the War of the Five Kings takes place at the end of a years-long summer, when both population and food supply start out very high — during the prequels, both supply and demand are proportionately lower than they are in the main series, and relative prices seem to have adjusted accordingly.

Numerical prices not raw purchasing power do seem to be consistently about three times higher in the Tales of Dunk and Egg prequels compared to the main novel series.

One Gold Dragon is considered a good price for a knight’s horse in the main novels, while about three and a half Gold Dragons is considered a good price in Dunk’s era. Moreover, at one point Ser Duncan uses a single Silver Stag coin equal to 56 Copper Pennies to purchase meals for two people at an inn, and receives a handful of Copper Pennies back as change. Presuming he received about a dozen or so Copper Pennies as change, and that this was to cover the cost of two meals, it seems that the cost of a single meal at an inn was about 20 Copper Pennies during the Tales of Dunk and Egg era.

In contrast, in the main novels just before Eddard Stark’s execution, a baker tells Arya that a loaf of bread will cost her 3 Copper Pennies. If the deflation ratio is consistent, the numerical price of a loaf of bread in Dunk’s era would be around Copper Pennies — which actually does seem to be consistent with the figure that a full, basic «meal» cost Dunk about twice that.

No examples of prices were given in the prequel novellas about the Dance of the Dragons. The numerical cost of one horse dropped from 3. The era of peace and prosperity before the Dance lasted far longer than that, an 80 year long golden age of peace and prosperity under the Targaryen kings Jaehaerys I and Viserys I. The civil war began in autumn, after Viserys I died, and winter began in the middle of the conflict.

Keeping to the supply and demand trends observed at the end of Robert’s reign, it is possible that the number value of prices at the start of the Dance of the Dragons was even lower i.

The main takeaways from these figures, in short, are that just before the outbreak of the War of the Five Kings the price of everyday commodities such as a loaf of bread was around three Copper Pennies, and a knight’s horse was worth about one Gold Dragon. Massive inflation takes place during the course of the War of the Five Kings, however, so relative prices during most of the TV series would rise drastically higher.

In the Seven Kingdoms, there is no particular cultural or religious rule against moneylending. Indeed, the Faith of the Seven has been known to lend money to the kingship. Thus, by the time of King Robert Baratheon, the crown owes a vast amount of accrued debt which was lent to it, mostly by House Lannister, the wealthiest noble landholders on the continent.

Robert Baratheon’s massive public debts, largely the result of his own inept financial leadership, total approximately six million Gold Dragons. This debt is roughly divided between three million owed to House Lannister, two million owed to the Iron Bank of Braavos, and one million owed to the Faith of the Seven.

A point made in the books is that the crown of Seven Kingdoms actually was not in debt immediately after Robert’s Rebellion. While there had been some war debts King’s Landing had to be extensively repaired after its sack.

Tywin Lannister even remarks that the gross income of the crown has increased to something on the order of ten times what it was under the Mad King, due to various improvements in administration and an improving economy during the long summer years.

Thus it is all the more shocking to Eddard Stark when he is informed that the crown is 6 million Gold Dragons in debt, highlighting just how much Robert Baratheon was beggaring the realm with his many expensive jousts.

Indeed, Tyrion Lannister is skeptical that even Robert’s expensive tournaments and overall bad management could have produced such massive debts given the strong gross income levels, leading him to suspect that Littlefinger has been embezzling massive amounts of money from the treasury. The Tourney of the Hand, for example, costGold Dragons in prize money, and is presented as a very large tournament even by Robert’s standards.

Robert has been king for 15 years in the novels, and 6 million divided by 15 is- meaning that Robert would have to have held a massive tournament on the scale of the Tourney of the Hand every three months for 15 years to spend that much money.

Tyrion realizes these numbers are implausible, as Robert simply didn’t hold that many large tournaments. Each of the independent «Seven Kingdoms» minted their own different local currencies until they were all united by Aegon I Targaryen in the War of Conquest three hundred years before the War of the Five Kings. Little has been mentioned so far of pre-Conquest currency, but the Kingdom of the Reach minted gold coins known as «Hands», featuring the hand-sigil of House Gardener on one side and the face of the king whose reign they were minted in on the other.

Surprisingly, quite a few Hand coins remain in circulation, even though new ones ceased being minted three hundred years ago. A gold Hand coin is only roughly half the value of a Gold Dragon coin.

However, gold Hands are also roughly the same size, weight, and shape as a Gold Dragon, which may lead the unwary to confuse. Olenna Tyrell keeps a chest of old gold Hands in her carriage, and uses them when she needs to pay toll-takers on the road whom she feels have been rude or insulting, in order to dupe them into taking only half of what they request. Dorne wasn’t even conquered by the Targaryens, and only entered the realm through peaceful marriage-alliance one hundred years ago, thus it is probable that their own local currency may be even more prevalent than the Kingdom of the Reach’s three hundred year old currency.

In the early months of the War of the Five Kingsafter Robb Stark is declared King in the Norththe idea is suggested that the new Kingdom of the North and Riverlands should mint its own coinage. When Prince Bran Stark is holding a harvest feast at Winterfell attended by several How did game of thrones make money lords, Lord Wyman of House Manderly proposes that he will fund the creation of new mints to produce coinage for Robb’s kingdom as House Manderly controls White Harborthe North’s only city and port, and is therefore fairly wealthy due to its maritime commerce.

Soon afterwards, however, the ironborn betray the Starks and attack the western coasts of the North, seizing Winterfell itself, thus the plan to make their own coinage is apparently put on hold to deal with the more immediate threat.

How Much Money Did ‘Game of Thrones’ Actors Get Paid?

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Either way keep up the nice quality writing, it is rare to see a nice blog like this one these days. Our point was that the entire season was pointing toward this confrontation. Revenues from Subscriptions. It did not allow us to do the mmake from ‘ A Clash of Kings ‘ [book two]. How did game of thrones make money to an Entertainment Weekly reportit took crew members, extras, tons of gravel, 70 horses, 25 stunt performers, 4 camera crews and 25 days of shooting to make. Leave A Reply. Helen Sloan—HBO. You might also like More from author. Leslie Gornstein is an entertainment writer and the host of the weekly Hollywood gossip podcast The Fame Fatale. Skip Navigation. To fill the gap, I made some estimates based on my knowledge of adult TV merchandise. Read More. First, the top actors are paid handsomely. That just may have been the single most profitable decision in jake history of the Home Box Office. Yahoo Celebrity. Is this a paid theme or did you modify it yourself? Like this story?