Game of Thrones demand so high it caused global outages

THE absurdly high number of viewers trying to watch Game of Thrones has caused global outages of streaming services, infuriating customers.

AS ONE of the world’s most popular shows, Monday night’s premiere of Game of Thrones season 7 was always going to attract a lot of attention.

But no one expected the demand would be so high that every legal streaming services around the globe with exclusive rights to the show — including HBO’s own website and platform — would crash due to the absurdly large number of customers tuning in.

Game of Thrones fans were upset by the service problems caused by an “unprecedented demand” on Foxtel Now — the only legal way to stream the show in Australia.

While the 11am screening didn’t suffer any issues due to the timeslot, the 8:30pm encore saw the streaming service crash for both GoT fans and those wanting to watch other content on Foxtel Now.

@FOXTEL_Help @Foxtel "A little technical problem..." ARRRGGGGHHH. You've only had a year to get it sorted Foxtel! #GameOfThrones #foxtel pic.twitter.com/nAeNPlvcsT

— Carly Baxter (@BaxterC82) July 17, 2017

All I'm seeing is Game of GROANS. Take that Foxtel.

— John (@MunkeeTennis) July 17, 2017

According to InternetOutages, complaints about crashed services started at around 6.00pm and grew exponentially as the 8.30pm encore broadcast time arrived.

At the time of the incident, Foxtel released a statement saying it was devastated to be experiencing problems and was doing everything it could to bring its service back online.

“We can also assure customers that as soon as the issue is resolved they will be able to watch the episode using the on demand features of our service,” the statement read.

By 11pm, Foxtel Now services — including Game of Thrones — were back online.

Foxtel said it saw a 40 per cent increase to its service in the 48 hours prior to last night’s screening of episode one, with the traffic far exceeded expectations.

“The combination of new foxtel now customers signing up and existing customers upgrading to get the Drama Pack so they could watch the show, put unprecedented pressure on our technical operations. Foxtel’s Identity Management System (IDM), which verifies customers’ entitlement to view content, which usually handles around 5,000 processes a day was hit with 70,000 transactions in just a few hours,” Foxtel said in a statement.

“Unfortunately, due to this massive surge in demand, a significant number of customers experienced difficulty logging in to foxtel now and the Foxtel App. The system was unable to verify some customers’ entitlements. We are unable to say exactly how many customers were affected because the system is unable to separately identify customers who have a problem logging in but later successfully manage to do so.”

“We truly appreciate our customers’ patience during last night’s outage and will do everything possible to ensure that this does not occur again.”

Around the world other streaming services experiences similar problems. HBO’s website and streaming service also went down during the premiere of the show — HBO hold exclusive rights to streaming the show in the USA and Latin America.

People who attempted to go to the website were met with an error message, while users of the HBO Now were met with a loading bar.

India’s leading streaming service Hotstar, which also holds exclusive rights to the series, was also met with the same streaming issues faced by Foxtel and HBO.

@HBO please fix your HBO NOW app for Xbox one pleeeeease! Can't enjoy @GameOfThrones without the playback error!

— MXND (@MXND_Music) July 17, 2017

@HBO Now app on Fire TV keeps telling me GoT premiere "An error occurred." What's up?

— red mamba 🐍 (@calebdann) July 17, 2017

Can't watch @GameOfThrones in India, @hotstartweets is down...@hotstar_helps @AccheDin_ pic.twitter.com/ihNf1Pywhf

— Prateek Gole (@PrateekGole) July 17, 2017

@hotstartweets if you charge for premium content don't give excuses as #somethingWentWrong. No one gonna pay! #GameOfThrones NOT on #hotStar

— Shubham (@shubham_26S) July 17, 2017

Game of Thrones is one of the most popular shows no the planet with the dubious honour of being the world’s most illegally downloaded show — and last night’s global crash of streaming services didn’t help.

The first torrents of the show appeared within minutes of the official broadcast, with dozens added soon after. Illegal streaming services were also met with a huge demand following the Game of Thrones premiere, with an insider source claiming one portal attracted 20,000 views per hour — and this is only one of many such platforms.

The insider said based on last year’s traffic, it is not uncommon for Game of Thrones episodes to reach a million pirated views on just one illegal service.

Did you suffer issues trying to watch GoT? Continue the conversation in the comments below or with Matthew Dunn on Facebook and Twitter.

News Corp, the publisher of this website, is a 50 per cent owner of Foxtel.

Originally published as Game of Thrones demand so high it caused global outages