'Game of Thrones' Season Premiere News: Number of Viewers Overwhelm HBO Website
"Game of Thrones" season 7 premiered on Sunday, July 16, and hordes of viewers brought HBO's main website to a grinding halt. The cable network's other online streaming services are affected by the unprecedented demand as well.
HBO.com was down during the season 7 premiere of "Game of Thrones," as site visitors were greeted with error messages when they attempted to go to the website. HBO Now, their video streaming service, also became unresponsive as the first half of the season pilot aired.
Viewers had various complaints about slow buffering times and unresponsive loading bars as they tried to watch the new episode, according to Hollywood Reporter. The main website of HBO and HBO Now were able to return to full function as the latter half of the "Game of Thrones" premiere went by.
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A representative of the network reported that although HBO Go was having problems in Latin America, they have not seen indications of outages in the United States for HBO Go or HBO Now.
Meanwhile, irate fans took to social media to call the attention of the network to the issues plaguing the online stream of the premiere episode. "Raise your hand if you have ever been personally victimized by HBO Go #HBOGO #GameOfThones #GoT," one user posted.
"I'm saying a prayer for you, HBO Go server tech team. You can do it. #GameOfThrones," another user posted as he cheered the online streaming service on.
Meanwhile, viewers across the world also bemoaned the crash of "Game of Thrones" video streaming as provided by Foxtel. The Australian channel apologized to users after viewers were met with "service unavailable" messages instead of an online stream of "Game of Thrones."
"The show's producer and US broadcaster, HBO, reported its technical systems could not cope and in Australia, the surge of demand for Foxtel's recently launched on line product, Foxtel now, also experienced customer meltdown," the statement from the streaming company said, pointing to HBO as the cause of their downtime.
Bruce Meagher, a Foxtel spokesman, further revealed that repeat screenings of the episode will be made available through encore time slots throughout the week for those who were not able to view the "Game of Thrones" season 7 online stream the first time.
