Madeleine Benn May 21st, 2019 - 9:10 PM
Sunday night marked the last ever Game of Thrones, and despite recent audience complaints that the final season has been less than stellar, lots of people tuned in to see the show’s epic conclusion. In fact, over 19.3 million viewers turned on their TVs or activated their HBO streaming accounts, and it was enough to briefly overload the system. According to Outage Report, HBO temporarily crashed just after 6:00pm PST, logging over 1,104 user grievances with just HBO Now.
This was actually a common occurrence throughout all of season eight, that is experiencing issues with the app. Season eight has been the most watched season so far and every week viewers have taken to social media to air their streaming troubles.
Did anyone else have banding issues in some of the #GameofThrones scenes last night? It was terrible in some scenes and at first thought it was due to using HBO now instead of regular cable. pic.twitter.com/rsi7LbMbca
— Wynne (@InIt2WynneIt) April 29, 2019
Granted there are no more Game of Thrones episodes to tune in for, networks like HBO and Showtime will continue to put out shows that drop single episodes at one time and are prone to overload. The following are some tips on how to prepare for the eventuality of a crash via Heavy.com:
- See what the company’s social media accounts are saying. Look and see if their twitter has announced the crash. See what they recommend.
- Try watching the same show on a different device. If you’re currently on your laptop, try an iPad. If you’re on your television, try your laptop.
- Try an extension of the streaming package, like HBO or Showtime, through a larger streaming service, like Amazon Prime or Hulu.
Creators D.B. Weiss and David Benioff, as well as original author George R.R. Martin speculate that readers and audiences will come back to the series over the years. Weiss and Benioff expect people will want to brush up on the series before the so-called prequel series and spin-offs. Meanwhile Martin has made it clear that he envisions a slightly different end to his series of novels than what most of the world has seen played out on screen. He also casually reminds everyone that he is nowhere near done yet.
All eight seasons are available to watch through HBO.
