HBO Go crashed Sunday night, as Game of Thrones fans snuggled around their mobile devices and laptops waiting for the premiere of the highly anticipated fourth season. HBO quickly acknowledged the problem and told users to "send a raven" if they were experiencing an outage, which merely proves that George R.R. Martin was right: "Dark wings, dark words."
This isn't the first time HBO Go has crashed in recent months, either. Just last month the video-streaming app quit during the "True Detective" finale. Nonetheless, most GoT fans expected HBO Go to be fully functional for their long-awaited return to Westeros. Needless to say, they weren't very happy about the outage.
HBO quickly admitted that its on-demand video service was struggling to keep up and apologized on Twitter for the outage.
Looks like there's trouble in the realm. Apologies for the inconvenience. We'll be providing updates, so please stay tuned. #GameofThrones
— HBO GO (@HBOGO) April 7, 2014
HBO also encouraged users to report the problem to their cable providers. The company even used GOT lingo to get their message out there, referring to the ominous Westeros proverb: "Dark wings, dark words." A HBO Go outage on premiere night? It doesn't get more dark than that.
Having trouble accessing @HBO GO? Send a raven. @GameOfThrones will be available soon on HBO On Demand with some cable providers. — HBO GO (@HBOGO) April 7, 2014
Many users had even anticipated problems with HBO Go, given the service's spotty record on premiere and finale nights for big shows. One tech writer from the Verge, Casey Newton, tweeted a worried message the day before the premier.
I asked HBO this week whether HBO Go was prepared for Game of Thrones streaming onslaught tonight. Heard nothing back. Am scared #pray4HBOGo
— Casey Newton (@CaseyNewton) April 6, 2014
When the outage inevitably occurred on Sunday night, users' responses ranged from very upset to completely tounge-in-cheek.
HBO Go, you run your service like Joffrey Baratheon runs his kingdom: overpromising and underdelivering. #GoTproblems #HBOGO @HBOGO — Nicole Kyle (@nicolekyle) April 7, 2014
In addition to the inevitable GoT jokes, fans openly mocked HBO Go. Some even went so far as to say that they should have written a joke about the crash before the crash even happened. Others kept it more short and sweet.
You had one job, HBO Go...
— MG Siegler (@parislemon) April 7, 2014
To its credit, HBO did restore service rather quickly all things considered. By the time the west coast saw the premiere, there were no more problems. Now all HBO has to do is keep Go running for the next nine episodes of "Game of Thrones." Otherwise, HBO Go could face even more wrath.
