HBO Max crashed for thousands of viewers just minutes into the premiere of House of the Dragon, a long-awaited Game of Thrones prequel series.
Millions tuned into the House of the Dragon premiere on Sunday night but the streaming service crashed for thousands of viewers, according to the website outage tracker Downdetector, which shows more than 3,700 reports of HBO Max being down just minutes after the series became available.
A slew of HBO Max subscribers took to social media to vent about the outage, with one even claiming their father was on the verge of a mental breakdown.
“imagine literally paying for hbo max just for it to crash as soon has [House of the Dragon] comes out my dad is on the verge of a breakdown,” one Twitter user proclaimed.
“HBO letting me down once again,” another lamented. “How can you not prepare your servers for the biggest premiere in the last 3 years. GIVE ME HOUSE OF THE DRAGON.”
“HBO max keeps shutting down after i try to press play on house of the dragon…” another disclosed.
“No other show has ever had this much influence and pull,” another tweeted. “The damn hbo max app keeps crashing cuz everyone tryna watch House of the Dragon at the same time lmaoooo.”
HBO Max tryna stop the app from crashing during House of the Dragon pic.twitter.com/xfyVlVVFKy
— Josiah Johnson (@KingJosiah54) August 22, 2022
Game of Thrones fans have been eagerly awaiting the House of the Dragon ever since the original series concluded in 2019, after eight seasons.
The original series proved to be a cultural phenomenon, captivating viewers by bringing to life the characters and plotlines from author George R.R. Martin’s popular fantasy novel series, A Song of Ice and Fire.
As for House of the Dragon, the storyline is set nearly 200 years before the events depicted in Game of Thrones, and focuses on the House Targaryen dynasty.
While the Game of Thrones season finale broke an HBO record by drawing 19.3 million viewers, not all fans were pleased with how writers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss ended the show, and even circulated a petition — garnering nearly 2 million signatures — calling for a remake of Season 8 “with competent writers.”
Therefore, HBO Max appears to be gambling big time on the success of the Game of Thrones prequel, especially given that its owner, Warner Bros. Discovery, has made some recent cost-cutting decisions, and laid off dozens of HBO Max employees. Meanwhile, Martin reportedly signed a five-year, eight-figure deal with HBO last year.
But luckily for HBO, fans are clearly more than willing to give the Game of Thrones universe another chance, hence the platform crashing for thousands of viewers on Sunday night. Noteworthy, House of the Dragon has different showrunners (Ryan Condal and Miguel Sapochnik).
The show’s premiere pulled pulled in 2.6 million U.S. households, according to a report by Deadline.
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
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