HBO GO crashes because of Game of Thrones premier

It’s happening again. After viewer demand for the “True Detective” finale overwhelmed HBO’s streaming service last month, HBO Go customers took to the Web again Sunday night to complain that they couldn’t access the fourth season premiere of “Game of Thrones.” Like it did with the “True Detective” finale, HBO Go’s Twitter account acknowledged the technical problems. “Looks like there’s trouble in the realm. Apologies for the inconvenience. We’ll be providing updates, so please stay tuned. #GameofThrones,” it tweeted. 

HBO might want to call up Netflix to get some tips for how to deal with heavy streaming demand for incredibly popular television series. It seems that HBO Go, the video streaming service available to HBO subscribers, crashed on Sunday night amid huge demand for the premiere of the fourth season of Game of Thrones. HBO acknowledged the problem shortly after 9 p.m. on Sunday and said that HBO subscribers should check to see whether the show would be available through HBO On Demand on their cable service. HBO also reminded frustrated viewers that they could catch a repeat of the episode at 11:00 p.m. on HBO proper. It’s somewhat surprising that HBO has seemingly underestimated demand for the Game of Thrones premiere, especially since the show is the single most-pirated television show in the world and since HBO itself has encouraged HBO subscribers to share their HBO Go account log-ins with their cord-cutting friends who don’t subscribe to the channel.