Will game servers struggle with Covid 19?

robfosters · 18 Mar 2020 at 08:26

Just a thought I was having as I can imagine the demand could hit unprecedented levels over the coming weeks and months with lockdowns in France, Spain, Italy, and probable lockdowns in the UK and other countries.

I’ve seen a few struggle with regular demand at times, so am quite sceptical that they’ll cope with the probable upcoming demand.

I know it’s a minor issue in the grand scheme of things, but we’re gonna need some entertainment to keep us sane!

Semple · 18 Mar 2020 at 08:49

Can't see there being much of a problem tbh. I bet demand was far greater for some of these games on launch day.

biron_w · 18 Mar 2020 at 09:36

Game serves can't catch it as far as I'm aware

Usher · 18 Mar 2020 at 10:20

I think the internet will lag with thousands of people temporarily working from home during the day and evening

Combat Fighter · 20 Mar 2020 at 11:30

Only if their anti virus software isn’t up to date.

ic1male · 22 Mar 2020 at 14:42

Combat Fighter said:
Only if their anti virus software isn’t up to date.

Post of the month.

Supercow · 22 Mar 2020 at 23:02

Combat Fighter said:
Only if their anti virus software isn’t up to date.

Ding ding ding ding, we have a winner.

TransTechGirl · 22 Mar 2020 at 23:20

I imagine we might see some temporary outages if there are significant.anf sudden load increases. But most of these services are cloud based and can easily scale both up and out pretty easily.

The problems most people will have is congestion in their local area.

ic1male · 23 Mar 2020 at 11:03

TransTechGirl said:
The problems most people will have is congestion in their local area.

Yeah that was happening last night. Couldn't watch 4K YouTube without buffering every 30 seconds.

spook2575 · 23 Mar 2020 at 21:40

And possible congestion from home networking too. Thankfully upgraded to mesh in time for streaming devices (PC is already wired!).

andy_mk3 · 23 Mar 2020 at 21:42

spook2575 said:
And possible congestion from home networking too. Thankfully upgraded to mesh in time for streaming devices (PC is already wired!).

Literally anything that uses any kind of bandwidth is hard-wired for me.

I think game servers should be okay though.

sideways14a · 23 Mar 2020 at 21:43

I doubt the millions of people working from home will be anything more than a mere blip for the internet. There is not a lot of bandwidth being used in a typical vpn connection, heck even one with an rdc and voip link open - at least not compared to Netflix in 4k which really bumps the data up later in the evening.

BuffetSlayer · 25 Mar 2020 at 19:30

Combat Fighter said:
Only if their anti virus software isn’t up to date.

Quality post is quality