Pokémon Go launched in 26 countries, and then its servers crashed

Good news! You’ve created a crazily viral megahit mobile app!

Bad news! You need to support a crazily viral megahit mobile app.

That’s the story of Niantic, the company behind Pokémon Go. The game has been an instant hit, which means that from the start, the company has struggled to keep up the demands of its user base, which keeps multiplying.

Niantic has tried to give itself breathing room by doing a phased rollout across the globe, so it can build up an infrastructure. On the other hand, if you have a crazily viral megahit mobile app, you want to get it to people as fast as you can.

So this morning, Niantic opened up the game in 26 countries throughout Europe. Cue immediate reports of outages and server problems, confirmed by the company itself.

That was 11 hours ago. Perhaps there hasn’t been an update because Niantic has been busy trying to fix Pokémon Go server issues.

Out here on the Atlantic Seaboard, I can report that the game, which was totally unusable this morning, now seems to work, though it still requires the occasional reboot. Then again, that’s always been the case.

Again, this is a high-quality problem for Niantic to have. It’s the kind of problem you have when your game is so popular it lures mobs of people to Central Park at night.

The flip side is that a craze like this is a craze, which means that by definition, it won’t last.

So best to make sure that you can serve as many people as possible while the craze is still crazy — because you hope to retain a sliver of them as long-term, lucrative customers.

Bear in mind that Pokémon Go has yet to launch in Japan and the rest of Asia, where you would expect it to be even more popular.

Also bear in mind that Niantic was originally part of Google, which knows a thing or two about supporting globally popular services. Perhaps they can offer some advice.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

We're here to shed some clarity

One of our core beliefs here at Vox is that everyone needs and deserves access to the information that helps them understand the world, regardless of whether they can pay for a subscription. With the 2024 election on the horizon, more people are turning to us for clear and balanced explanations of the issues and policies at stake. We’re so grateful that we’re on track to hit 85,000 contributions to the Vox Contributions program before the end of the year, which in turn helps us keep this work free. We need to add 2,500 contributions this month to hit that goal. Will you make a contribution today to help us hit this goal and support our policy coverage? Any amount helps.

One-Time Monthly Annual

$5/month

$10/month

$25/month

$50/month

Other

$

Yes, I'll give $5/month

Yes, I'll give $5/month

We accept credit card, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. You can also contribute via