Broadband provider notes GTA IV boost

By Robert Purchese Published 13 May, 2008

"Two busiest ever hours for [UK] gaming."

Broadband company PlusNet has said the day after Grand Theft Auto IV launched it saw its "two busiest ever hours for gaming in the UK".

The ISP watched 90,000 of you playing it online at one point, which is more than a third of its total subscriber base.

"The demand to play Grand Theft Auto IV online has been absolutely phenomenal. Our broadband usage figures have gone through the roof as customers battle it out on the streets of Liberty City," said Neil Armstrong, product director at PlusNet - over the moon and perhaps not for the first time.

"Our usage data shows that the day after release we had the two busiest ever hours for gaming in the UK.

"Gaming accounted for approximately 7.6 per cent of all downloads in that hour - we'd normally expect to see between 3.5 per cent and 5 per cent by gaming around that time of day," he added.

Between 8pm and 9pm on 30th April - the day after release - usage shot up by 30 percent on the previous day. The "unprecedented demand" continued early into the morning, with 4am to 7am traffic up by 35 percent.

The previous highest hour for online gaming witnessed by PlusNet was between 9pm and 10pm on 4th November, 2007. We're not sure what was special about this date; it was a few days before Call of Duty 4 came out, and the Sunday after Tabula Rasa and Hellgate came out.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (21) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • quantumsheep #1 4 years ago

    Crikey!

    Haven't even *tried* online yet. Must be good!

  • kungphu #2 4 years ago

    your not the only one

  • syphaa #3 4 years ago

    GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA GTA Repeat until mind becomes numb to all news GTA related!

    Love the game though. Amazing achievement. But every article has a reference somewhere at the moment...

  • M83J01P97 #4 4 years ago

    I'm sorry... but isn't this just one big ISP Advert wrapped up in a 'news' story?

  • johnnybrn #5 4 years ago

    Ah, yes but what the readers really want to know is how much of that was due to 360 and PS3, with percentages please

  • sickpuppysoftware #6 4 years ago

    Why would he be over the moon? ISPs make their money by people not using their bandwidth.

  • Negotiator #7 4 years ago

    EG the home of GTA 4 news updates, newsflash GTA 4 just sold another copy.

  • Bangaioh #8 4 years ago

    "Ah, yes but what the readers really want to know is how much of that was due to 360 and PS3, with percentages please"

    HAHA, I was thinking the same thing as soon as I read the title :D

  • Beano #9 4 years ago

    "The ISP watched 90,000 of you playing it online at one point, which is more than a third of its total subscriber base."

    Ok, so the ISP analyze user traffic?

    Busted...

  • bioreit #10 4 years ago

    @ johnnybrn

    Without comparable latency and throughput rates (max. min. and average, of course), as well as bandwidth efficiency and lost packet data, such a comparison as you are suggesting would be meaningless. After all, without knowing those quantifiable facts, how on earth would we be able to prove/disprove which format offered the all-round best online performance - and was therefore more worthy of purchase?

    Honestly, EG, your skills are slipping ;-)

  • gingerlink #11 4 years ago

    are we going to have ISPs wanting to charge gaming companies for using up their bandwidth now then?

  • strange_powers #12 4 years ago

    Neil Armstrong lulz

  • KayJay #13 4 years ago

    I honestly found myself scanning that page for the words 360 & or PS3...

    I almost did a Control +f (find 360) to see if EG had done another comparison or something else to bait the boys... :-)

  • paulf #14 4 years ago

    well its gonna be majority xbox traffic seems the ps3 online was borked on launch day (and is still not great to get into)

  • Carlo #15 4 years ago

    ISP in attention-whoring shocker.

  • kangarootoo #16 4 years ago

    "Ah, yes but what the readers really want to know is how much of that was due to 360 and PS3, with percentages please"

    No they don't.

  • tobsen #17 4 years ago

    We get your point, EG. But you can really start to tone it down a bit because by now we have all bought GTA IV already .

  • sickpuppysoftware #18 4 years ago

    @paulf
    You've never actually tried to play it online on the ps3 have you?
    You don't actually own a ps3 do you?

    The only issues online I've had were the odd freeze (3 times in total) and the rest were issues seemingly programmed in by rockstar (stupid mobile phone system) or human nature (twatty hosts never clicking ready)

  • paulf #19 4 years ago

    @ sickpuppysoftware in answer to your questions, i have a ps3 and I have gta4 for it too (sorry it wasn't a fanboy post ;) )

    - I've managed to get online with gta4 once out of about 10 attempts on ps3 - all the other occasions Ive got the error message, network not available - it's fine on other ps3 games just gta4 that doesnt work, a friend of mine has the same problems as well

  • Miths #20 4 years ago

    @Beano
    "Ok, so the ISP analyze user traffic?

    Busted..."

    Of course they analyze user traffic. I rather doubt there are many companies that don't keep track of the products or services they are selling.

  • The-Bodybuilder #21 4 years ago

    I love GTAgamer.