Some websites are having a difficult time handling the extra load of users scrambling to find alternatives to Emuparadise.
Last month, major emulator and ROM website Emuparadise deleted their ROMS section following a legal threat from Nintendo. Many were upset at the news and sought an alternative source to experience video game history.
Of course, some observers were surprised at just how popular the site was. Almost everyone who played older games have either used the site or heard of it. With so many seeking alternatives, a very familiar pattern (at least for long time file-sharers) emerged. Like a dam holding back water bursting, the flood of users looked around and began using other sites that seem trustworthy.
Some of these sites seem to have been taken by surprise at the rush of users. Website load times began grinding to new lows. Some sites experienced brief outages. Download times suffered. Databases became overwhelmed. Some operators rushed to compensate by upgrading their servers to handle the extra load. Unfortunately, it seems that some of these measures are proving to be insufficient as the outages continue to plague some sources.
Such issues are well known ones. As some sites gain in popularity, servers can become overwhelmed and upgrades will become necessary. This can happen thanks to just normal and natural growth. Sometimes, this happens over a long period of time. In other cases, as is the case here, a major event takes place and users are forced to find an alternative to a site they use. So, this growth can happen all at once and take operators by surprise.
In any event, these are going to be issues that will get sorted out eventually. Any operator that sees so much demand for their site can very easily see opportunity in all of it. As a general rule, most will find ways of compensating for their new situation. How long this takes can depend on the site and what the operators situation is at the time this happens. So, for users, it’ll be a case of sit back and wait. The servers may be getting pounded now, but these problems will likely subside sooner or later. It’s just that we are in a transition period that is well known for being bumpy for everyone.
Drew Wilson on Twitter: @icecube85 and Google+.
