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Gaming publisher Gigex turns to real-time broadband to manage fees for unpredicted traffic spikes
Dateline: July 4 - World Wide Web
THE U.S. ARMY launches a special "Recon" version ofAmerica's Army, a 10-level, realistic, military role-playing and simulation game being used as a "wired" recruitment tool, after a barrage of publicity. On July 4 gainers and the curious hit sites such as GoArmy.com, Yahoo Game, PCGamer.com, and ugo.com to download the 250Mb action adventure.
Just a few hours later, Christian Stumm's cell phone rang. Stumm, CTO of San Francisco-based video promoter and game publisher Gigex, was now officially on alert - broadband alert. Gigex server traffic was reaching record levels.
What triggered the call to Stumm's cell was an off-the-- charts demand for America's Army downloads. Gigex was handling the "Recon" launch through its servers and had the game available on sites of more than 50 affiliates. "We have had over 800,000 units downloaded [by September]," Stumm says. "We knew it would be a...