History Main / DemandOverload

* The release of episodes 109, 110, and 130 of ''Anime/DragonBallSuper'' crashed Website/{{Crunchyroll}}'s website. All three of these episodes, perhaps unsurprisingly, have Goku using Ultra Instinct and fighting Jiren.

* When the GrandFinale of ''Anime/YuriOnIce''[='=]s first season came out, the servers for anime streaming sites, Website/{{Tumblr}}, [[RuleOfThree and]] Website/{{Crunchyroll}} crashed.
* The release of the trailer for the last season of ''Manga/AttackOnTitan'' crashed Twitter for two hours. And then the actual premiere of the last season caused several sites that the show was being hosted on, including Website/{{Crunchyroll}}, to crash.

* When the trailer for ''WesternAnimation/TheSpongeBobMovieSpongeOnTheRun'' came out, Website/YouTube went down for three minutes.

** [S] Cascade, the finale of Act 5, is the definite record-holder so far, managing to bring down ''three'' websites in an extremely short period. It was hosted on ''{{Website/Newgrounds}}'' of all websites-- and the traffic crashed the site in about ''three minutes''. Someone proceeded to put the flash on Livestream so people could view it, but that site ''also'' crashed. People tried to post it on Tumblr, but that site crashed very quickly.

** There was plenty of concern among fans that [S] Collide and [S] Act 7, the series GrandFinale, would do this to an even greater extent. Hussie averted any problems by hosting the "flash animations" on Website/YouTube, which is far more capable of handling that kind of load.

* ''VideoGame/AmongUs'' had a massive surge of new players after a lot of popular Let's Players played it on Twitch and Website/YouTube, and then another on top of that after the game was referenced in the ''VideoGame/HenryStickminSeries''. These two factors (combined with the generally increased popularity of many multiplayer games due to the COVID-19 pandemic) caused the amount of players joining the servers to reach maximum capacity, preventing players from joining or creating new games. Originally the creators decided to make a sequel to overcome this, before deciding to stay with the original for better servers and new content.

* From ''Fanfic/AnEntryWithABang'': Five minutes after the pirates' departure, the video of their jump was on Website/YouTube. Less than an hour later, [=YouTube=] crashed due to the sheer number of users trying to access this one video on the website.

* If something is going to be attractive enough to the [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic Bronies]], you'd better stock up enough of it.

* Matchmaking for ''VideoGame/FallGuysUltimateKnockout'' had to be shut down for several hours so the servers could be improved after releasing on UsefulNotes/PlayStation4. The devs apparently didn't foresee how big the impact having the game be one of the free PS Plus titles would be.

* Creator/{{Nintendo}} has dealt with this more than once. They've gained a reputation as being notoriously conservative when it comes to sales estimates (especially right after they've had underperforming hardware like the UsefulNotes/NintendoGameCube or the UsefulNotes/WiiU that they ''over''produced), so they'll end up underproducing initially and then ramp up production once they know for sure that the demand is there.
** UsefulNotes/NintendoEntertainmentSystem-era cart shortages were frequent, particularly for hot new games, since a limited amount of copies could be pressed monthly, and the North American lifespan of the system had the misfortune of coinciding with a global chip shortage. There were actual news reports of parents driving out-of-state just to get copies of ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros2'' and ''VideoGame/ZeldaIITheAdventureOfLink''.
** When the UsefulNotes/SuperNintendoEntertainmentSystem launched in Japan, demand was far higher than Nintendo anticipated, resulting in them only being able to fulfil 20% of stores' preorders (1.5 million units requested, 300,000 shipped); some retailers resorted to giving out systems through lotteries. Setting a standard for Nintendo, consumers accused them of engaging in artificial scarcity, claims that Nintendo denied, stating that they'd manufacture more systems to keep up with the demand.
** The UsefulNotes/{{Wii}} was constantly sold out from its launch until late-2008, only to have yet another temporary shortage with the release of ''VideoGame/NewSuperMarioBrosWii''.

** The [[UsefulNotes/NintendoEntertainmentSystem NES Classic Edition]] was released in November 2016 and sold out worldwide in mere seconds on websites like Amazon and [=GameStop=]. The [[UsefulNotes/SuperNintendoEntertainmentSystem SNES Classic Edition]] suffered a similar fate the following year.

** The UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch was this for its first year on the market in the West and continued to remain this in Japan for even longer, with Amazon Japan tending to run out of pre-orders '''in just 15 minutes''' and physical retailers regularly cleaned out of their stock within hours at most, even with lotteries.
** The ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros''-themed UsefulNotes/NintendoGameCube controller and adapter released alongside ''[[VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosForNintendo3DSAndWiiU Super Smash Bros. for Wii U]]'' sold out almost immediately after the game's release, and weren't restocked at all until they were re-released alongside ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosUltimate'', only to sell out almost immediately again. Somewhat subverted in that there are third-party alternatives available for both (albeit without ''Smash'' branding in the case of the former), as well as original UsefulNotes/NintendoGameCube controllers being perfectly usable if you have them.

* During the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic, the video game industry in general saw both a massive spike in sales due to many turning to gaming as a source of entertainment during the outbreak, as well as slowed hardware production as a result of several Chinese consumer electronic manufacturing plants shutting down to prevent spread. As a result, getting any console -- be it the UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch around the time ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossingNewHorizons'' released early that year, the new UsefulNotes/PlayStation5 and UsefulNotes/XboxSeriesXAndS consoles that launched later that year, or even the latest generation of Nvidia and AMD [=GPUs=] at the time (those being the [=GeForce=] RTX 30 series and the Radeon RX 6000 series respectively) -- proved to be an arduous task.
** The UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch is an interesting case of this as Creator/{{Nintendo}} moved their non-Japanese production to Vietnam to bypass the then ongoing US-China trade war the previous year, while keeping Japanese production in China. When China got hit hard, Japanese stock faltered even more quickly than other regions as Vietnam managed to hold their own during the pandemic.

** [S] Cascade, the finale of Act 5, is the definite record-holder so far. It was hosted on ''{{Website/Newgrounds}}'' of all websites-- and the traffic crashed the site in about ''three minutes''. Someone proceeded to put the flash on Livestream so people could view it, but that site ''also'' crashed. People tried to post it on Tumblr, but that site crashed very quickly.

* This happened twice to Music/{{Nirvana}}. The first was when ''Music/{{Nevermind}}'' became [[SleeperHit an unexpected success]] and sold out due to Creator/GeffenRecords underestimating demand. Copies of Nirvana's albums also sold out after Music/KurtCobain died.

*** Crossing over into the "computer crash" category, the preorders for the April 2015 wave of figures brought down [=GameStop=]. Not just the website, but ''the entire system, including the physical stores' ]]]'''cash registers'''''.

* Inverted with the unsubscribe feature of the Wrestling/{{WWE}} Network, which stopped working after the 2015 Royal Rumble because too many people were trying to unsubscribe from the network due to the event naming match angering people so much.

* ''VideoGame/TouhouProject''[='=]s dedicated convention Reitaisai was started because Touhou circles were crowding out everyone else at Comiket.

* When Franchise/SpiderMan publicly revealed his secret identity, the Internet broke down because too many people were trying to do a name search on "Peter Parker" simultaneously.

** As a result of COVID-19 forcing people to stay at home in the early months of 2020, copies of ''VideoGame/RingFitAdventure'' saw a massive spike in sales, [[https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.polygon.com/platform/amp/2020/3/13/21177214/ring-fit-adventure-sold-out-stock-coronavirus-nintendo-switch up to the point where it was sold out in multiple retail establishments.]] There were even people who hiked up the price for more than double the original price.

* ''VideoGame/AmongUs'' had a massive surge of new players after a lot of popular Let's Players played it on Twitch and YouTube, and then another on top of that after the game was referenced in the ''VideoGame/HenryStickminSeries''. These two factors (combined with the generally increased popularity of many multiplayer games due to the COVID-19 pandemic) caused the amount of players joining the servers to reach maximum capacity, preventing players from joining or creating new games. Originally the creators decided to make a sequel to overcome this, before deciding to stay with the original for better servers and new content.

* ''VideoGame/AmongUs'' had a massive surge of new players after being referenced in the ''VideoGame/HenryStickminSeries'', the amount of players joining caused the servers to reach its capacity, preventing players from joining or creating new games. Originally the creators decided to make a sequel to overcome this before deciding to stay with the original for better servers and new content.

* When UsefulNotes/McDonalds had a one-day event in October 2017 where they gave away Szechuan Sauce at select locations to ride on ''WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty'' making it TheRedStapler, fans of the show visited participating locations, with many leaving empty-handed as [=McDonald=]'s did not have enough sauce for the amount of people who turned up. This lead to fans protesting and, in a few cases, the police being called.

*** Crossing over into the "computer crash" category, the preorders for the April 2015 wave of figures brought down [=GameStop=]. Not just the website, but ''the entire system, including the '''cash registers'''''.

** The original ''VideoGame/Splatoon1'' proved so popular in Japan that physical copies completely sold out within the first two days of the game's release, prompting Nintendo to [[https://twitter.com/Nintendo/status/604233317760684032 issue an apology about the situation]], while reminding fans that they can also just [[MundaneSolution buy it on the eShop]].

** And even that wasn't the end of it, as the fandom managed to crash Google Drive streaming on the day of the Epilogues release in 2019.

* On June 28th, 2023, ''VideoGame/DragonBallLegends'' released the highly anticipated Super Saiyan Blue form for its protagonist [[OriginalGeneration Shallot]]. That same day, many fans discovered that it was entirely possible for the game's servers to to experience a heavy server load.

* This has happened to ''VideoGame/FateGrandOrder'' a few times due to the timed nature of events and rerollers and account sellers trying to get the new Servants as quickly as possible, with the most infamous occurrence being the Halloween 2015 event as the timed battles for event currency, everyone trying to log on to play the event as fast as possible combined with the heavily hyped Tamamo gacha crashed the game within an hour. To prevent this, [=DelightWorks=] has been cracking down on rerollers and account sellers and post-the ''LightNovel/FateZero'' crossover, the game's managed to avoid these problems, though during particularly popular or intense events the game can sometimes have intermittent connection issues as the now-gargantuan userbase [=DDoSes=] the servers and their ISP by fiat; Summer 2017 was a good example of this. This currently only applies to the Japanese version as the Chinese, Taiwanese, and American versions have all displayed a lot more stability, if only because they have fewer players on their servers and the Japanese version tends to be used as the "measuring-stick" for what precautions should be taken with the other ones.

* [[http://kotaku.com/sources-the-ambitious-now-cancelled-plans-for-disney-1776370484 This article]] notes that ''VideoGame/DisneyInfinity'' had this problem with its first installment, as numerous figures were extremely difficult to find in stores (Such as strong and/or popular characters like [[WesternAnimation/TheIncredibles Violet Parr]], [[WesternAnimation/TheNightmareBeforeChristmas Jack Skellington]], and [[WesternAnimation/{{Fantasia}} Apprentice Mickey]]). This lead to the company releasing a much higher number of figures for the second installment. Unfortunately, [[GoneHorriblyRight this backfired]] as they wound up [[InvertedTrope making too many for people to buy]], leading to a massive inventory write-up that ultimately played a factor into [[FranchiseKiller the series's cancellation]].