Servers for the “Pokemon Go” game crashed on Saturday, sending obsessed players across the globe into a frenzy.
The game acknowledged the situation on Twitter.
Several possible explanations surfaced following the crash.
Gizmodo reported on a possible Distributed Denial of Service attack at the hands of a hacking collective known as PoodleCorp, which they said took credit for the incident.
Another possible cause, Kotaku speculated, was a bottleneck of new players signing on from 26 additional countries. Developer Niantic announced the additions in a Facebook post made several hours before the crash.
Forbes notes that the game had some instability shortly after release but that it “has since recovered, and has seemed pretty stable throughout the past week, a few crashes and other glitches notwithstanding.”
The unofficial Pokemon Go News Twitter account reported Saturday afternoon that the game is back up and running, with slow login times for some players.
Of course, many people couldn’t handle the specter of a ruined Saturday: