On the game in Gibraltar

This is a plea from Ongame skins to their players about this weeks chaotic incidents, to explain that it is not their fault but, depending on how you look at it, the fault of the Ongame network. Please do not blame the skins but blame Ongame, or their choice of 3rd parties, who will show their guilt by offering players goodwill and/or apology promotions.

This weeks chaos has occurred due to Ongame moving their gaming servers and data center from Costa Rica to Gibraltar, in what they promised their skins would be a smooth migration. Ongame proved they were not on top of their game but were on the game. No shock to anyone involved with them in recent years.

Ongame down time and chaos

Any migration is fraught with risk and you can do all planning you want but you can not guarantee it will go 100% smoothly, which you have to remember when blaming Ongame. They will blame 3rd parties but they chose them and at the end of the day the buck or the Wildebeest has to stop with them.

Ongames Bewilderedbeests skins

A surprising number of Ongame skins have contacted pokerQ4 because they know we will tell the truth and are not bothered about upsetting a poker network if the truth needs to be told. Unlike other poker news sites who do anything they can to not publish bad news about sites or networks they are affiliated to.

This has been compounded by the fact the skins do not have the 2+2 forum to tell their players what is happening and they can not send out an email to player explaining the issues.

 
We also spoke to a couple of Ongame employees in Casemates drowning their sorrows, and by the state of them, everyones sorrows connected with the Ongame network. They confirmed that the backup plans had failed, which really really annoyed them. One of their trays of vodka redbulls seems to be because sites were invited to set up migration tournament schedules or get Ongame to do them. These failed spectacularly with tournaments appearing to randomly change at will.

Another tray was paid for by an employee of the 3rd party company who seemed to be blamed and admitting fault for the fiasco. We have to personally thank Ongame for the troubles they caused as we had a great night but also have to blame them for not feeling so good the next day.

Ongame Downtown or downtime?

This week worryingly seems to be just below standard for Ongames network performance. For all poker networks their uptime stats should be 99.9% or higher. This is 2012 after all. Ongame stats show their uptime is usually between 85%-95%. Think how much money they must be paying out in compensation over a year?

 
So this weekend spare a thought for all those innocent employees of Ongame skins who were and are getting it in the neck big time from rightly frustrated and angry players.

We in the industry also do feel sorry for Ongame players for everything you have gone through this week but then again, you have chosen to be on the game. But with the ease that you can get illegal rakeback deals of 50%-60% and decent player liquidity it is hard not to play there. As long as you avoid the bots, auto scripting cheats etc

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