Case Study: IGN achieves dramatic reductions in playback failures and buffering with MUX Data

IGN implemented a new player with help from Mux Data

IGN, a video game and entertainment media company with over 68 million monthly users, was facing user complaints about video playback performance and considered migrating to a new in-house player built on Video.js and React. To understand real user experience and measure the player transition, IGN engaged Mux Data for error reporting and performance visibility during the migration.

Mux Data was integrated into both the old and new players to benchmark playback metrics and power alerting for production issues. The data showed clear gains with the new player (V6): playback failures fell 78% (4.9% → 1.1%), exits before start dropped 49% (9.4% → 4.9%), seek latency improved 26% (0.72s → 0.52s), rebuffer frequency decreased 36% (1.1/min → 0.7/min), and rebuffer percentage fell 75% (12.4% → 3.2%). Mux Data’s alerts also helped IGN quickly surface and diagnose longstanding production problems.

IGN

Zac Shenker

Senior Video Software Engineer