Yesterday, the excellent Terra Nova reports that a real life tragedy, the Southern California firestorms, has knocked out support services for two of the most popular MMORPGs - Star Wars Galaxies and EverQuest (Earth Fires Destabilize Virtual Governments). From Sony:
All Sony Online Entertainment customer service support is closed due to the wild fires raging throughout San Diego and the proximity of those fires to the SOE offices. Normal operations will resume once this local emergency is over.
In the words of Terra Nova's Edward Castronova:
In other words, a firestorm has knocked out the government that rules over 750,000 accounts. There will be no police officers on the streets tonight. If you're in the mood to do some random looting and griefing, now's the time. [Link added]
We tend to think of synthetic worlds as decentralized because the users are spread over the globe. They are still highly centralized on the production side, however, a state of affairs with clear implications for the relationship of synthetic worlds not only to Earth's weather, but to its politics as well. This time it was a fire; next time, it might be an injunction. [emphasis added]
Yep.