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Earth Fires Destabilize Virtual Governments

Posted by simoniker on from the looting-on-the-virtual-streets dept.

Thanks to Terra Nova for their article pointing out that Sony Online's virtual worlds are missing their customer service, "...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." Edward Castronova comments: "In other words, a firestorm has knocked out the government that rules over 750,000 accounts", and suggests: "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."

6 of 29 comments (clear)

  1. forethought by alexjohns · · Score: 3, Insightful
    They are still highly centralized on the production side

    Because the people running the game couldn't be bothered to distribute the load. Could have been done. Don't blame nature. Blame human lack of forethought.

  2. Lame slashbot response by Mike+Hawk · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They should distribute the load of the physical office space? Hmmm, there is plenty of good reason to have one central customer support office. This isn't servers, these are people. The fire is threatening the physical building where people sit and work.

    I suppose I should have thought ahead and distributed my house and family too. Nevermind that its prohibitively expensive to apply redundency to large physical objects and impossible with current scientific methods to duplicate people. But hey, a bitter slashdotter can't be wrong, right?

  3. Maybe its a sign that EQ needs a firefighter class by UltimaL337Star · · Score: 3, Funny

    I can single handedly mutilate a level 92 dragon, and SOW across the world in 3 seconds but my account had no chance against that wild fire.

  4. Hmmm.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Well, what we have here is a country that has suddenly lost it's government and police force, but the majority of the population still exists.
    This should be interesting...

    Place your bets on the ETA for the next "EQ servers hacked!" slashdot headline!

  5. Yes, it's a legitimate story... BUT... by reiggin · · Score: 3, Insightful

    aren't there bigger issues concerning this terrible disaster? People are dying and nearly 1000 homes are burning. I realize that this is an article making a point but let's not lose focus on what's really important about this fire.

  6. Bad management. by illumen · · Score: 2, Insightful

    They obviously should have had plans for this.

    Not neccessarily a bush fire, but incase this one office goes down.

    How can a company this large not have redundancy for something making so much money?

    Management should be fired. Or chucked in the fire ;)


    Have fun!
    holepit