I love these kind of articles because they literally could not exist a century ago. Outrage over a patch and its effects on a virtual community is a uniquely 21st century problem. For something similar, see this post[1] on a clan war in EVE Online, which reads almost identically to a real-life war report, except that it's, well, not real life.
I think the 19th century story of The Strand Magazine almost being bankrupted by the 'death' of Sherlock Holmes and the subsequent outrage of their readers is a close approximation (http://sherlockholmes.stanford.edu/print_issue12.html). When people believe they have buy-in to an idea (even a virtual idea) they become very protective of that, which should be a good thing for a game developer but obviously it is a two edged sword.
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I love these kind of articles because they literally could not exist a century ago. Outrage over a patch and its effects on a virtual community is a uniquely 21st century problem. For something similar, see this post[1] on a clan war in EVE Online, which reads almost identically to a real-life war report, except that it's, well, not real life.
[1]: http://themittani.com/news/b-r5rb-biggest-battle-all-eve
I think the 19th century story of The Strand Magazine almost being bankrupted by the 'death' of Sherlock Holmes and the subsequent outrage of their readers is a close approximation (http://sherlockholmes.stanford.edu/print_issue12.html). When people believe they have buy-in to an idea (even a virtual idea) they become very protective of that, which should be a good thing for a game developer but obviously it is a two edged sword.