As an online gamer you would always hope that until the game service is shut down (and you are given ample notice) that you will not have any major delays to accessing your character and to switch things around, as an online game publisher, you should always hope that your backup systems are solid and that your game should never have problems that would cause the game to shut down permanently. The worse case scenario happened to Japanese game developer Sankando and game operator Hangame with their MMORPG ‘M2′. Making what could only be the “Truth Bad End” announcement, they posted this recently to their website:
There is something we must inform our valued customers of.
On the 21st of October, 2011, at 20:00, we undertook emergency maintenance on the server due to a critical issue. Service was to resume promptly, but work performed by Sankando could not restore the game’s data. It is tremendously regrettable, but unfortunately we have no choice but to end service. Thank you all for enjoying M2 for so long! Our heartfelt apologies for it having turned out like this.
This is rather saddening for many reasons. First of all, why did this happen? Sure it is possible for emergency maintenance to go wrong, but you would always expect there to be backups of not only pre-maintenance data, but I am sure frequently periodical backups that will allow the company to roll-back in the worst case scenario. However, in this case game data was not restorable at all leading to the shut down. Secondly, this was a F2P game with an item shop and from what I can tell, a rather hefty community – leaving people without their purchased virtual property and lastly…. it sucks when you are given a 90 or so day warning that your favourite online game is shutting down – but suddenly an extensive community is left without their game with no warning.
[Source #1: Sankaku Complex]
[Source #2: Announcement]
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