Hitting news in the world of MMORPGs lately is the story of eve online turning into vancouver. Its... well... interesting. To sum it up, it shows how damaging information is to a company, and how not to talk to your players if you are that company. I'm not posting this really for any reason other than the fact its news.
I believe its on major sites like massively, which I will not link to as I believe it may not be allowed to link to a news site... (correct if I am wrong..?)
Cliff notes edition:
1. New expansion comes out. Players voice concerns over a cash shop, how some people cannot run the new content at all, and worse yet: it has burned out graphics cards by making them run too hot.
2. Internal document is leaked. It is a newsletter titled 'Greed is Good?' and details the possibility of introducing non vanity items to the cash shop.
3. Players who read this become angry. A thread pops up from the devs asking for the players to calm down.
4. That thread becomes an angry frothing at the mouth threadnaught. As the north american players go to bed, more than 60 angry pages are added by europeans.
5. Dev writes a blog to the players, the tone is essentially 'screw off' and details how if you buy $1000 jeans you are admired by everyone around you. Attempt to fan the flames backfires. Brutally.
6. An internal email leaks. Further enrages players in flipping the bird to them.
6. Players at this point are unsubscribing en masse. A loss of nearly $500,000 USD yearly in subscriptions at current for just the noisy unsubbers. There is bound to be two times more people who have also stopped paying but said nothing. This adds up to an estimated loss of $1,500,000 USD in subscriptions a year.
7. Players riot. Trade hubs are still clogged in protest and they've crashed it a few times through firing at monuments. Devs still have nothing to say.