the corner office

I don't play Eve Online anymore but I chuckled when a work colleague (and then Ronwen) told me about the Band of Brothers industrial espionage that ended up with one of Eve's largest virtual corporations being completely decimated. Quite something for an online gaming event to prompt a BBC article.

But I wonder how far the real-life parallels go. For people who've devoted years to building up some of these corps, the loss must be very, very real, as is the shame and loss of face amongst peers. Is it not just a matter of time before a player does in fact react much the same as a real-life CEO would, and jump out a window? I'm sure it's happened before with unstable gamers, but if a really high-profile event, like the BoB affair, had a tragic ending, what would the BBC be saying then, and how long before real world regulators start turning their attention to these (refreshingly) free and chaotic online worlds?