A closer look
Players in the science fiction massively multiplayer game EVE Online genuinely fought a massive virtual space war called the Bloodbath of B-R5RB that destroyed the real-world equivalent of over three hundred thousand dollars. The entire twenty-one-hour digital slaughter kicked off simply because a single player accidentally missed a routine rent payment for an in-game space station, instantly removing the shields and leaving their territory entirely vulnerable. Thousands of rival players swarmed the sector, deploying massive Titan-class ships that had taken thousands of hours to build, just to violently blow each other to absolute smithereens over a bureaucratic accounting error. It is deeply inspiring to know that even in the vast, limitless frontiers of simulated deep space, humanity will still go to absolute thermonuclear war over a missed property tax bill
