Monopoly City Streets launched yesterday, Wednesday September 9, but before the online game had barely begun overloaded servers brought the play to a virtual standstill.
The much hyped venture, a collaboration between Hasbro and Google, drew more than 1.7 million people to the site, far more than the servers could cope with. Potential players were greeted with server errors and blank screens, and even those who did manage to log on found their movements somewhat sluggish.
"We anticipated an opening rush when we launched the Monopoly City Streets online game, but the first few hours have surpassed even our greatest expectations," a post on the official blog said. "We are in the process of increasing our firepower and expect to be running more smoothly within the next several hours." The situation left many game players extremely unhappy as the lucky few who were able to log onto the site quickly snapped up key locations around the globe.
Within 12 hours most of central Beijing had been bought up and there was little to be purchased in New York or Washington. In London a stadium had already been erected in the Aldwych along with a sewage plant, one of several hazards intended to scupper another player's chances. House construction was also well underway on Westminster bridge adjacent to the British parliament along with a prison.
The unfair advantage given to some players, not least because of time differences, Beijing was striking the midnight hour as the game began, has led some to call for a restart of the game. Hundreds of comments have been left on the official bulletin board from irate players registering their complaints that all the decent real estate had been snatched up.
A poll has also been added to the blog asking whether the game should be reset once new hardware is in place, although a Hasbro spokeswoman has said they are currently not planning to reset the game. However the poll has already reached a two thirds majority in favor of a restart.
It may take some time to resolve the issues. On Thursday the site appeared very slow with users being greeted with messages such as, "Oops, sorry some weird error occurred, please try again" and "MMm our servers are down..."
Source:Xinhua/Agencies
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