They have a month off. Who in the real world has a month off unless they use a full year's holiday entitlement or they have no job? Who else in this world shuts the office for an entire month? Even the most laid back companies I've ever worked for don't afford the entire staff a full month. Most companies who provide a service, an online only multiplayer game in this instance, which relies upon technology that requires regular monitoring, have a staff rotation to cover any holiday period. Yet with most companies, their holiday periods for Xmas are a few days if staff are lucky. I ain't buying your Hallmark sympathy card. A freakin' month off is a joke. A week is a privilege. A month is taking liberties. "But it's Xmas and people need time with their families, blah blah" Stop. No. If paid/paying customers are using your service, you don't pack the office away for a month at any time of the damn year unless they're all dead. You provide a competent staff to be flexible and cover the bulk of the workload, not let it all pile up like a festering backlog at a sewage treatment facility.