I don't suppose we have someone on the boards who works in the online gaming industry? Specifically the MMORPG or the like? My information is pretty old and limited but from what I've read they basically trade space for speed. By that I mean they basically cache their user data in different data centers on different continents/regions and route the queries through a custom built distributor (or similar component) to get it the user as quickly as possible. I'm really curious how that influences their schema design (if at all). I would think that they would be faced with similar distributed application/data challenges that most of us have in the traditional business sector.