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May 9, 2001
Lum the Mad Investigates Cancellation of Volunteer Programs
Lum the Mad is also reporting about the cancellation of the UO Volunteer Programs on his site of the same name, as follows:We asked Susan "Leilo" Kath some followup questions about this decision. Her responses:
Your notice mentioned that the volunteer programs had been "reassesed". What factors specifically drove this decision? In particular, was the ongoing ex-volunteer lawsuit pending against EA a factor in this decision?
As the lawsuit is still in the early phases, and there won't be a decision on it for a long time, the decision was an independent one made by EA to change the business structure.
So this decision was taken by EA as opposed to Origin Systems?
Yes, the decision is company-wide.
We also asked "Terendil", the ex-volunteer who is the main litigant in the lawsuit against EA that still is in progress, for her reaction to this news.
I'm not surprised, given the issues that existed in that program. I'm also not surprised, given the current state of AOL's lawsuit and our own. Also, the fact that EA has been making some extremely poor business decisions such as cancelling UO2, may mean that they may simply no longer have the customer base to maintain a volunteer program. I'm terribly sorry that this affects the wonderfully dedicated volunteers that will no longer be active in the game community.
This does not affect our current lawsuit.
Posted by Keith at May 9, 2001 4:09 PM