Although the lawsuit brought by Ken Hinther and others against Electronic Arts and Origin Systems is history - the two sides settled their differences this week by agreeing to, in effect, call the whole thing off - opinions on the subject are hardly cooling.

　　In the eyes of the law, neither of the parties was declared a winner. The lawsuit was dropped by the litigating gamers after they found out they would'nt be granted certification to continue as a class recognized by the court. Bottom line: Even if the court determined gamers had been wronged in precisely the way they said, damages would be slight.

　　In the settlement, EA said it would contribute US$15,000 to the Museum of Technology in San Jose.

　　What follows is a selection of opinions readers sent to GameSpot News after we asked you to tell us - in your own judicial opinion - who, in light of the settlement, could be considered a "winner." Now on to a few of the e-mails.

　　I wish this case had run its full course, but ultimately - what was the goal? A landslide of cash? Perhaps. But I think in some respect, the purpose of this lawsuit was to slap a few faces and issue an All Points Bulletin to all the software vendors today who knowingly and willingly unleash "candidate" products onto the public that do not deliver as advertised. It's part of the industry, people say. It's simply the way the beast has evolved; everybody uses initial retail revenue to complete the development process.

　　Well, there was a time in this country when everyone used child labor in order to get a production run out of the textile mill. There was a time in this country when mankind enslaved his fellow man to get another shipment of raw materials on the docks. But someone stood up and said, "This is wrong." I applaud the efforts of both sides in this case.

　　But I am sorely disappointed in the press release from Origin Systems. It only served to prove the case against it. That OSI largely had no true conscience, and is more concerned about bottom line than customer satisfaction. Even sadder, OSI seems to care little about its public image and its reputation. I remained indifferent during this entire case - but having read the arrogant statement by OSI released after the case was dismissed, I can't help but look at OSI and say, "My what big eyes you have, Grandma. What big teeth you have!"

　　All the better to devour our wallets with.-Robert L.

　　Arg, they're all crazy. IMHO they should have spent the $15,000 on more servers (backup servers, servers to take the load off the existing servers, whatever), and/or spent more time on making the communications between the client software and the server more efficient, if lag is a problem. Finally, they ought to rebalance the game somewhat so that player killing isn't quite so easy and/or players don't have to waste so much time building their characters up - when players start creating macros to tell their players to whack the training dummy repeatedly and then leave their computers running in UO for hours, you know there's something wrong with the game. Perhaps the game even needs a complete redesign - they're wasting all that computer equipment and people's time (both the players and the techs that support it) with a game that has some very large flaws. Fix the flaws, I say, and spend people's time on something worthwhile! (get more customers too)

　　Just my thoughts on the matter. -Wireball

　　G'day. In the end I feel that the only clear losers are the poor saps who decided to continue with the lawsuit and are now stuck for legal fees.

　　It won't hurt a company like EA, but those legal fees must sting the complainants. My two bobs worth.-Darrin C.I believe EA clearly got what they wanted in the outcome of this lawsuit - the dismissal of the case with no payment whatsoever to the plaintiffs, no restitution to players (current players or those who have quit because of the instability of the game), and a completely insignificant payoff to an institution that very few gamers have ever even heard of. This lawsuit has definitely not put the gaming public in a better position - in fact, judging from EA's comments posted to your site today, it has put us in a worse position. EA's contempt at the gaming public is obvious in their post-settlement statement, and they have obviously not learned a damn thing except that they now know that lying, cheating, false advertising, and producing the most bug-ridden game imaginable will go completely unpunished. This is not a good precedent to set. $15,000 is pocket lint to EA.

　　I take issue with nearly everything EA says in its post-settlement statement. As a former UO player with many friends who still play, I can tell you that 100% of the people I know that have ever been affiliated with this game were rooting for this lawsuit to succeed. UO is a nice concept and is occasionally fun to play when it works, but that does not excuse the lies perpetrated by EA, or the release of an obviously "defective" product. To say that the fact that people play a game proves that there is nothing wrong with it is utterly ridiculous. I wonder if the people who run EA have ever played a video or computer game in their entire lives. I can tell you for damn sure that their lawyers and publicists sure haven't.

　　The big mistake in this lawsuit was not that it was filed in the first place, as EA likes to tell it, but a) that it was not filed as a class action suit, and b) that it was dropped. Even if the suit was lost in court, the motions and cost of going through the entire process of a class action lawsuit may have been enough to convince at least some people at EA to think twice before releasing a game that plain and simply does not work as advertised out of the box. As the settlement stands, I don't think EA or any other company in the industry will learn anything from this except that gamers are a bunch of patsies unwilling to stand up for themselves, ready to buy anything that appears on the shelf of their local CompUSA no matter what stage of Alpha-testing the game should be in.

　　Well, I'll tell you this: EA lost me as a UO customer because I just could not play the game and enjoy it due to the bugs. Based on their post-settlement statements, they have now lost me as a customer for all of their games. I don't need to be buying games from a company with that attitude, with no guarantee that what I think I'm buying is what will actually end up on my hard drive. Until EA learns that it must accurately describe what is "in the game" and release finished products (not to mention treating their paying customers with the respect they deserve), they will not be seeing any of my money. I would encourage others to follow this same policy.-Jeff W.UO's claim that lawsuits of this type stifle innovation is ridiculous and seems only to be an almost political spin to avoid the real issue. Their game was never innovative, many similar games came far before it, Kingdom of Drakkar comes to mind as an example. KoD simply did not have the marketing and funding that UO has had. Never the less innovation goes on. Certainly some innovators will trip and fall, but they must be wary now not to try and sell their blunders. -Al D.

　　I agree with Origin on the lawsuit issues. If somebody has a problem or is unhappy with the game, they have a refund policy to address these issues. These "victims" could have easily returned the product for a refund, but, instead, apparently continued to play UO, complain, and push for legal compensation for their dissatisfaction in the game. Doesn't make sense to me... unless of course you are of the mindset that suing somebody is the solution to every little problem and a ticket for "free stuff." -Warren H.

　　What has the lawsuit done? Nothing in my opinion... other than generate noise. Ever since I ripped open the UPS package with my beta cd in it and started playing, UO has been in a constant state of change and updates. With a game of this magnitude, it isn't going to be anywhere close to perfect when it ships, and having 5000 people test it on one server is a lot different that hundreds of thousands of people playing on multiple servers. The updates to the game, rule changes, and servers in Europe and Japan is just the natural progression of the game. Those lamers that filed the suit to begin with have no idea how a game is made or what software production is all about... Maybe the suit would have had substance if we lived in a perfect world.-Lewis C.Although I would have liked to have seen the gamers triumph over the pompous powers at Origin, in the end, it matters not. A quick look around will show you that UO simply cannot survive for long. Baldur's Gate has already stolen a large chunk of those who had grown weary of patch after patch in the land of Britannia. Everquest will steal even more... and by the time Diablo 2 is on the shelves, UO will be a memory. Despite claims by OSI that they have over 100,000 active gamers, I know from first hand experience that many are only active for about 2 minutes each day to refresh their houses. I was sorely disappointed in the T2A expansion and finally said goodbye to UO yesterday. It would be a rude awakening for OSI if all those lingering gamers did the same.-Michael S.

　　Even though the lawsuit would never stand a chance in a true court of law (name one service that works 24-hours a day, 365 days a year nonstop completely flawless), I still believe the true winners are all of us gamers. 15 grand might be a low amount of money for EA/Origin, but the lawsuit is an alert to all game developers: stop rushing products out of the window that have been hyped as the next big thing after the wheel, hoping to just patch it later. It may have a much stronger impact next time. -Marcel L.

　　I am glad that they filed the lawsuit. In any other industry the companies would be held liable for shoddy products that didn't work right. EA definitely lost, for besides being $15,000 poorer, who knows how many people like me decided not to get Ultima Online because of the lawsuit and bad press they were receiving from it. No one will ever know what that number will be. It seemed obvious that they did make changes directly as a result of the lawsuit, and I feel other companies did take notice. I believe it helped the industry, even as EA thoughtlessly denies it.-Fred S.I am an avid gamer and in my ten years of gaming I have never seen such greediness. The lawsuits were ridiculous. Games are always going to have lag, it's a part of life. Gamers have no right to sue a company because the product is not up to par. Why do you think most games get bad reviews? We're not going to sue companies for overhyping their products. Why should we be able to sue them for not making a perfect game? I believe this is just a simple case of deep pockets. -Charlie S.

　　I am by far and away hugely against frivolous litigation of any sort. However, as both a developer in the industry and an avid player, I think that the time for some sort of legal action against game publishers that persist in perpetuating the growing trend of "release now, patch later" was due. I can think of no other industry in which the practices that are commonly accepted as "standard procedure" in our industry would be tolerated.

　　Now, of course, because the lawsuit has been settled, and EA was able to settle without having to make any admission of wrongdoing, they issue a statement saying the lawsuit was trivial and it only had the effect of harming the industry it claimed to be helping. Well, EA may be right about not losing the lawsuit, but they're wrong about the effect it had on the industry.

　　It did have an effect -- and it was a positive one. At the very least, an institute for developing technical innovation got a $15,000 "charitable donation" that it would not have. And in a much broader sense, the lawsuit brought public scrutiny and discussion to a practice that has gotten completely out of hand. I simply cannot believe that game publishers aren't looking at the UO lawsuit and thinking to themselves, "Perhaps we should spend a little more time in beta." I certainly hope they are.

　　EA may have not lost, and the plaintiffs may have not won, but the industry is definitely for the better because of the suit.-Dusty M.