AND SO I LEFT MY VILLAGE, AND JOURNEYED TO NEW DELHI TO SEEK MY FORTUNE, WHERE I WAS HIRED TO WORK IN SOME STRANGE AND TERRIBLE DIMENSION CALLED “UL
We were quickly given the following headsup:
I heard from a reliable source that the former volunteer “job” of the counselors will be taken over by a small group
of third world representatives whose countries do not charge minimum wages, personnel is already recruited for the most part from India.
So EA finally found a legally sound loophole to replace the counselors who wished nothing more than to help players for free by exploiting the needs of the third world, isn’t that nice?
Regarding the FYI announcement, the word “international” is of course correct but around 80%+ of those “advisors” come from India I was told, so do the math.
And someone else sent us screenshots of the new “EA Campus” “UO Customer Support Program” pages, complete with helpful membership information.
Melantus, responding to the, um, curious ex-volunteers on the UO.com message boards, replied to the various quickly-deleted rumors with:
Where the customer support is from or where it is located doesn’t matter. Supporting the customer matters.
And again…
Where doesn’t matter, as I said. The effectiveness of the project as well as the quality of service is what matters. Bottom line.
And yet again…
can you tell me from where the majority of the “advisors” are recruited from Mel ? *g*
That doesnt matter. If the program doesnt work out, for whatever reason, then we can deal with that at a later point.
Ultima Online is once again a leader in the online marketplace – I’m pretty sure no other online game has even considered hiring out to third world countries for sub-minimum wage labor for their customer service needs.
I just sort of idly wonder, at some point in the meetings where this was discussed, did anyone actually have a problem with this at some point? I ask merely because I’m wondering if there is anyone at all left at Electronic Arts Austin (let’s quit calling it Origin Systems, they died long ago) or points west that still has a conscience they can call their own.