How upset would you be to find that your hard earned MMOG characters had been deleted after a hiatus? According to this Final Fantasy XI player, upset to the tune of 5 million dollars seems to fit the bill. Esther Leong alleges that Square Enix failed to disclose important subscriber details upon purchasing the game, and for this, Leong has filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of the plaintiff's own personal account and thousands of other affected FFXI players.

The plaintiff also asserts that the publisher failed to disclose other subscription information at the time of purchase. Namely, Square Enix did not reveal to its subscribers that if they did not pay every month, then their characters and game key would be permanently unusable after 90 days without payment. Moreover, in order to save the account before that 90-day mark, players had to pay a reactivation fee and subscription fees for each unpaid month.

Source: GameSpot

Update: 2009 Final Fantasy XI Lawsuit Dismissed