I am pasting an email I got just a while ago and you have no idea how hard this is for me to pass this along because you are all my family and this has been my home since 1999. My heart is broken as I am sure yours will be to.

Many of the group has moved to renhearts and I sincerely hope that everyone will look past the dumb bot play and just come so we can all stick together

I love you all so much,

Ellie

I have some really bad news to pass along. We have been contacted by
Activision and have been told that they own the rights to the gaming
software at Hoyle Online, and they want the site shut down immediately.

Encore owns the rights to the Hoyle name/brand, but the rights to the
gaming software were not included, so Activision/Vivendi still owns the
gaming software. The rights to use the gaming software have expired and
cannot be renewed. We (along with Encore) have tried to work out a deal
with them so that we can keep the site up, but we have been unsuccessful.

Inquiries from players can be sent to [email protected]

Please do not encourage players to contact Encore or Activision, because
unfortunately, the decision is final this time.

I'm really sorry for this sudden notice without any advance warning, but
it was completely out of our hands. The programmers are in the process
of replacing the gaming site pages with a message to the players, but
the Hoyle forum will not be available.