Why did Activision/Blizzard, id, and Lucasarts (and others) quit the ESA?

Half the readers for this article came here by mistake thinking the ESA in question was the European Space Agency.
I think that's the answer why household names left the inert agency that hides from press stories about GTA among others...

To put it plainly, they have left because they just don't want to foot the bill for an European GPS network, so left.