f13.net

This was going to go into the Conferences forum until I read today's news (http://www.gamedaily.com/articles/news/activision-pulls-out-of-e3/?biz=1) that expanded from "we're not going to E3" to "we're not in the ESA" anymore.

Is it huge that the biggest company in the industry is out of the ESA? Or is this really not all that much of a big deal?


Edit: renamed the thread so subsequent departures, if any, can just be captured here.

Good for them, the ESA is unnecessary bullshit.

That's what you get when you ban booth babes.

2 questions:

1) Doesn't that mean they're not using the ESRB anymore?
2) Won't that mean most big stores like Walmart will no longer carry their stuff?

People don't choose not to carry WoW and Guitar Hero.

Wow and Guitar Hero choose where they go. Of all the companies that can do this, Activision/Vivendi is it.

My understanding is ESRB is a requirement for stores to carry them (requirement made by the stores themselves).

You don't have to be a member of the ESA to have your games rated by the ESRB.

ESRB gives ratings to games regardless if the studio in question is a member of ESA or not. There is no "opting out".

Edit: Curses, foiled again.  :drill:

Trippy is out to smite us all with knowledge.

LucasArts out too (http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=18691).

Not exactly a trend of portending doom, but interesting anyway.

What exactly is the ESA, anyway? And what do they actually do?

ESA (http://www.theesa.com/).
At Wikipedia, shows lists of members (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entertainment_Software_Association).

It's an industry trade group for video game companies. They support, but are not a part of, the ESRB rating board, and run E3.

They're also the ones that took down all the batshitinsane legislation that tried to pop up around the country in the last two years, either arguing them down before they became law (Illinois (http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060810-7471.html)*, Michigan (http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1040-5865432.html), California (http://arstechnica.com/journals/thumbs.ars/2007/08/10/esa-mounts-offensive-against-schwarzeneggers-revitalized-anti-game-bill), I think two others), or having them overturned (Minnesota (http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060731-7393.html) and Louisiana (http://www.daledietrich.com/gaming/2006/11/29/federal-district-court-judge-makes-louisianas-violent-game-bill-injunction-permanent/), straight up against Mr Thompson himself pretty much). I think I'm missing two or three.

I don't hear a lot from them these days. Doug Lowenstein was a very strong spokesperson for the organization. But there was also these politicians trying to get their piece, some largely on the backs of Hot Coffee. So maybe it's just the precedent has been set that flagrantly undefined censorship is unconstitutional, they're not making the sort of noise the ESA has to respond to. Or maybe it's because Lowenstein resigned. Or maybe it's a bunch of other stuff.

* Got awarded a hefty sum back from the state for this one too.

Perhaps it has something to do with the ESA's anti-pirate efforts.  MS, Sony, EA and Disney are all big DRM proponents.  While Vivendi and LA are both big on suing folks who they feel violate their IP rights, I don't think they're big DRM proponents.  I could be wrong, however.

id Software is out (http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=18767) now too. Same lack-of-reason.

This article (http://kotaku.com/5008469/esa-spent-5-million-to-move-e3-for-a-year) at Kotaku outlines something that could be a collection of reasons though. Basically, downsizing E3 caused a one-time fee of about $5.4mil combined with creating a subsequent format that would reduce revenue altogether. E3 2006 (last of the old format) generated a whopping 64% of their annual revenue (http://www.gamespot.com/news/6191406.html?sid=6191406&part=rss&subj=6191406). Smaller event results in smaller revenue but with a growing budget thus passing the costs onto the member companies.

Going from around $1mil to $4.5mil per year isn't a huge deal for the bigger companies. But for even medium-sized ones, anything that quadruples in costs within a single year is going to raise some questions.

We may be watching that fallout.

(mmm, Fallout 3...)

There's a bit of speculation that it has to do with ESA President Michael Gallagher (who took over a year ago after ESA founder Doug Lowenstein left), and that essentially a lot of people just aren't happy with the direction the ESA is taking.

Necro. Because it's not worth it's own topic, and only almost not worth mentioning :-)

NC Soft is out too (http://www.gamedaily.com/articles/news/ncsoft-not-returning-to-esa-in-2009/?biz=1).