Entertainment-software-association posts

E3 2011 is being held on June 7-9 but this year the trade show's organizers at the Entertainment Software Association are apparently trying to limit the number of media badges issued to attend the Los Angeles-based event. Our sister site Joystiq received a note sent to an unnamed gaming web site from E3's media team that describes how E3 organizers are now using web site traffic to determine which web sites will receive media badges and how many media badges each site will receive.

According to the note E3 organizers stated that it is making such a move "due to the tremendous number of requests for media badges" for this year's show. It is using web site traffic tracking sites like Compete.com, xinureturns.com, Quantcast.com and Alexa as part of its efforts. Those sites must show that media web sites have at least 8,000 monthly unique visitors and be in operation for at least six months before at least one media badge will be approved. There have been some concerns that such a set up will favor larger media organizations who will be able to have a larger team at E3 compared to smaller sites.

On Thursday the Entertainment Software Association made the unusual move of attacking a study about the effects of playing games on children before its official release. The ESA claims that the study that it says links playing games to mental health problems with kids in Singapore, is "flawed". The ESA specifically attacked the author of the study, Douglas Gentile of Iowa State University. claiming he "has a long history of attacking video games based on claims that have been the subject of substantial criticism."

Gamasutra managed to contact Gentile who stated that it was "surprising" that the ESA would attack his work, saying, "... they give no credible evidence of significant flaws. Furthermore, the article was subjected to peer-review by independent experts in a top medical journal, experts whose interest is in evaluating the quality of science." In fact Gentile calls himself a gamer and says, "My position is and always has been that games are powerful, and that they can have many effects. Some effects are beneficial, others can be harmful."

The US game industry trade group the Entertainment Software Association has decided not to wait until an new study on games and their alleged effect on children comes out before it attacks it as being "flawed". The ESA sent over a press release today to protest the results of a study that's due to be published next week in the February issue of Pediatrics.

The ESA singles out the creator of the study, Douglas Gentile, in its press release. The study itself, according to the ESA's description of it, "seeks to link video game use to mental health problems in children in Singapore." The ESA says Gentile talks about the term "pathological gaming" in the study which the ESA claims "is neither scientifically nor medically accepted and the type of measure used has been criticized by other scholars. "

The US PC-video game trade group the Entertainment Software Association has confirmed to Big Download that it has added two new companies as members. Both the graphics chip company Nvidia and the MMO game publisher Perfect World Entertainment are now listed as members on the ESA's web site. ESA PR rep Dan Hewitt confirmed to Big Download today that Nvidia and Perfect World came aboard officially as members in the latter half in 2010.

The ESA currently shows 36 member companies on its official web site. However two of the members listed, Eidos Interactive and Realtime Worlds, are no longer active companies. Eidos merged with Square Enix in 2009 and Realtime Worlds shut down operations in 2010 following the disastrous launch and later shut down of its FPSMMO game APB.

The ESA, which owns the annual E3 trade show event as well as the Entertainment Software Ratings Board, lost a number of high profile members in 2008 including Activision, LucasArts and id Software. Hewitt told Big Download today that the ESA has a constant dialog with the industry about bringing in new members as well as perhaps bringing back older ones.

While the G4TV cable TV network has always aired a lot of live footage from E3 in years past, the network is planning to expand that coverage even more in the next few years. Today G4 announced that it has signed a deal making it the official broadcaster of E3 in 2011, 2012 and 2013.

G4 states it will broadcast over 24 hours of live coverage of E3 (and even more streaming video at G4tv.com) in 2011. Officially next year's show be held on June 7-9 but there will likely be pre-E3 press conference from various publishers beforehand.. As always E3 will be centered at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

The battle lines against California's PC and video game law have officially been drawn. The last day to file a brief for and against the law to the US Supreme Court was last Friday. Today the Entertainment Software Association announced that over 180 briefs have been filed against the law which proposes that games with violent content be labeled and their sales restricted from minors.

The ESA notes that the briefs come from a wide variety of sources including First Amendment experts, non-profit organizations, and 82 "social scientists, researchers, and medical professionals." Those particular briefs went after California's scientific defense of the law, saying the state used "questionable research and incomplete data".

Perhaps most damning was the brief filed by the attorney generals of the states of Rhode Island, Arkansas, Georgia, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah, and Washington along with Puerto Rico. The brief states that in their opinion "quick fixes such as the California Statute cause more practical and constitutional problems, in expanding unneeded regulatory activity and hindering law enforcement, than they solve." Oral arguments for and against the law will be made to the nine members of the US Supreme Court on November 2.

The hearing at the US Supreme Court on the proposed California law that would restrict sales of certain PC games with violent content from being sold to minors will be held in early November. On Friday the Entertainment Software Association trade group announced it had filed a brief to the court on the law which it considers unconstitutional.

The brief states the game industry's opinion on the California law which was signed in 2005 but has yet to be enforced thanks to the ongoing court battle. The ESA states that other court decisions over the years "have repeatedly ruled that there is no credible evidence that computer and video games cause harm to minors." The ESA also believes the law "threatens to chill a far broader array of speech than even California purports to target." The ESA says if the Supreme Court were to uphold the California law it would "create an unprecedented category of speech restrictions, chilling freedom of expression in other media."

The US-based game trade group the Entertainment Software Association is perhaps best known as the owner and operator of the annual E3 trade show. However, the organization has a number of different interests and activities. Today the ESA offered up its 2009 annual report to the public.

The PDF-based document goes into detail on all of the ESA's activities such as running the Entertainment Software Ratings Board, the US game ratings system. The annual report also details the ESA's activities in federal and state governments, its dealings with fighting game piracy and protecting intellectual property rights, its charitable ESA Foundation and more. Currently the ESA has 35 game developers and publishers as members.

Just how much does the entire game industry add in terms of its economic impact to the US? According to the Entertainment Software Industry trade group, nearly $5 billion was added in 2009 to the US economy because of the game industry. The numbers come from a new study commissioned by the ESA (you can check out the full PDF study right here).

Some highlights from the study include that there are more than 32,000 people directly employed in the game industry in 2009 in the US. That number goes up to 120,000 if you put in people who are indirectly employed in the industry. The average annual employee compensation is $89,781. As expected, California still has the highest number of employees directly involved with game development with 13,041 people. Texas and Washington are a distant second and third with 3,307 and 2,986 game-based employees, respectively.

As they do during every E3 show, the event's organizers the Entertainment Software Association releases their annual report on the state of the game industry. They have done so again for E3 2010. According to their survey, the average game player is 34 years old while the average age of the person who buys games is 40 years old. Also 40 percent of all gamers are now female.

Other results in the survey states that 62 percent of gamers play with another gamer in person at least one hour a week. 48 percent of parents say they play games with their kids at least once a week. You can check out the full report (via PDA file) at the ESA web site.