crave-entertainment posts

The Entertainment Software Association continues to add to its list of smaller game publishers with three more announced additions today. One of the three is a former ESA member, Crave Entertainment, who left last year alongside several other publishers. Crave was in the midst of being sold off at the time of its departure but according to the press release today the new owners of the company, Fillpoint, have decided to renew their membership.

Two more publishers, Playlogic and Koei, have also decided to join the US video/PC trade organization (and the owners of the E3 trade show coming in early June). So far the ESA has not yet managed to snag back the four large game developer/publishers that left in 2008 (Activision Blizzard, LucasArts, NCSoft and id Software). However the Activision half of Activision Blizzard along and LucasArts will be exhibiting at E3 this year

Yesterday we mentioned that it appeared as if Crave Entertainment was leaving the ESA, but today we have some details. According to a statement given to Next-Gen, the impending sale of their company was the reason behind their decision not renew its membership with the Entertainment Software Association. "Crave's departure from ESA at this juncture is not a statement against the value provided by our longstanding membership, but rather was motivated by our need to focus on the impending sale of our company."

Crave is the now the fifth publisher in the last two months to bail out of the ESA. In the statement they also confirmed that they will be exhibiting at July's E3 Media and Business Summit.

It looks like yet another game publisher has decided to depart the video/PC game trade organization the Entertainment Software Association. According to GamePolitics (who used unnamed sources), budget publisher Crave Entertainment has left the ESA for unknown reasons. The decision has not been made public yet nor is it evident on the ESA's web site. According to the story Crave will still be attending the ESA's annual E3 media event in mid-July

If true this would be the fifth company to leave the ESA inside of two months. The organization has seen id Software, LucasArts, Activision and Vivendi Games depart (Activision and Vivendi are due to merge to form Activision Blizzard next month). Some have suggested that higher membership fees (due to E3 being reduced to an invite only event) is a major reason. Indeed id Software recently hinted their ESA departure may just be temporary.