entertainment-softwa... posts

E3 sure ain't what it used to be. At least that's what EA CEO John Riccitiello thinks. "I hate E3 like this. Either we need to go back to the old E3, or we'll have to have our own private events."

He's not the only one who doesn't care for the "new and improved" E3 Media and Business Summit format. Ubisoft North America president Laurent Detoc was harsher: "E3 this year is terrible. The world used to come to E3. Now it's like a pipe-fitters show in the basement."

A pipe-fitters show? Ouch. Approximately 5,000 people were expected to attend this year's E3 at the LA Convention Center. Back in its glory years E3 drew 60,000 people. Ouch.

Mike Gallagher, president of the Entertainment Software Association, admitted that they need to figure out "where the dial needs to go" and they'll continue to work on the format as needed.

It has not been the best of times for the US video/PC game trade organization The Entertainment Software Association in recent days. Last Friday it was officially revealed that both Activision and Vivendi Games has decided to depart the ESA over unnamed "business" issues. Both publishers also pulled out of exhibiting at the ESA's annual E3 event. Now GamePolitics has observed that the official ESA web site no longer lists LucasArts as a member.

Now this could simply be a glitch but the LucasArts logo is also not displayed on the ESA web site either which doesn't sound like a simple glitch to us (LucasArts is still listed as an exhibitor on the E3 web site as of this writing) We have emailed both our LucasArts and our ESA contacts and hope to find out for sure what's going on by Friday.

As we mentioned earlier this week there has been some confusion on who will and who won't be attending E3 this July with conflicting info from various media sources. In the interest of clearing the air (for now anyway) here is the full list of 2008 E3 attendees, combining the list on the official E3 2008 web site (password protected) along with info gleaned from the various media reports. We list the companies that are new to E3 2008 this year:

It looks like the decision to not participate at E3 2008 was just the tip of the iceberg for soon-to-be merged game publishers Activision and Vivendi Games. The Entertainment Software Organization, the organizers of E3, has officially confirmed that both companies have decided to break off ties to the video/PC game trade organization entirely. This is the first major defection in the ESA's ranks since it was formed (as the Interactive Digital Software Organization) in 1994. No reasons for the move were given by the ESA in its statement and neither Activision nor Vivendi have commented yet on this specific move (an Activision spokesperson stated in regards to not attending E3 that the move was made for "business" reasons).

Of course, Activision and Vivendi Games are due to merge by the end of June to form Activision-Blizzard so it's possible that they could return to the ESA at some point after the merger. But if they don't that means the largest third party game publisher will not be a part of the main US video/PC game trade group. In addition to organizing E3 every year, the ESA helps to defend the game industry in court against law that might restrict game sales, helps to fight game piracy and more. Will this high-profile defection be just the first