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Things are not looking up for the ESA, and the press as E3 continues to get hit with blow, after blow, after blow of negativity. Yesterday, Activision (and a handful of other publishers) confirmed that they would not be attending this year's show - for reason's unknown. Today, Activision, Vivendi Games and the ESA revealed that the publisher was pulling out of the trade association all together. A rather serious, and mysterious action to have occured for the number one publisher in North America.
Kotaku claims that they have learned via various "industry sources" that the reason for the sudden, uh, "shit storm" surrounding the E3 Media & Business Summit is due, at large, to one thing: ESA president Mike Gallagher. Apparently, Gallagher is less than fit for the role than former president, Doug Lowenstein - who left the ESA last year. Wedbush Morgan Securites analyst Michael Pachter said that:
Lowenstein was a very savvy industry veteran who paid attention to the
goings-on in the industry and cared what the community had to say. The new person... whose name completely escapes me
because I've never met him or heard from him, is far less knowledgeable
and sophisticated about this industry than Doug was and is going to
make some rookie mistakes.
Doug used to be a very visible spokesperson in congress... when you'd
get these [things like] Barack Obama saying videogames are corrupting
our youth or MADD saying that Take-Two should pull GTA off t he
shelves, you would hear Lowenstein immediately shoot back. I would
guess that Activision doesn't perceive the same value from the ESA as
they did under Doug's leadership. I criticize [Gallagher's] lack of
drive to learn about the industry.
Hit the jump for more on this industry-impacting story.
Seems the lack of professionalism and knowledge from the ESA head
honcho, combined with the utterly idiotic mistake that was turning E3
into a strictly invite-only, press centric event in the middle of July
(which happens to be just after, if not during most publishers closing
fiscal quarter, which is bad timing to show or talk about their products) isn't sitting right with some of
the big guns in the industry. Today, NCSoft, Foundation 9, Her
Interactive and id Software all confirmed that would be skipping the
show as well. It seem's 'most' of these gaming big wigs share
Foundation 9's statement, which says:
We just didn't feel like we got enough out of the investment last year in order to justify the expense this year.
NCSoft told Kotaku that their absense is due strictly to timing inconvenience.
We would have definitely found E3 useful had it fit into our schedule
this year.
No publishers outside of Activision have commented on any plans to
drop out of the ESA, and it's not likely that they will. Current
frontrunners for third-parties attending the show this year include
Electronic Arts, Take-Two and Capcom. It does make us wonder, though.
With the rise of public events like PAX, Comic-Con, and TGS (where if
you're press, for the record, it's nigh impossible to get any work done),
will there even be an E3 come 2009/2010? The event may be "back home"
this year after 2007's disaster, but it's undoubtedly smaller in the
long run. It's now during a time period, and at a size that for most
press, publishers and developers (international included), I'm not sure
if it's worth the money, or effort. In other news, Activision has confirmed that they WILL be holding an off-site event on the first day of E3, separate from the show.
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