ESA losing members, needs to prove its worth

The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) is falling apart as major industry players are leaving the organization. Activision and Vivendi were the first to bid adieu to ESA soon followed by LucasArts. More recently, on May 23, 2008, iD Software also joined the list of emigrants and decided not to renew its ESA membership.

These departures might prove to be a sinister precursor of what lies ahead for the trade body, which has held fort against anti-game legislations and law suits in recent times. The ESA clearly doesn’t make much sense to the companies that have left and to others who have stayed but are weighing their options. But if the ESA crumbles then the video games industry might loose its most ardent champion.

ESA has pretended to be calm and under control in its stilted press notes acknowledging the departures. But the powers that be at the organization must be well aware of the dire consequences of the exodus. According to Jeff Brown, EA’s VP of corporate communications, during an interview to GameIndustry, the solution to the current predicament is simple: ESA should prove the worth of its membership to game companies.

E3, which used to be the darling of game companies and gamers alike, bombed last year and its revamped version found few takers. It seems E3 might never get back its lost glory as Activion and Vivendi have not only left ESA but also decided against attending E3 2008.

It must be remembered that the companies are soon going to merge and the resultant entity Activision-Blizzard will be the largest game publisher in the world. So if the largest publisher refuses to attend E3 then it certainly doesn’t augur well for the event. LucasArts, however, still imputes a bit of significance to the event and has decided to attend.

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