DigitalBattle.com » ESA

Italy and Spain make up 30% of game piracy

Jeff Baker — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 07:46:39 +0000

The ESA (Entertainment Software Association) has long been fighting the piracy of video games and are getting increasingly concerned by its rate of growth. In fact, the association estimates in the month of December 2008th over 6.5 million gamers were illegally downloaded.

While the whole world is to be blamed, the ESA focused in on two countries, Italy and Spain, and have said that they make up for 17.1% of and 15.1% of the world’s video game piracy, respectively.

Despite waging a seemingly endless war, the ESA says they will continue to fight piracy.

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ESA sues Chicago Transit Authority over adertising

Jeff Baker — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 18:58:10 +0000

It seems that the Entertainment Software Association is fed up with the Chicago Transit Authority’s advertising policy on M and A/O rated games and have decided to take it to court.

Now you may think it’s the CTA’s decision what they put on their buses and subways but the ESA’s argument is that there is no ban on R-rated movies or the like. This has led the ESA to suggest that this violates their constitutional right of free speech.

The ban on M and A/O rated games apparantly went down in January of this year but only now has the ESA decided to do something about it. We’ll keep you posted as this story unfolds.

via Kotaku

E3 ‘09: 41,000 attendees, E3 ‘10 confirmed

James Hyde — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 20:09:36 +0000

As the final day of E3 is underway today, the ESA announced that the event has indeed been a success, with over 41,000 attendees and 216 exhibitors, including developers, publishers, media exhibitors, hardware makers and many other. Although this is still a far cry from the golden days, where over 50,000 people would show up (in 2006 over 60,000 attended), and where the show was open to the general public.

The ESA also announced next year’s E3 would take place from June 15 to 17 at the LA Convention Center.

ESA Applauds Bittorrent Site Creators Jailtime

Will Prusik — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 18:35:15 +0000

There was always a small issue with piracy; people selling copied VHS tapes out of the trunk or their car or selling bootleg casettes, but the electronic age took this minor industry annoyance and gave it fangs, claws, poisonous stingers, camouflage and an armored exoskeleton. After Napster made the average internet user aware of their ability to get stuff for free online, piracy has been an issue for every entertainment industry.

The sharing method of the day is Bittorrent, which allows users to download files from other users. Many websites have launched that offer easily searched indexes of everything from eBooks to leaked films. As you might expect the industry is doing what they can to go after these people and recently Swedish courts punished the founders/owners of a popular site called Pirate Bay with a year in jail.

The ESA is applauding the Swedish courts for doing so: “piracy is the single greatest threat to the development and release of innovative and creative entertainment software”. While piracy is probably a big issue for some companies I think many would agree with me that the biggest threats to innovation is the lack of innovation and creativity that all but the best game developers show.

ESA reports 90% of E3 ‘09 space sold, 40k attendees expected

James Hyde — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 22:03:23 +0000

The ESA has announced that 90% of the available exhibitor floor space at E3 2009 has been sold, and that the trade show expects 40,000 attendees. The 2009 E3 show will take place at the Los Angeles Convention Center from June 2-4.

E3 is scaling back to the heights of the 2006 event, where 60,000 people attended. The following year, only 5,000 were invited at a drastically scaled down industry conference at Santa Monica.

Don’t get your hopes up though — E3 2009 is still an “industry-only event”, meaning it’s not open for the general public.

Publisher Natsume joins ESA

James Hyde — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 21:37:22 +0000

Publisher Natusme, known for titles such as Harvest Moon, and other casual and family friendly games, has been confirmed to join the ESA, and will also appear at this year’s E3 expo as well. The California based publisher has been making and publishing games since 1990, but is most known for the Harvest Moon series.

The ESA had a tough 2008, where LucasArts, Activision and id Software left the industry association. It looks to rebound though, as new, albeit smaller, developers and publishers are joining.

ESA spent $1 million in Q4 on lobbying

James Hyde — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 19:49:25 +0000

Financial outfit Forbes reports that the Entertainment Software Association, the trade group of video game companies, and the organizer of E3, spent almost $1 million in Q4 2008 on lobbying in Washington.

The ESA lobbied on issues such as intellectual property protection, H1-B visas for skilled workers and it opposed the plans to regulate video games with government sanctioned ratings systems.

The ESA lobbied several government agencies, including the Congress, the Justice Department, Federal Trade Commission and Federal Communications Commission.

E for All Expo Canned

Gibran Nawaz — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 20:47:16 +0000

An IDG World Expo representative has told Joystiq that E for All will not be making a return in 2009. The company behind organizing the event will instead be focusing on E3 next year, which hopes to return to what it was before it was closed to the public.

E for All was originally created for a way for the public to still be able to play unreleased games after the announcement of E3 being made drastically smaller was made. Now that E for All is gone for good, we know that the ESA will be taking things seriously this time around.

E3: Back to the Golden Days

Gibran Nawaz — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 00:22:16 +0000

The Entertainment Software Association is trying to get back to basics with the old formula of past E3 conventions. X-Play is reporting that next year’s E3 will be held in the Los Angeles Convention Center, as opposed to the 2007 and 2008 showfloors in Santa Monica, California. This will mean that there will be a much bigger showfloor. The convention will also be held a month earlier, during June 2nd through June 4th. E3 will still not be open to the public, however, more attendees will be added to the mix.

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