A Crisis of Confidence

For those who haven’t been following the disturbing and occasionally ridiculous news from the Entertainment Software Association, it is in full-on self-destruct mode. Among the ESA’s numerous duties is acting as a conduit between game publishers and legislators, as well as hosting trade events like the neutered Electronic Entertainment Expo, or E3, though how much actual work the ESA has accomplished in those areas of late is of increasing question. Instead, the ESA of 2008 is sloughing off members at an alarming rate and getting into spats with independent news organizations. This isn’t just a bad thing simply for reinforcing the stereotype that the gaming industry is staffed with unprofessional malcontents, but also because the ESA is supposed to be a representative of the entire gaming industry. Without a professional, competent and trusted organization at the helm, game makers are more vulnerable than ever to activist legislation and disarray.

Headed by Mike Gallagher, a former internet policy adviser to the Bush Administration, the ESA has been under increasing fire since the departure of Doug Lowenstein in 2007 and the struggles to maintain E3’s relevance. Last month, the Escapist’s own Andy Chalk penned a strong history of the ESA, including its once lauded successes and current woes. Things were bad enough in early May for the trade organization in the wake of sudden departures by Activision and Vivendi, but what had been a crisis for the ESA has erupted into a full blown catastrophe with the further departures of LucasArts, id and the growing sense that the organization has lost serious credibility in representing gaming interests.

At a time when the ESA should be making public good faith efforts to stop the hemorrhaging of high-profile companies from its ranks, it instead made the inexplicable decision to defend E3’s upcoming keynote speaker, Texas Governor Rick Perry, in the wake of some relatively extreme religious statements. That’s to say nothing of the bizarre choice of Perry as keynote speaker in the first place, but wait. It gets better. In the aftermath of Perry’s questionable remarks, the ESA followed up by getting into apublic spat with GamePolitics for its criticism of Perry.

This brings a lot of questions to bear on the embattled ESA. Why is it incapable of keeping members like Activision, LucasArts, Vivendi and id? Why was a figure like Rick Perry chosen as keynote speaker for the already troubled E3 in the first place? Who does the ESA really represent in its astonishingly aggressive response to criticism of placing a highly politicized figure at the forefront of a gaming industry trade show? What do the compounding troubles for the ESA say about its ability to successfully represent the industry? Most importantly, maybe now is the time to ask the big question: What should the role of the ESA be?

I have said before that gamers have no advocate to speak powerfully on their behalf, and while the ESA has a reasonably successful history of representing the interests of the industry, which do not always meet harmoniously with the interests of game consumers, at least it served the role of governmental advocacy for publishers. From the perspective of a consumer, it’s not much, but at least it’s something. As the organization increasingly mirrored the broken policies of peers such as the RIAA, it seems it has lost focus on its other roles, failing to sustain the relevance of its once great trade show and failing to meet the needs of its members. In fact, I’m not entirely certain that I can say precisely what the ESA has been doing the past few years. Its anti-piracy efforts have been as successful as most anti-piracy efforts, which is to say not at all. It has watched as E3 has slipped into virtual irrelevance. It has not made any notable accomplishments in stemming legislative attempts to censor gaming. Certainly the industry can pat itself on the back for continuing to grow the video game industry, but how much credit can the ESA take for that? Apparently not much from the point of view of Activision and company.

Imagine for a moment if Sony BMG were to suddenly part ways with the RIAA, or if Paramount were to cut ties with the MPAA. That’s the magnitude of seeing even one major publisherdivest itself from the ESA, much less four.

It may be fair to suggest that the ESA’s legitimacy is now entirely in question. Put simply, the video game industry no longer has a unified trade organization to represent its interests. Under the watch of Mike Gallagher, whose stewardship has only just passed the one-year mark, the ESA has collapsed under what appears to be, at least from the outside, catastrophic mismanagement. This at a time when gaming is breaking into the cultural mainstream and defying a difficult economic environment. One would think that ESA members would be naturally inclined to consolidate their collective strength to keep the ball rolling, rather than striking off into the unknown on their own.

With a rash of lawsuits and referendums regarding explicit material in video games still fresh in our minds, the need for a competent and legitimate advocate for the video game industry seems crucial. Unfortunately the ESA seems a long way from being that competent and legitimate advocate in its current state. Whether the solution is a change of leadership or just a change of philosophy is a question that ultimately the organization’s members will have to address, but the current state of things is untenable. What happens over the summer will probably define the future of Gallagher’s tenure and even that of the ESA itself.