14 DAY TRIAL // E3 is no longer a public trade show and lately the Entertainment Software Association, which organizes the event, is taking some flak of its own. Activision and LucasArts, together with id Software, have pulled out of the organization and a lot of the other members are declaring themselves dissatisfied with the work the ESA does to promote the interests of the videogame industry.
Perhaps the clearest sign that the ESA is going through a rough patch was the fact that only a handful of people cared enough to take part in its new conference at E3. The current head of the organization talked about how gaming is even now becoming an accepted part of the culture of today's society, even if we are not able to see that clearly at this point.
Michael D. Gallagher said that he thought that sometime "in the future, we will look back and see that now is the time that gaming is becoming an accepted part of our culture". He also wasted no time in taking a shot at the former president of the ESA, Doug Lowenstein, for his inability to collaborate rather than confront politicians when it came to videogame related issues.
He then mentioned the ever wider spread of games, through PCs, through mobile phones and through gaming consoles. He mentioned the Nintendo Wii as one of the most important developments in recent history, with its ability to attract and engage non-gamers with simple and intuitive controls and gameplay mechanics.
He then cited statistics that showed how nine games have been sold in the United States each second and estimated that the game industry has taken in some 19 billion dollars in sales. All this pointed to a "golden age of gaming" as Gallagher called it. The final argument was for gamers to make their political voices heard by voting and by joining the Video Game Voters Network, saying that "registered users [might] hit 200,000 by next year's E3".