The Sinking of the ESA and the Future of the ESRB…
Well, IStC readers, it does seem that we’ve been fairly dormant lately, but I bet there are a few of us that will attempt to stick out this drought. You will notice, however, that I continue to cross post my thoughts here on my other site.
For those not in the know, the ESA, or Entertainment Software Association is a U.S. based lobbying and representative group with membership largely compromised of videogame companies. They have done quite a bit of research related to market demographics of gamers in the U.S. More recently they have turned to “educational” programs aimed at school children to teach them the dangers of copyright violation and piracy. Their educational programs contain no mention of “fair use,” however.
The ESA is also the parent organization of the ESRB or Entertainment Software Ratings Board. The ESRB is the organization which all console manufacturers require licensees to acquire ratings through prior to distribution. Most computer game software goes through this process as well, primarily because most distributors (WalMart) will not distributed un-rated entertainment software.
Recently, numerous large organizations have begun pulling their ESA memberships. This means that they will not be paying their rather large membership dues which keep the ESA in operations.
