Report: ESA to lose two more members

The Entertainment Software Association has hit a rocky patch of late. Beginning with soon-to-be merged megapublishers Activision and Vivendi leaving the representative body in May, the ESA has seen two more high-profile departures, LucasArts and id Software.

A variety of reasons have been cited for the string of departures, including a substantial spike in membership dues to reclaim lost revenue from the downsizing of the ESA-run Electronic Entertainment Expo in 2006. There have also been claims of questionable leadership from the industry body's president, Michael Gallagher, who replaced longtime president Doug Lowenstein in 2007.

It now appears as if the unrest has not yet stabilized within the ESA. Speaking with the Washington Post, Entertainment Consumer Association president Hal Halpin said he believes two more companies will soon be parting ways with the ESA, and there are "several others that are unhappy but remain with the organization."

Continuing, Halpin noted that the string of departures is disturbing, and "anyone who cares about the games business should be concerned about what's going on with the ESA." When asked for a response, ESA spokesperson Dan Hewitt declined comment, dismissing Halpin's statement as "speculation."

Halpin has been president of the ECA since the industry body formed in 2006. Whereas the ESA caters more specifically toward the interests of game publishers, the ECA's express purpose is to give consumers a voice in the gaming industry. The two game-industry lobbying groups have found themselves on opposite sides of an issue in the past, most notably in 2007 when the ECA said it would push for a revision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, an issue the ESA strongly opposed.

Halpin's statement comes after a belligerent verbal exchange last week in which the ESA lashed out at ECA-owned game-news site Game Politics for a story critical of this year's E3 Media & Business Summit keynote speaker, Texas Governor Rick Perry. Addressing the story, which quoted a Dallas Morning News report where Perry said he believes in "the inerrancy of the Bible and that those who don't accept Jesus as their savior will go to hell," Hewitt charged Game Politics with exhibiting clear bias.

"If the ESA posted a blog and called it a news site, journalists would rightfully balk and it wouldn't pass a smell test," said Hewitt to gaming blog Joystiq. "Remarkably, GamePolitics doesn't face the same scrutiny even though it's funded by the ECA and tainted with anti-ESA vitriol. At the end of the day, calling GamePolitics a news site is as laughable as saying there's a Cuban free press."

Not amused, the ECA retorted, saying in part that, "Comparing a non-profit consumer advocacy organization to communist Cuba is unprofessional to say the least...especially given the broad support that the ECA and our consumer members have shown for the ESA."