ESA Revisiting Membership Dues Structure

Alongside reports of a 1700 percent fee hike over the past two years, the Entertainment Software Association says it's revisiting its membership dues structure alongside the ongoing reorganization process of the E3 event. "The positive restructuring of the E3 Expo allowed us to revisit the ESA’s dues structure," ESA CEO Mike Gallagher tells Gamasutra. The earlier incarnation of E3 in 2006 brought in $18.46 million in income for the ESA, but the 2007 event in Santa Monica, apparently downsized in part thanks to publisher feedback, brought in radically less at just $3.49 million. The corresponding increase in membership dues, just revealed via the ESA's recently-discovered tax documents, came alongside the event's return to the Los Angeles Convention Center, where the still-smaller event met with mixed response from both publishers and press. At the same time, several major publishers including Activision, LucasArts and NCsoft rescinded their membership to the trade body. The ESA's Rich Taylor recently told Gamasutra that the organization hopes its new approach to E3, incorporating publisher input, will bring back some of its 'buzz' and provide more value for its members. Today, Gallagher says the new dues structure is aimed at allowing more publishers to participate. "It is our hope that this new model will make the ESA an attractive and accessible option for small and mid-sized publishers so we can more fully represent our industry’s diversity," he says.