Massively^™

Normal its the day before but like Sony, Nintendo and M$ already put there press event there they have to go for the first day... Anyway the press events are the best bet the E3 sucks but press events rule :D

I always love the Nintendo one :)

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So Massively, since you're the professional journos and everything, can you explain to us what the real-world significance is of them pulling out of the ESA?

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It's called massive ego. Seems blizzard has it in spades now. Once they realized the could print money by creating content in an MMO every 9 months it was all over.

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Sure, it may seem as if Activision-Vivendi pulling out of the ESA has no real world impact on you, but it has a very, very real impact on how people here in the industry perceive the organization.

Long story short, the video game industry is very interconnected. The way everyone meets up at the Game Developer's Convention should show you that - as everyone swaps tips and tools of the trade in an effort to make games better. If you haven't visited Gamasutra (http://www.gamasutra.com) then you're also missing out on seeing the industry communicate with one another. Gamasutra lets developers cover their own problems, discuss postmortems of games, and generally pass information around.

For a development company to pull out of the industry's foremost industry-only trade show (E3) and to simultaneously pull out of the organization that fights for the industry's first amendment rights and protecting intellectual property (ESA) it's basically like giving the industry a certain finger on your hand. You're attempting to tell everyone that you are better than the rest of the workforce, and you are the unique snowflake in a sea of sameness.

Please excuse me, I find this to be complete bull. Activision-Vivendi is destroying the very awesome connection between developers with their ego. And by beginning to destroy that connection, we may begin to see a severance of communication between developers, which would be a huge, huge no no for the consumer.

Think of it this way... you have an entire community of dentists. The dentists get together and share tips and trade information with one another, in a hope to keep everyone in the organization in tip top shape with the latest tools and rights. This way, every dentist is doing their best to improve the teeth of the patient. Obviously, this relationship is benefiting the patient in the end, as they're getting quality service.

Then, some smug dentist walks in and quits the organization. He neglects to give a reason, but everyone knows it's because he's the best dentist around and he gets more patients than anyone else. He goes off to continue working on teeth, but without the backing of the rest of the group. Perhaps he misses the memo on the newest drilling mechanism? What does that mean for you, the patient?

Even worse, others begin following his example. He's the best, so why shouldn't I do what he's doing? Obviously he wouldn't be doing it if he wasn't right. Others start to leave the organization and hole themselves up in their little corners. We begin to see a lack of communication between dentists, for fear of passing off tradecraft to an opponent. Who suffers? The dentists? Sure, they suffer in skills. But who suffers more? The patient.

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