Filed under: Culture, Business The Entertainment Software Association (ESA), the industry's lobbying group, sent out a press release a little while ago applauding the prison sentences given to two convicted game pirates. Kevin Fuchs of New York and Kifah Maswadi of Florida were sentenced to eight months and fifteen months in prison, respectively. The men also face multiple years of supervised release after that, with Maswadi having been ordered to pay $415,900.Before freaking out and ...

The Entertainment Software Association would like to remind the citizens of the United States that letting their politicians run around pursuing unconstitutional video game laws is a very costly affair. Just as they did with Minnesota, Illinois, and Michigan before, the ESA has issued a press release detailing just how much California's failed game law is costing the taxpayers. $282,794 to be exact, and as the ESA points out, this is at a time when ...

Filed under: Culture, Business Some people have been wondering what the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) actually does. Well, for the first time ever, the ESA has released an annual report to the public showing off where all that publisher money goes. The report covers federal work, a state-by-state breakdown and goes into other initiatives, like anti-piracy and general research endeavors. There are no answers to why organizations like Activizzard and LucasArts left, but it does ...

The only thing there was more of at E3 than games were complaints about E3's new, tidy, business-like format. Everyone from company execs to game developers to the working press seemed to have something unhappy to say about the show. Coasting right there along with the complaints was a building buzz that next year's E3 was going to have to undergo some mammoth changes. Just how mammoth? According to a number of well connected sources ...

New York Governor David Paterson signed a video game bill into law yesterday that requires parental controls on all consoles, pushes game rating enforcement and launches a state-backed study of video games and violence. The bill takes effect in 2010. "The state has ignored legal precedent, common sense and the wishes of many New Yorkers in enacting this unnecessary bill," said Richard Taylor, senior VP of communications and research for the Entertainment Software Association. "This ...

Filed under: Culture, Business Today's "State of the Industry" E3 keynote by ESA CEO Mike Gallagher also marked the release of the organization's new annual set of "Essential Facts" about the game industry. Among the interesting findings from the ESA-commissioned survey of the American public: 65 percent of American households play computer and video games; 38 percent of American homes have a video game console; The average game player is 35 years old; One out ...