Where Politics And Video Games Collide

Perhaps they felt it simply wasn't necessary. Activision and Vivendi haven't made any controversial games lately, so it's possible that they felt that it wasn't worth paying the largest fees of any ESA member when they don't really benefit all that much from the ESA's lobbying. Neither one's released all that many violent videogames over the last couple of years, neither one has has been criticized by the media or by politicians for the major violent videogames they have been responsible for, and both companies' biggest games are completely family-safe. They don't really need lobbying right now, because their Guitar Hero and World of Warcraft revenues wouldn't be hurt even if M-rated games were banned completely. Thus they were essentially paying a fee for the purposes of defending OTHER companies, and on top of that they were going to be paying the now significantly increased fee to an organization whose new leader they consider to be significantly less effective.

In other words, they felt this wasn't worth it. And, honestly, I think it'd be interesting to see what happens if the ESA collapses. Currently, every member of the ESA foots the bill for repairing relations between videogame companies and politicians when one company (usually Rockstar) tries to push the envelope and stir up controversy. If the ESA collapses, though, each company gets to target their lobbying toward their own interests, and companies who don't really do violent videogames (such as Nintendo) won't be stuck helping Rockstar clean up their latest mess.