ESA President Doug Lowenstein Steps Down

1up has the news that Doug Lowenstein has stepped down from his position as President of the Entertainment Software Association. In the same year as the 'retooling' of that organization's Electronics Entertainment Expo, the 12-year veteran and founder of the organization has announced his intention to leave the organization thiscoming February. Gamespot reports he's heading for a position with a trade organization for investment firms. GamePolitics, meanwhile, reconfirms that Lowenstein is not headed for the Entertainment Consumers Association, nor will ECA founder Hal Halpin be taking Lowenstein's place. From the 1up article: "Back in 1994, (Bungie was still making games for Macs, that's how long ago we're talkin'), Lowenstein founded the Interactive Digital Software Association, which one would day become our own beloved ESA. The organization's purpose wasn't to create a money-draining spectacle that would become the bane of gaming journalists' existence, but rather to serve as an advocate for antipiracy legislation. Once it became the ESA, the group's mission grew to include the support of the ESRB."

Comments

The real reason

[Rob T Firefly]

He just misses the booth babes.

Re:The real reason

[DittoBox]

That's not true at all. I talked with him this morning (he's a friend) and he was reading Playboy. I inquired as to what he was doing and he stated matter-of-factly that he was indeed only reading the magazine for "the articles."

Leaving, or asked to leave?

[Aladrin]

I somehow doubt he's leaving completely of his own free will. He was president while they went from hosting the biggest entertainment expo on the planet and raking in tons of cash to hosting a small, very private almost-nothing expo that nobody cares about. Oh, and he pissed off almost every gamer world-wide.

If I was an investor in that company, I'd be screaming for his head. (I don't know if they even have investors, but when there's enough pissed-off people, it's all the same in the end.)

IANAL, but from what I remember, it's illegal to make a decision that will knowingly hurt the stockholders like that. I hope for his sake, and the rest of the company, that they do NOT have stockholders.

Re:Leaving, or asked to leave?

[DorkusMasterus]

Dude, while I'm not saying your ideas are completely unfounded, how about a LITTLE fact checking before your ranting post? I mean, it's like saying:

Man, those astronauts better wear their ray guns, if they've made ray guns yet. If I was an alien I'd be all over those astronauts trying to get their technology. So for the astronauts' sakes, and for the sake of humanity, I sure hope there are NOT aliens.

See how silly the above sounds? It's because it's all biased, non-grounded information. In fact, there's only a little bit of good information in there (that they have high technology), and in your posting, there's also some good info, like "He was president when they went from hosting the biggest entertainment expo..."

And that's about it.

Not trying to flamebait (honest), but this kind of posting is just noise instead of signal, ya know?

Re:Leaving, or asked to leave?

[Aladrin]

You do realize this is Slashdot, right? Where people usually don't even RTFS before posting? I'll admit, it's got less fact-finding than most of my posts, but then... Dropping E3 was such an amazingly stupid move, I don't feel the need to verify anything. Saying 'no' to money is not a real smart thing for a business to do. The only company I've ever heard of getting away with it is Google. (Microsoft COULD do it, if a tiger could change its stripes.)

Re:Leaving, or asked to leave?

[NonSequor]

OK, I'll fill you in:

ESA is a trade association. It's a non-profit organization that only exists to provide a united front for the video game industry.

The reason that E3 went from being a massive spectacle to a private business oriented event was because ESA's members want it that way. While E3 had developed into a big event where game companies spend tons of money to show off their upcoming products, its primary intent was always to bring developers, publishers, and retailers together to make business deals. E3 had become clogged with people who were peripheral to the video game industry at best and the frivolous competition for attention between exhibitors had become too expensive to be worthwhile.

So Doug Lowenstein didn't lose ESA any money. It costs money to host E3. No money was lost by scaling down E3 because the new E3 will cost less to host. And ESA doesn't make any money anyway because it's just a trade association, not a business. It's unlikely that Doug Lowenstein's resignation resulted from the changes to E3 because the game industry wanted those changes to E3.

Re:Leaving, or asked to leave?

[Aladrin]

Trade association, yes. Non-profit? Nope. I can find nothing that says that.

It's just an association of businesses working together to further their profits. So the businesses are the 'shareholders' instead. You claim they wanted this, and I'm sure some of them were looking for ways to cut the costs... But every gamer in the US (and possibly the world) considers it to be THE game event of the year. Answers.com even says it "was considered the industry's most important annual event." http://www.answers.com/topic/entertainment-softwar e-association

Scaling it back a bit was probably in order. Destroying it completely was amazingly stupid.

Do you suppose that they collectively decided to be that stupid? Or maybe there was a single man at the head of that movement, a man who just happened to be running the ESA at that time... Maybe their president?

And maybe those companies, even after they agreed to his oh-so-persuasive arguments, figured out what a monumental mistake had been made. And maybe they needed a scapegoat so they could sleep at night with their mistake.

In the end, all that matters is that the biggest mistake in the entire history of the ESA, a mistake the eclipses everything else they've done, was done on his watch. He's responsible.

1 hour, 4 comments

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

I think I speak for most Slashdotters when I say, "Who?"

Re:1 hour, 4 comments

[numbski]

It would be better if they would say "formerly the IDSA".

Then have people google "Dave's Video Game Classics", IDSA, emulation, etc. Maybe a link the wayback machine. This guy was everyone's person to hate in 1998. I still have a picture on my computer of him that I used to make evil caracatures of.

Check out this old forum post at Dextrose for the type of stuff that went down 1997-1999. This guys are bad news. :|

Re:1 hour, 4 comments

[numbski]

Helps to actually post the link:

http://dextrose.com/_forum/showthread.php?t=870

ESA vs ESA

[MaGogue]

I only read the article because I thought It had something to do with European Space Agency...

Hmm, this reminds me of something, I just can't put my finger on it... (scratches his head)

He didn't step down...

[Alzheimers]

...he missed a jump and fell into one of those bottomless pits.