Support. It’s a single two-syllable word that most people are aware of. The Merriam-Webster online dictionary partially defines the word in the following ways: “2a (1): to promote the interests or cause of (2): to uphold or defend as valid or right (3): to argue or vote for.” Throughout history, many great people have accomplished extraordinary things, but no one person or entity has achieved these goals on their own. The Civil Rights Movement, while arguably ineffective at changing the attitudes of many U.S. citizens towards issues of race, still put an end to racial segregation. Names like Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks may take up a large amount of space in our minds when we think of the Civil Rights Movement, but those individuals would not have been able to bring about positive change without the support of thousands of like-minded people who promoted non-violent civil disobedience. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was able to bring the United States out of one of the greatest economic depressions the nation has ever seen, and he did this in relatively poor health. He could not have done this without the support of the American people, who were so confident in his leadership that they voted him into office four consecutive terms.
Global industries also rely on the support of internal organizations for numerous reasons. This support comes in the forms of trade and professional organizations that conduct research on specific industries in which they operate, employ educational programs for law enforcement agencies to better enforce government regulations, and actively promote government policies that improve industry operations. For the video game industry, we have The Entertainment Software Association.
The main focus of The ESA is to combat piracy. According to The ESA, the estimated cost of piracy to the entertainment software industry was $3 billion in 2007 alone. But this number is only representative of pirated games that are being sold at heavily reduced prices around the world. It’s simply impossible to tell just how much the entertainment software industry loses to Internet piracy, where peer-to-peer file sharing sites host “cracked” uploads of the most recent PC and console video games.
It is for this reason that The ESA takes such an active role in developing its anti-piracy programs. In its most recent report, The ESA details the steps it is taking to put a stop to global piracy. Such steps include sending notices to ISPs and their clients pertaining to infringing game files, of which there were roughly 8.7 million in 2010, offering training sessions to about 1,800 law enforcement officials in three different countries, and educating the younger generation on the danger that piracy presents to the entertainment software industry. This is the role that many trade organizations play for other sectors of the entertainment industry, because it’s no secret that the film and music industries are suffering similar losses due to copyright infringement.
While the organization’s anti-piracy efforts may be the most crucial of its operations, they certainly are not the only programs implemented on behalf of the entertainment software industry. The ESA also offers annual reports that offer some pretty interesting information on sales and demographic data that most video game publishers and developers probably drool over. For instance, the knowledge that 25 percent of 2010 game sales came entirely from digital purchases might influence developers to increase the amount of downloadable content available for their games, and perhaps even make their products more readily available for download through digital distribution channels like Steam, On-Live, the Playstation Network, Nintendo Network, and Xbox Live Marketplace.
Also, thanks to the efforts of The ESA and The Entertainment Merchants Association, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of video games in the case of Brown v. EMA. To make a considerably long story short, this means that video games are now officially protected by the first amendment. In case you’re wondering, this is very good news. Developers no longer face restrictions of content in their video games due to unfair segregation from other forms of art and entertainment (e.g. films, books, music, etc.). I think now is a good time to return to our examination of that two-syllable word we were talking about, again. Just how successful would the entertainment software industry be without the support of trade organizations like The ESA? Furthermore, what can you do to support them?
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