Four members of the ESA have left in the past week, reducing membership to 24. Hyperbolic reporting is pointing to this as the end of the ESA, referring to it variously as a “sinking ship”, and “collapsing”. No companies are giving statements as to reasons why they are not renewing their ESA membership, but rumours [...]

It may be a bit quiet here for the next week or so, as I’m away on a short break. Normal service will be resumed on May the 28th.
(CC image by Mor (bcnbits))

gamesindustry.biz have posted an interview with Ste Curran, creative director at Zoe Mode and presenter of One Life Left.
I saw Ste present at GameCity 2007, and he’s sharp as a tack. In this interview he points out that, though the Wii has made some mass market changes, it wasn’t the first or only thing to [...]

Recent happenings at Codemasters get more interesting. First they buy SEGA’s London based Racing Studio, which was originally set up with ex-Codies, now they’ve got the F1 license to go with it.
(via Gamasutra, CC image by TMWolf)

Rockstar North have always been very culturally switched on, but now not only are they expressing that in their games, but in the people they talk to publicly as well. Manhunt 2 seemed to signal a big change in the way Rockstar dealt with PR and controversy. They’re out in force to support GTA IV [...]

The BBFC intend to launch a rating system for online games and films in just a few months, much faster than the two years or so stated to implement the full recommendations of the Byron review. It seems the BBFC are going to work with PEGI, and this TechRadar interview with BBFC chairman David Cook [...]