It all started when the Entertainment Software Association, organizers of the gaming megashow Electronic Entertainment Expo, aka E3, invited Texas Governor Rick Perry to give a keynote speech at the convention.

Gamepolitics.com ran a story noting that Perry is a controversial figure, in that he casually mentioned that you personally might be going to hell.

(”Controversial” is journalism code for the writer calling the subject a complete jerkwad, but we won’t comment on that in this space.)

However, as Joystiq pointed out, E3 is a business convention, and Rick Perry is pro-business in general and pro-game-business in particular. His gubernatorial opponent, Star Locke, wanted a 50% tax on video games deemed to be violent.

Of course, rather than calmly explaining this, the ESA decided to blow their stacks and make themselves look like asses.

If the ESA posted a blog and called it a news site, journalists would rightfully balk and it wouldn’t pass a smell test. Remarkably, GamePolitics doesn’t face the same scrutiny even though it’s funded by the ECA and tainted with anti-ESA vitriol. At the end of the day, calling GamePolitics a news site is as laughable as saying there’s a Cuban free press.

I have no idea if the Electronic Consumers Association really funds GamePolitics or if they have some bizzare vendetta against a fellow industry association like the ESA. Hey, maybe they’re also funding Vivendi, Activision and all the other companies that won’t be attending E3 this year, and that’s why some of them are even dropping out of the association.

Or maybe E3 and the ESA are poorly managed and are becoming increasingly irrelevant.

Popularity: 2% [?]