E3 2008 News: Exhibitors and $5 Million Cancellation Fee

First off, via a press release this morning, the list of exhibitors for E3 2008 has surfaced and while Activision and Vivendi may not be present, many other big names are:

• A - M: 1UP Network; Akella; Atari Inc.; Bethesda Softworks; Capcom USA Inc.; Crave Entertainment; Codemasters; D3Publisher of America; Deep Silver; Disney Interactive Studios, Inc.; Electronic Arts; Eidos Interactive; Fox Interactive Media; Indie Games; Jagex, Ltd.; Konami Digital Entertainment America; LucasArts; Majesco Entertainment Company; Microsoft Corporation; Midway Games, Inc.; MTV Games

• N - Z: Namco Bandai Games America, Inc.; Natsume, Inc.; Nintendo of America Inc.; Novint Technologies, Inc.; Nyko Technologies; Rebellion; SEGA of America, Inc.; Serious Games Initiative; Sony Computer Entertainment America, Inc.; Sony Online Entertainment Inc.; Southpeak Interactive; Square Enix USA; Take-Two Interactive; Tecmo; THQ Inc.; Toshiba America Information Systems; Ubisoft Entertainment Inc.; Valve Software; and, Warner Brothers Interactive Entertainment Inc.

The list is still not final and organizers expect more to be added soon.

Secondly, thanks to some IRS sleuthing by Kotaku, documents show that the ESA had to pay to over $5 million last year to move the expo from Los Angeles to Santa Monica – only to come back to LA this year. According to Kotaku, the EA paid $5, 377, 808 in cancellation fees in order to break the contract that kept E3 at the LA Convention Center until 2012.

These forms also divulged the information that association’s membership dues quadrupled in its 2006 fiscal year, increasing from over $1 million in 2005 to more than $4.5 million in 2006. Rich Taylor, Entertainment Software Association senior vice president of communications and research told Kotaku that ESA Board members knew the move would cost them dearly but that it would shift E3 from a “profit generating E3 to a revenue neutral summit.”

Via: Kotaku

If you found this story interesting, why not subscribe to our RSS feed to get your daily fix of gaming news?