After the ESA confirmed that Activision and Vivendi would not only be withdrawing from this year"s E3, but also completely from the ESA, Kotaku has said that ESA members NCSoft, Her Interactive and id Software will also not be attending the event this year, although they"ll reportedly remain ESA members.

Kotaku"s sources say ESA members are displeased with Gallagher"s leadership. He took over as ESA boss after Doug Lowenstein left the organization in 2007.

One person willing to go on the record was analyst Michael Pachter with Wedbush Morgan: "Lowenstein was a very savvy industry veteran who paid attention to the goings-on in the industry and cared what the community had to say. The new person... whose name completely escapes me because I"ve never met him or heard from him, is far less knowledgeable and sophisticated about this industry than Doug was and is going to make some rookie mistakes."

The ESA didn"t immediately return Next-Gen"s requests for comment on the Kotaku piece. (The Kotaku report originally said that Codemasters would not be at E3, but the ESA said the publisher will be attending this year. We"ve updated accordingly.)

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