The Electronics Entertainment Expo ceased to be relevant when it became a venue for gaming companies PR departments to masturbate in front of the media rather than a showcase of the latest in electronics for the consumer base. This parallels the fall of the movie and music industries except the video game industry is still going strong. Movie and music companies have been seeing falling revenues and blame piracy and a shift toward video games. Except in a previous posting we have discussed studies that have shown some piracy actually helps music sales. These companies refuse to acknowledge that the mediocre and pedestrian fare they produce might be the reason they can't attract customers. Also, I personally believe that an artist has the right to own and benefit from his creation. However the corporate model of entertainment production where producers dictate creative content and the label owns the final product create an environment that stifles creativity. It doesn't help that independent music and movie producers are being bought up by large media companies because they are profitable and then shut down to trim costs once they are inside the fold of the media giant. The big studios fail to see that it was the niche markets and inherent freedom to create that was the strength of the independent shops. Instead they blame the Internet and pirates and make overzealous moves to defend the copyright (that they swindled away from the artist in the first place) and they wonder why they are perceived as attacking their customer base.
Its like the don't respect the awesome and terrible power of the Internet.
