ESA's Michael Gallagher: 'Piracy is a scourge!'

Michael Gallagher's role as president of the Entertainment Software Association involves spewing a bunch of numbers and being one of the most vocal cheerleaders for the entire video gaming industry. On Tuesday afternoon during E3's opening day, he addressed a small group of journalists and ran through some of the latest figures from their "Essential Facts" booklet that was released before E3 even started. Their favorite being "68 percent of American households play computer or video games."

Surely, we thought, a rehash would include some fascinating infographics and possibly even photos to support all the empirical data. But the only thing provided was a single slide featuring the E3 logo on it. Not even one pie chart or bar graph was present. Basically it was a lecture (in a lecture hall setting) full of numbers that we already knew, with no possibility of a pop quiz. So what could liven up this event?

Yes! The Q&A. When asked about piracy, Gallagher seriously came to life and barked "Piracy is a scourge!" We half expected him to set sail and hoist the ESA flag onto the entire convention center. He went on to explain how piracy is theft that's costing the industry between two and three billion dollars a year. He encourages vigilance, but didn't suggest a way to combat the scoundrels. We say give Gallagher a cutlass and let him go at it.