The E3 Media & Business Summit is getting smaller and less attractive each year, as big names such as Activision (and consequently Vivendi) decided to skip this year’s event, and furthermore, refused to renew their membership too. The show went from 60,000 attendees in 2006 at the Los Angeles Convention Center, to a mere 5,000 in 2007 in Santa Monica, California.

Although the plan for this year is to return to Los Angeles, it looks like the show will be missing some high-profile publishers, GameSpot reported. The greatest loss will be of course Activision, who told the same source that after careful considerations, they decided not to attend E3 activities or renew their ESA membership “for business reasons.”

However, Activision does plan to hold an event in Los Angeles at the same time with the E3 event, but more details haven’t been given so far.

Other names that will not attend the Los Angeles event include NCsoft and Foundation 9: “Our decision not to exhibit at E3 this year, was in no way in response to Activision’s decision,” a rep for Foundation 9 told GameSpot. “We came to the decision on our own at the end of 2007 … exhibiting at E3 is just not something that fits with our marketing strategy this year.”

id Software’s position regarding the E3 has been uncertain over the past days, after they kept confirming their attendance and then retract it.

Things don’t look too bright at this time for this year’s E3, and the possible reason for all the publishers dropping out of ESA or not attending the LA show has one name: Mike Gallagher. ESA’s president, who replaced Doug Lowenstein last year, is reportedly a reason of discontent for a lot of publishers, although none of them has actually confirmed that, preferring to motivate their choices as “business decisions.”

With that being said, the E3 Media & Business Summit will take place from July 15 – 17, 2008 in Los Angeles Convention Center, although it will be less ample than in previous years, ESA said. The attendance at the event will be invitation only, and will be open to ESA, as well as non-ESA members.