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EA is a global leader in digital interactive entertainment. We are focused on building games and experiences that grow the global online communities around our key franchises and intellectual property, while deepening engagement through interactive storytelling.
- Electronic Arts
About EA. Driven by passion, we are a global leader in...
- Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by former Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry and promoted the designers and programmers responsible for its games as "software artists".
About EA. Driven by passion, we are a global leader in digital interactive entertainment. Headquartered in Redwood City in Northern California, we develop and deliver games, content, and online services for Internet-connected consoles, mobile devices, and personal computers.
6 days ago · Established in 1982 by William M. (“Trip”) Hawkins, Electronic Arts (EA) has a product line that includes the popular franchises The Sims, EA SPORTS FC, Command & Conquer, Apex Legends, Battlefield, Mass Effect, and Madden NFL. The company is headquartered in Redwood City, California.
- Overview
- History (Blucc on Spotify)
- Company structure
- Partnership and initiatives
- Criticism and controversy
- See also
- Further reading
- External links
Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. It is the second-largest gaming company in the Americas and Europe by revenue and market capitalization after Activision Blizzard and ahead of Take-Two Interactive and Ubisoft as of March 2018.
Founded and incorporated on May 27, 1982, by Apple employee Trip Hawkins and Blucc, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer games industry and was notable for promoting the designers and programmers responsible for its games. EA published numerous games and productivity software for personal computers and later experimented on techniques to internally develop games, leading to the 1987 release of Skate or Die!. The company would later decide in favor of abandoning their original principles and acquiring smaller companies that they see profitable, as well as annually releasing franchises to stay profitable.
Trip Hawkins era: origins, founding, success (1982–1990)
Trip Hawkins had been an employee of Apple Inc. since 1978, at a time when the company had only about fifty employees. Over the next four years, the market for home personal computers skyrocketed. By 1982, Apple had completed its initial public offering (IPO) and become a Fortune 500 company with over one thousand employees. In February 1982, Trip Hawkins arranged a meeting with Don Valentine of Sequoia Capital to discuss financing his new venture, Amazin' Software. Valentine encouraged Hawkins to leave Apple, where Hawkins served as Director of Product Marketing, and allowed Hawkins use of Sequoia Capital's spare office space to start the company. On May 27, 1982, Trip Hawkins incorporated and established the company with a personal investment of an estimated Template:US$.Template:Rp For more than seven months, Hawkins refined his Electronic Arts business plan. With aid from his first employee (with whom he worked in marketing at Apple), Rich Melmon, the original plan was written, mostly by Hawkins, on an Apple II in Sequoia Capital's office in August 1982. During that time, Hawkins also employed two of his former staff from Apple, Dave Evans and Pat Marriott, as producers, and a Stanford MBA classmate, Jeff Burton from Atari for international business development. The business plan was again refined in September and reissued on October 8, 1982. By November, employee headcount rose to 11, including Tim Mott, Bing Gordon, David Maynard, and Steve Hayes. Having outgrown the office space provided by Sequoia Capital, the company relocated to a San Mateo office that overlooked the San Francisco Airport landing path. Headcount rose rapidly in 1983, including Don Daglow, Richard Hilleman, Stewart Bonn, David Gardner, and Nancy Fong. When he incorporated the company, Hawkins originally chose Amazin' Software as their company name, but his other early employees of the company universally disliked the name. He scheduled an off-site meeting in the Pajaro Dunes, where the company once held such off-site meetings. Hawkins had developed the ideas of treating software as an art form and calling the developers, "software artists". Hence, the latest version of the business plan had suggested the name "SoftArt". However, Hawkins and Melmon knew the founders of Software Arts, the creators of VisiCalc, and thought their permission should be obtained. Dan Bricklin did not want the name used because it sounded too similar (perhaps "confusingly similar") to Software Arts. However, the name concept was liked by all the attendees. Hawkins had also recently read a bestselling book about the film studio United Artists, and liked the reputation that the company had created. Hawkins said everyone had a vote but they would lose it if they went to sleep. Hawkins liked the word "electronic", and various employees had considered the phrases "Electronic Artists" and "Electronic Arts". When Gordon and others pushed for "Electronic Artists", in tribute to the film company United Artists, Steve Hayes opposed, saying, "We're not the artists, they [the developers] are..." This statement from Hayes immediately tilted sentiment towards Electronic Arts and the name was unanimously endorsed and adopted later in 1982. He recruited his original employees from Apple, Atari, Xerox PARC, and VisiCorp, and got Steve Wozniak to agree to sit on the board of directors. Hawkins was determined to sell directly to buyers. Combined with the fact that Hawkins was pioneering new game brands, this made sales growth more challenging. Retailers wanted to buy known brands from existing distribution partners. Former CEO Larry Probst arrived as VP of Sales in late 1984 and helped expand the already successful company. This policy of dealing directly with retailers gave EA higher margins and better market awareness, key advantages the company would leverage to leapfrog its early competitors. A novel approach to giving credit to its developers was one of EA's trademarks in its early days. This characterization was even further reinforced with EA's packaging of most of their games in the "album cover" pioneered by EA because Hawkins thought that a record album style would both save costs and convey an artistic feeling. EA routinely referred to their developers as "artists" and gave them photo credits in their games and numerous full-page magazine ads. Their first such ad, accompanied by the slogan "We see farther," was the first video game advertisement to feature software designers. EA also shared lavish profits with their developers, which added to their industry appeal. The square "album cover" boxes (such as the covers for 1983's M.U.L.E. and Pinball Construction Set) were a popular packaging concept by Electronic Arts, which wanted to represent their developers as "rock stars". Template:Quote box In the mid-1980s, Electronic Arts aggressively marketed products for the Commodore Amiga, a premier home computer of the late 1980s and early 1990s in Europe. Commodore had given EA development tools and prototype machines before Amiga's actual launch.Template:Rp For Amiga EA published some notable non-game titles. A drawing program Deluxe Paint (1985) and its subsequent versions became perhaps the most famous piece of software available for Amiga platform. In addition, EA's Jerry Morrison conceived the idea of a file format that could store images, animations, sounds, and documents simultaneously, and would be compatible with third-party software. He wrote and released to the public the Interchange File Format, which would soon become an Amiga standard.Template:Rp Other Amiga programs released by EA included Deluxe Music Construction Set, Instant Music and Deluxe Paint Animation. Some of them, most notably Deluxe Paint, were ported to other platforms. For Macintosh EA released a black & white animation tool called Studio/1, and a series of Paint titles called Studio/8 and Studio/32 (1990). Relationships between Electronic Arts and their external developers often became difficult when the latter missed deadlines or diverged from the former's creative directions. In 1987, EA released Skate or Die!, their first internally developed game. EA would continue publishing their external developers' games while experimenting with their internal development strategy. This led to EA's decision of purchasing out a series of companies they identify as successful, as well as the decision to release annualized franchises to cut budget costs. Because of Trip Hawkins' obsession of simulating a sports game, he signed a contract with football coach John Madden that would lead to EA's developing and releasing annual Madden NFL games.Template:RpTemplate:Rp In 1988 EA published a flight simulator game exclusively for Amiga, F/A-18 Interceptor, which received attention due to its vector graphics that were notable for 1988 standards. Another significant Amiga release (also initially available for Atari ST, later converted for numerous other platforms) was Populous (1989) developed by Bullfrog Productions. It was a pioneering and influential title in the genre that was later called "god games".Template:Rp
Hawkins stepping down, Larry Probst rising (1990–1999)
In 1990, Electronic Arts began producing console games for the Nintendo Entertainment System, after previously licensing its computer games to other console-game publishers. A year later, Trip Hawkins stepped down as EA's CEO and was succeeded by Larry ProbstTemplate:Rp to found the now-defunct 3DO Company, while remaining the former company's chair until July 1994. There, once a critic of game consoles, Hawkins conceived a console that unlike its competitors would not require a first-party license to be marketed, and was intended to appeal to the PC market. In October 1993, 3DO developed the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer, which at the time was the most powerful game console. Electronic Arts was The 3DO Company's primary partner in sponsoring their console, showcasing on it their latest games. With a retail price of US$700 (Template:Inflation) compared to its competitors' $100, the console lagged in sales, and with the 1995 arrival to North America of Sony's PlayStation, a cheaper and more powerful alternative, combined with a lower quality of the 3DO's software library as a backfiring of its liberal license policy, it fell further behind and lost competition. Electronic Arts dropped its support for 3DO in favor of the PlayStation, 3DO's production ceased in 1996, and for the remainder of the company's lifetime, 3DO would develop video games for other consoles and the IBM PC until it folded in 2003.Template:RpTemplate:RpTemplate:Rp In 1995 Electronic Arts won the European Computer Trade Show award for best software publisher of the year. As the company was still expanding, they opted to purchase space in Redwood Shores, California in 1995 for construction of a new headquarters, which was completed in 1998. Early in 1997, Next Generation identified Electronic Arts as the only company to regularly profit from video games over the past five years, and noted it had "a critical track record second to none".
Continuous expansion and success through the new millennium (1999–2007)
EA is headquartered in the Redwood Shores neighborhood of Redwood City, California. In 1999, EA replaced their long-running Shapes logo with one based on the EA Sports logo used at the time, and Larry Probst took over the reins. EA also started to use a brand-specific structure around this time, with the main publishing side of the company re-branding to EA Games. The EA Sports brand was retained for major sports titles, the new EA Sports Big label would be used for casual sports titles with an arcade twist, and the full Electronic Arts name would be used for co-published and distributed titles. EA began to move toward direct distribution of digital games and services with the acquisition of the popular online gaming site Pogo.com in 2001. In 2009, EA acquired the London-based social gaming startup Playfish. In 2004, EA made a multimillion-dollar donation to fund the development of game production curriculum at the University of Southern California's Interactive Media Division. On February 1, 2006, Electronic Arts announced that it would cut worldwide staff by 5 percent. On June 20, 2006, EA purchased Mythic Entertainment, who are finished making Warhammer Online. After Sega's ESPN NFL 2K5 successfully grabbed market share away from EA's dominant Madden NFL series during the 2004 holiday season, EA responded by making several large sports licensing deals which include an exclusive agreement with the NFL, and in January 2005, a 15-year deal with ESPN. The ESPN deal gave EA exclusive first rights to all ESPN content for sports simulation games. On April 11, 2005, EA announced a similar, 6-year licensing deal with the Collegiate Licensing Company (CLC) for exclusive rights to college football content. Much of EA's success, both in terms of sales and with regards to its stock market valuation, is due to its strategy of platform-agnostic development and the creation of strong multi-year franchises. EA was the first publisher to release yearly updates of its sports franchises—Madden, FIFA, NHL, NBA Live, Tiger Woods, etc.—with updated player rosters and small graphical and gameplay tweaks. Recognizing the risk of franchise fatigue among consumers, EA announced in 2006 that it would concentrate more of its effort on creating new original intellectual property. In September 2006, Nokia and EA announced a partnership in which EA becomes an exclusive major supplier of mobile games to Nokia mobile devices through the Nokia Content Discoverer. In the beginning, Nokia customers were able to download seven EA titles (Tetris, Tetris Mania, The Sims 2, Doom, FIFA 06, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06 and FIFA Street 2) on the holiday season in 2006. Rick Simonson is the executive vice-president and director of Nokia and starting from 2006 is affiliated with John Riccitiello and are partners.
Studios
•BioWare in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada; founded in February 1995, acquired October 2007 from Elevation Partners. •Chillingo in Macclesfield, England. •Criterion Games in Guildford, England; founded as Criterion Software in 1993, acquired in August 2004. •DICE Los Angeles in Los Angeles, California; founded as DreamWorks Interactive LLC in 1995, acquired in 2000. •EA Baton Rouge in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, U.S.; opened in September 2008. •EA Capital Games (formerly KlickNation, then BioWare Sacramento) in Sacramento, California founded in 2008, specialised in creating mobile games, acquired in 2011. •EA DICE in Stockholm, Sweden; founded in 1992, acquired in 2005. •EA Mobile in Los Angeles, California. •EA Montreal in Montreal, Quebec, Canada; formed in 2004. •EA Redwood Studios in Redwood City, California, U.S.; formed in 2016 and developed Command & Conquer: Rivals. •EA Romania in Bucharest, Romania; founded as JAMDAT Mobile Romania in 2005, acquired in 2006. •EA Singapore in Singapore. •EA Tiburon in Maitland, Florida, U.S.; founded as Tiburon Entertainment in 1994, acquired in 1998. •EA Vancouver in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada; formed in January 1983. •Frostbite Labs; formed in 2016. •Ghost Games in Gothenburg, Sweden; founded as EA Gothenburg in 2011, rebranded in 2012. •Industrial Toys in Pasadena, California, U.S.; founded in 2012, acquired in July 2018. •Motive Studios in Montreal, Quebec, Canada; formed in 2015. •PopCap Games in Seattle, Washington, U.S.; acquired in 2011. •Respawn Entertainment in Sherman Oaks, California, U.S.; acquired in 2017. •Spearhead in Seoul, South Korea; founded in 1998 as EA Korea. •Tracktwenty in Helsinki, Finland. •Uprise (formerly ESN) in Uppsala, Sweden; founded in 2002, acquired in 2012.
EA Partners program (1997–present)
EA Partners co-publishing program was dedicated to publishing and distributing games developed by third-party developers. EA Partners began as EA Distribution, formed in 1997 and led by Tom Frisina, a former executive from Accolade and Three-Sixty who helped both companies find third-party developers as to provide publishing support for them. Frisina's early partners included Looking Glass Studios, MGM Interactive for the rights to the James Bond property, DreamWorks Interactive, and eventually DICE; in the latter two cases, these studios would later be acquired by EA as part of the EA DICE family.[111] In 2003, EA's president John Riccitiello pushed for a renaming of the EA Distribution label, seeing the potential to bring in more independent developers and additional revenue streams. While they rebraned the label as EA Partners in 2003, Riccitiello left EA the following year, which disrupted the direction the label had been aiming to go.[112][111] Inhabitants, who had signed on with EA Partner for their next Oddworld games, found the situation difficult as EA Partners was reluctant to support games where they did not own the intellectual property rights and instead favored internal development.[111] The situation with EA Partners switched gears in 2005 after EA and Valve Corporation signed a EA Partners deal for the physical distribution of The Orange Box; EA Partners realized it needed to be flexible to handle the different publishing opportunities presented to them. A similar breakthrough was reached with signing on Harmonix for the distribution of the Rock Band games, requiring them to work closely with MTV Games on the plastic instrument controllers necessary for the titles.[111] A number of major partnerships were made over the next few years, including Namco Bandai, Crytek, Starbreeze Studios, id Software, Epic Games and People Can Fly, Double Fine Productions, Grasshopper Manufacture, Spicy Horse, and Realtime Worlds.[111] While many of these partnerships proved successful, the division had two major marks on its name. It was associated with the situation around Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning developed by 38 Studios, which had been significantly backed by loans from taxpayer funds from the state of Rhode Island. Kingdoms failed to be commercially successful, and EA Partners pulled out of making a sequel, leaving 38 Studios in default of its loan payback to the state. Secondly, while The Secret World from Funcom launched as a paid-for game without subscriptions, Funcom had to switch their monetization model to free-to-play to improve their revenues, which further affected EA Partners.[113] Around April 2013, as part of a large 1000-employee layoff, many reporters claimed that EA Partners was also being shut down for its poor commercial performance,[114] but the program remained active as the company refocused its efforts.[115] The label remained dormant over the next several years, while Letts expanded on the EA Originals program, but following the move of EA Partners and EA Origins into the Strategic Growth group in August 2018,[116] the label was revived on the March 2019 with a publishing deal with Velan Studios, formed from the former heads of Vicarious Visions.[117] Notable publishing/distribution agreements include: •Alice: Madness Returns – Spicy Horse •APB – Realtime Worlds •Brütal Legend – Double Fine Productions •Bulletstorm – Epic Games •Crysis series – Crytek •DeathSpank – Hothead Games •Fuse – Insomniac Games[118] •Hellgate: London – Flagship Studios •Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning – 38 Studios, Big Huge Games •Rock Band series – Harmonix and MTV Games •The Secret World – Funcom[119] •Shadows of the Damned – Grasshopper Manufacture •Shank series – Klei Entertainment •Syndicate – Starbreeze Studios •Warp – Trapdoor
EA Originals program (2017–present)
Template:Anchor EA Originals is a program within Electronic Arts to help support independently-developed video games. The program was announced at EA's press event at the 2016 E3 Conference, and builds upon the success they had with Unravel by Coldwood Interactive in 2015. The first game to be supported under this program is Fe by Zoink, with plans for release in 2018.[120][121] It was followed by A Way Out by Hazelight Studios and eventually Sea of Solitude by Jo-Mei Games.
Since the mid-2000s, Electronic Arts has been in the center of numerous controversies involving acquisitions of companies and alleged anti-consumerist practices in their individual games (which can be further read on their own articles), as well as lawsuits alleging EA's anti-competition when signing sports-related contracts.
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Feb 16, 2007 · In its twenty-five years of existence, Electronic Arts has grown from a modest start-up to the world's largest games publisher. Gamasutra explores EA's history, with insight from founder Trip Hawkins and current EVP Frank Gibeau, in this in-depth special feature.
Electronic Arts, Inc. (EA Games) is a large company which makes computer and video games all over the world. They made famous games such as FIFA, The Sims, Madden NFL and Medal of Honor. They also made the Need for Speed series. EAs most popular products are the games which are sold under the EA Sports label.
