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Wikipedia

Electronic Arts

March 21, 2023

"EA" redirects here. For other uses, see EA (disambiguation).
This article is about the video game company. For the art form, see Electronic art.

Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by 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." EA published numerous games and some productivity software for personal computers, all of which were developed by external individuals or groups until 1987's Skate or Die!. The company shifted toward internal game studios, often through acquisitions, such as Distinctive Software becoming EA Canada in 1991.

Electronic Arts Inc.
The EA headquarters building at Redwood City, California in May 2011
TypePublic
IndustryVideo games
FoundedMay 27, 1982; 40 years ago (1982-05-27) in San Mateo, California, US
FounderTrip Hawkins
Headquarters
Redwood City, California
,
US
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
ProductsSee list of Electronic Arts games
Revenue US$6.99 billion[1] (2022)
US$1.13 billion[1] (2022)
US$789 million[1] (2022)
Total assets US$13.8 billion[1] (2022)
Total equity US$7.63 billion[1] (2022)
Number of employees
c. 12,900[1] (2022)
SubsidiariesSee § Development studios
Websiteea.com

Currently, EA develops and publishes games of established franchises, including Battlefield, Need for Speed, The Sims, Medal of Honor, Command & Conquer, Dead Space, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Army of Two, Apex Legends, and Star Wars, as well as the EA Sports titles FIFA, Madden NFL, NBA Live, NHL, and EA Sports UFC.[2] Their desktop titles appear on self-developed Origin, an online gaming digital distribution platform for PCs and a direct competitor to Valve's Steam and Epic Games' Store. EA also owns and operates major gaming studios such as EA Tiburon in Orlando, EA Vancouver in Burnaby, EA Romania in Bucharest, DICE in Stockholm, Motive Studio in Montreal, BioWare in Edmonton and Austin, and Respawn Entertainment in Los Angeles and Vancouver.[3][4]

History

1982–1991: Trip Hawkins era, founding, and early success

 
Electronic Arts' founder, Trip Hawkins, in 2013

Trip Hawkins had been an employee of Apple 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.[5]

In February 1982, Trip Hawkins arranged a meeting with Don Valentine of Sequoia Capital[6] 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,[7] Trip Hawkins incorporated and established the company with a personal investment of an estimated US$200,000.[5][8]: 89 

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, the employee headcount rose to 11, including Tim Mott, Bing Gordon, David Maynard, and Steve Hayes.[9][5] 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 and Richard Hilleman.[citation needed]

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 and it changed its name to Electronic Arts in November 1982.[9] He scheduled an off-site meeting in the Pajaro Dunes, where the company once held such off-site meetings.[10] 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.[11]

 
Electronic Arts' original corporate logo, designed by Barry Deutsch, 1982–1999.[9]

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.[11] 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.[12] 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 leveraged to leapfrog its early competitors.[5][13]

Promoting its developers was a trademark of EA's early days. Games were sold in square packages modeled after album covers (such as those for 1983's M.U.L.E. and Pinball Construction Set).[14] Hawkins thought the packaging would both save costs and convey an artistic feeling.[14] EA routinely referred to their developers as "artists" and gave them photo credits in their games and 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.[13] EA shared lavish profits with their developers, which added to their industry appeal.

The Amiga will revolutionize the home computer industry. It's the first home machine that has everything you want and need for all the major uses of a home computer, including entertainment, education and productivity. The software we're developing for the Amiga will blow your socks off. We think the Amiga, with its incomparable power, sound and graphics, will give Electronic Arts and the entire industry a very bright future.

–Trip Hawkins, 1985 Amiga advertisement[15]: 6 

In the mid-1980s, Electronic Arts aggressively marketed products for the Amiga, a home computer introduced in 1985. Commodore had given EA development tools and prototype machines before Amiga's actual launch.[15]: 56  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 soon became an Amiga standard.[16]: 45  Other Amiga programs released by EA included Deluxe Music Construction Set, Instant Music[17] and Deluxe Paint Animation.[18] Some of them, most notably Deluxe Paint, were ported to other platforms. For Macintosh EA released a black & white animation tool called Studio/1,[19] and a series of Paint titles called Studio/8 and Studio/32 (1990).[20]

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 continued 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 led to EA's developing and releasing annual Madden NFL games.[21]: 8 [21]: 10 

In 1988, EA published a flight simulator game exclusively for Amiga, F/A-18 Interceptor, with filled-polygon graphics that were advanced for the time.[22][23] Another significant Amiga release (also initially available for Atari ST, later converted for other platforms) was Populous (1989) developed by Bullfrog Productions. It was a pioneering title in the genre that was later called "god games".[24]: 282  In 1990, Electronic Arts began producing console games for the Nintendo Entertainment System, after previously licensing its computer games to other console-game publishers.[25]

1991–2007: Larry Probst era, continuous expansion, and success into the new millennium

In 1991, Trip Hawkins stepped down as EA's CEO and was succeeded by Larry Probst.[24]: 186  Hawkins went on to found the now-defunct 3DO Company, but still remained EA's chair until July 1994. In October 1993, 3DO developed the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer, which at the time was the most powerful game console. Once a critic of game consoles, Hawkins had 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. 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 (equivalent to $1,313.08 in 2021) 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 developed video games for other consoles and the IBM PC until it folded in 2003.[5][11][26]: 79 [24]: 283 [24]: 646 [27]

 
EA headquarters in October 2007.

In 1995, Electronic Arts won the European Computer Trade Show award for best software publisher of the year.[28] As the company was still expanding, they opted to purchase space in Redwood Shores, California in 1995 for construction of a new headquarters,[29] which was completed in 1998.[5] 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".[30]

In 1999, EA replaced their long-running Shapes logo with one based on the EA Sports logo used at the time. EA also started to use a brand-specific structure around this time, with the main publishing side of the company rebranding 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.[9][31]

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.[32] In 2009, EA acquired the London-based social gaming startup Playfish.[33]

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.[34] On June 20, 2006, EA purchased Mythic Entertainment, who are finished making Warhammer Online.[35]

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.[36] 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.[37]

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.[38] 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.[39]

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.[40]

2007–2013: John Riccitiello era

In February 2007, Probst stepped down from the CEO job while remaining on the board of directors. His handpicked successor is John Riccitiello, who had worked at EA for several years previously, departed for a while, and then returned.[41] Riccitiello previously worked for Elevation Partners, Sara Lee and PepsiCo. In June 2007, new CEO John Riccitiello announced that EA would reorganize itself into four labels, each with responsibility for its own product development and publishing (the city-state model). The goal of the reorganization was to empower the labels to operate more autonomously, streamline decision-making, increase creativity and quality, and get games into the market faster.[42] This reorganization came after years of consolidation and acquisition by EA of smaller studios, which some in the industry blamed for a decrease in quality of EA titles. In 2008, at the DICE Summit, Riccitiello called the earlier approach of "buy and assimilate" a mistake, often stripping smaller studios of its creative talent. Riccitiello said that the city-state model allows independent developers to remain autonomous to a large extent, and cited Maxis and BioWare as examples of studios thriving under the new structure.[43][44]

Also, in 2007, EA announced that it would be bringing some of its major titles to the Mac. EA has released Battlefield 2142, Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars, Crysis, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Madden NFL 08, Need for Speed: Carbon and Spore for the Mac. All of the new games have been developed for the Macintosh using Cider, a technology developed by TransGaming that enables Intel-based Macs to run Windows games inside a translation layer running on Mac OS X. They are not playable on PowerPC-based Macs.[45]

It was revealed in February 2008 that Electronic Arts had made a takeover bid for rival game company Take-Two Interactive. After its initial offer of US$25 per share, all cash stock transaction offer was rejected by the Take-Two board, EA revised it to US$26 per share, a 64% premium over the previous day's closing price and made the offer known to the public.[46] Rumours had been floating around the Internet prior to the offer about Take-Two possibly being bought over by a bigger company, albeit with Viacom as the potential bidder.[47][48] In May 2008, EA announced that it will purchase the assets of Hands-On Mobile Korea, a South Korean mobile game developer and publisher. The company will become EA Mobile Korea.[49] In September 2008, EA dropped its buyout offer of Take-Two. No reason was given.[50]

As of November 6, 2008, it was confirmed that Electronic Arts is closing their Casual Label & merging it with their Hasbro partnership with The Sims Label.[51] EA also confirmed the departure of Kathy Vrabeck, who was given the position as former president of the EA Casual Division in May 2007. EA made this statement about the merger: "We've learned a lot about casual entertainment in the past two years, and found that casual gaming defies a single genre and demographic. With the retirement and departure of Kathy Vrabeck, EA is reorganizing to integrate casual games—development and marketing—into other divisions of our business. We are merging our Casual Studios, Hasbro partnership, and Casual marketing organization with The Sims Label to be a new Sims and Casual Label, where there is a deep compatibility in the product design, marketing and demographics. [...] In the days and weeks ahead, we will make further announcements on the reporting structure for the other businesses in the Casual Label including EA Mobile, Pogo, Media Sales and Online Casual Initiatives. Those businesses remain growth priorities for EA and deserve strong support in a group that will complement their objectives."[52] This statement comes a week after EA announced it was laying off 6% about 600 of their staff positions and had a US$310 million net loss for the quarter.[53]

Due to the 2008 economic crisis, Electronic Arts had a poorer than expected 2008 holiday season, moving it in February 2009 to cut approximately 1100 jobs, which it said represented about 11% of its workforce. It also closed 12 of their facilities. Riccitiello, in a conference call with reporters, stated that their poor performance in the fourth quarter was not due entirely to the poor economy, but also to the fact that they did not release any blockbuster titles in the quarter. In the quarter ending December 31, 2008, the company lost US$641 million. On February 2, 2009, Ludlum Entertainment had inked a deal with Electronic Arts to grant exclusive rights to bring the work of Robert Ludlum into video gaming.[54] As of early May 2009, the subsidiary studio EA Redwood Shores was known as Visceral Games.[55][56] On June 24, 2009, EA announced it will merge two of its development studios, BioWare and Mythic into one single role-playing video game and MMO development powerhouse. The move will actually place Mythic under control of BioWare as Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk will be in direct control of the new entity.[57] By fall 2012, both Muzyka and Zeschuk had chosen to depart the merged entity in a joint retirement announcement.[58][59][60]

On November 9, 2009, EA announced layoffs of 1,500 employees, representing 17% of its workforce, across a number of studios including EA Tiburon, Visceral Games, Mythic and EA Black Box. Also affected were "projects and support activities" that, according to Chief Financial Officer Eric Brown "don't make economic sense",[61] resulting in the shutdown of popular communities such as Battlefield News and the EA Community Team. These layoffs also led to the complete shutdown of Pandemic Studios.[62]

"Chillingo" redirects here. Not to be confused with Chilango.

In October 2010, EA announced the acquisition of England-based iPhone and iPad games publisher Chillingo for US$20 million in cash. Chillingo published the popular Angry Birds for iOS and Cut the Rope for all platforms, but the deal did not include those properties,[63] so Cut the Rope became published by ZeptoLab, and Angry Birds became published by Rovio Entertainment.

On May 4, 2011, EA reported $3.8 billion in revenues for the fiscal year ending March 2011, and on January 13, 2012, EA announced that it had exceeded $1 billion in digital revenue during the previous calendar year.[64] In a note to employees, EA CEO John Riccitiello called this "an incredibly important milestone" for the company.[65]

In June 2011, EA launched Origin, an online service to sell downloadable games for personal computers directly to consumers.[66] Around this time, Valve, which runs Steam in direct competition with Origin, announced changes to storefront policy disallowing games that used in-game purchases that were not tied to Steam's purchasing process, and removed several of EA's games, including Crysis 2, Dragon Age II, and Alice: Madness Returns in 2012.[67] Though EA released a new packaged version of Crysis 2 that including all the downloadable content without the storefront features, EA did not publish any additional games on Steam until 2019, instead selling all personal computer versions of games through Origin.[68]

In July 2011, EA announced that it had acquired PopCap Games, the company behind games such as Plants vs. Zombies and Bejeweled.[69] EA continued its shift toward digital goods in 2012, folding its mobile-focused EA Interactive (EAi) division "into other organizations throughout the company, specifically those divisions led by EA Labels president Frank Gibeau, COO Peter Moore, and CTO Rajat Taneja, and EVP of digital Kristian Segerstrale."[64]

2013–present: Andrew Wilson era, Disney partnership, and monetization

On March 18, 2013, John Riccitiello announced that he would be stepping down as CEO and a member of the Board of Directors on March 30, 2013. Larry Probst was also appointed executive chairman on the same day.[70] Andrew Wilson was named as the new CEO of EA by September 2013.[71]

In April 2013, EA announced a reorganization which was to include dismissal of 10% of their workforce, consolidation of marketing functions which were distributed among the five label organizations, and subsumption of Origin operational leadership under the President of Labels.[72][73]

EA acquired the lucrative exclusive license to develop games within the Star Wars universe from Disney in May 2013, shortly after Disney's closure of its internal LucasArts game development in 2013. EA secured its license from 2013 through 2023, and began to assign new Star Wars projects across several of its internal studios, including BioWare, DICE, Visceral Games, Motive Studios, Capital Games and external developer Respawn Entertainment.[74][75]

In April 2015, EA announced that it would be shutting down various free-to-play games in July of that year, including Battlefield Heroes, Battlefield Play4Free, Need for Speed: World, and FIFA World.[76]

The reorganization and revised marketing strategy lead to a gradual increase in stock value. In July 2015, Electronic Arts reached an all-time high with a stock value of US$71.63, surpassing the previous February 2005 record of $68.12. This is also up 54% from $46.57 in early January 2015. The surge was partly attributed to EA's then-highly anticipated Star Wars Battlefront reboot, which released one month before Star Wars: The Force Awakens, also highly anticipated.[77]

During E3 2015, vice-president of the company, Patrick Söderlund, announced that the company will start investing more on smaller titles such as Unravel so as to broaden the company's portfolio.[78] On December 10, 2015, EA announced a new division called Competitive Gaming Division, which focuses on creating competitive game experience and organizing ESports events. It was once headed by Peter Moore.[79] In May 2016, Electronic Arts announced that they had formed a new internal division called Frostbite Labs. The new department specializes in creating new projects for virtual reality platforms, and "virtual humans". The new department is located in Stockholm and Vancouver.[80]

EA announced the closure of Visceral Games in October 2017. Prior, Visceral had been supporting EA's other games but was also working on a Star Wars title named Project Ragtag since EA's acquisition of the Star Wars license, even hiring Amy Hennig to direct the project. While EA did not formally give a reason for the closure, industry pundits believed that EA was concerned about the principally single-player game which would be difficult to monetize, as well as the slow pace of development.[81]

EA's original approach to the microtransactions in Star Wars Battlefront II sparked an industry-wide debate on the use of random-content loot boxes. While other games had used loot boxes, EA's original approach within Battlefront II from its early October 2017 launch included using such mechanics for pay to win gameplay elements, as well as locking various Star Wars characters behind expensive paywalls, leading several gaming journalists and players to complain. EA modified some of the costs of these elements in anticipation of the game's full November 2017 launch, but they were reportedly told by Disney to disable all microtransactions until they could come up with a fairer monetization scheme.[82] Ultimately, by March 2018, EA had developed a fairer system that eliminated the pay to win elements and drastically reduced costs for unlocking characters. The controversy over Battlefront II's loot boxes led to an 8.5% drop in stock value in one month—about $3.1 billion and impacted EA's financial results for the following quarters. Further, the visibility of this controversial led to debate at government levels around the world to determine if loot boxes were a form of gambling and if they should be regulated.[83][84][85][86]

In January 2018, EA announced eMLS, a new competitive league for EA Sports' FIFA 18 through its Competitive Gaming Division (CGD) and MLS.[87] That same month, EA teamed up with ESPN and Disney XD in a multi-year pact to broadcast Madden NFL competitive matches across the world through its Competitive Gaming Division arm.[88]

On August 14, 2018, Patrick Söderlund announced his departure from EA as its vice-president and chief design officer, after serving twelve years with the company. With Söderlund's departure, the SEED group was moved as part of EA's studios, while the EA Originals and EA Partners teams were moved under the company's Strategic Growth group.[89]

On February 6, 2019, Electronic Arts' stock value was hit by a decline of 13.3%, the worst decline since Halloween 2008. This was largely due to the marketing of their anticipated title Battlefield V, which was released after the holiday season of October 2018. Stocks were already declining since late August, when EA announced that Battlefield V's release would be delayed until November. Upon release, the game was met with a mixed reception, and EA sold one million fewer copies than their expected figure of 7.3 million. Also attributed to the stock plunge was the game's lack of the game mode Battle Royale, popularized by PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds and then Fortnite.[90] Stocks then surged 9.6% with the surprise release of Apex Legends, which garnered 25 million players in just one week, smashing Fortnite's record of 10 million players in two weeks.[91][92] In advance of the end of its financial quarter ending March 31, 2019, Wilson announced they were cutting about 350 jobs, or about 4% of its workforce, primarily from their marketing, publishing, and operations divisions. Wilson stated the layoffs were necessary to "address our challenges and prepare for the opportunities ahead".[93]

EA announced in October 2019 that it would be returning to release games on Steam, starting with the November 2019 release of Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order, as well as bringing the EA Access subscription service to Steam. While EA plans to continue to sell games on Origin, the move to add Steam releases was to help get more consumers to see their offerings.[94]

Due to COVID-19 lockdowns and growing demand for online games, EA's revenue grew to $1.4bn in the first quarter of 2020.[95]

EA rebranded both EA Access and Origin to EA Play on August 18, 2020, but otherwise without changing the subscription price or services offered as part of a streamlining effort.[96]

In December 2020, EA placed a bid to buy Codemasters, a British developer of racing games, in a deal worth $1.2 billion, outbidding an earlier offer placed by Take-Two Interactive.[97] The acquisition, agreed to by Codemasters, was completed by February 18, 2021, with all shares of Codemasters transferred to Codex Games Limited, a subsidiary of EA. Wilson stated that "the franchises in our combined portfolio will enable us to create innovative new experiences and bring more players into the excitement of cars and motorsport".[98][99]

In January 2021, Disney announced it had revived the Lucasfilm Games label for its licensed video game properties and announced new games including a new Star Wars game that would be developed by Ubisoft aimed for release in 2023, indicating that EA's ten-year exclusive license in 2013 to the Star Wars property was likely not extended.[100] EA still maintained a non-exclusive license to Star Wars games, affirming more titles will be coming following this announcement.[101] As of February 2021, EA's Star Wars games had sold more than 52 million copies and brought in more than $3 billion in revenue.[101]

After a six-year absence from producing college sports-based game due to legal issues related to student athlete likenesses with the NCAA, EA announced in February 2021 that it was returning to college sports with a planned EA Sports College Football title to likely be released in 2023.[102]

The company announced its plans to extend its mobile commitment in February 2021 by acquiring Glu Mobile in an deal estimated worth $2.1 billion.[103] The acquisition was completed by the end of April 2021.[104]

The Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia acquired 7.4 million shares of EA, valued at $1.1 billion, in February 2021.[105]

Former CEO and current chairman Probst stated in May 2021 he was retiring from the company. Current EA CEO Wilson took over as chairman.[106]

In June 2021, EA confirmed that they had suffered a data breach, with game and engine source code taken from their servers, including the source for the Frostbite Engine and FIFA 21, though assuring no player or user data had been obtained. Hackers that had taken the code had started selling it around on the dark web.[107] The perpetuators of this breach began to extort EA for money in July, releasing small portions of the data to public forums and threatening to release more if their demands were not met.[108]

EA acquired mobile game developer Playdemic Studios in Manchester, England from Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment in June 2021 for $1.4 billion, following the merger of Discovery, Inc. with WarnerMedia. The acquisition is expected to complete by 2022.[109]

In their SEC filings in September 2021, the company said that current CFO and COO Blake Jorgensen will be stepping down by mid-2022. The company's COO role will be taken over by Chief Studios Officer Laura Miele, while a search for a new CFO will be launched.[110] Longtime Microsoft executive Chris Suh was later appointed as CFO in March 2022.

Industry reports around May 2022 asserted that EA had been looking to be acquired by larger media firms, including Disney, Apple, and Comcast/NBCUniversal. These reports said that EA had been nearing a final deal that would have had NBCUniversal spun out from Comcast before bringing EA within it. Amazon was also mentioned as a possible customer for EA, though CNBC reported in late August that Amazon is no longer interested in a takeover.[111]

Games

Main article: List of Electronic Arts games

Company structure

See also: List of acquisitions by Electronic Arts

EA is headed by CEO Andrew Wilson. All of the studios' group general managers from EA respond to Laura Miele, previous head of EA Worldwide Studios as Chief Studios Officer, and currently COO.[112] One of the group general managers is Samantha Ryan who is Group General Manager for studios like BioWare, Motive Studio, Full Circle, Maxis and an unnamed studio in Seattle.[113]

Development studios

Former

Labels

EA Worldwide Studios

Formerly EA Games, EA Worldwide Studios is home to many of EA's studios, which are responsible for action-adventure, role playing, racing and combat games marketed under the EA brand. In addition to traditional packaged-goods games, EA Worldwide Studios also develops massively multiplayer online role-playing games.[citation needed] As of April 2018, the division is led by Laura Miele.[168]

EA Sports

Main article: EA Sports

First introduced in 1991 as the Electronic Arts Sports Network, before being renamed due to a trademark dispute with ESPN,[169] EA Sports publishes all the sports games from EA, including FIFA Football, Madden NFL, Fight Night, NBA Live, NCAA Football, Cricket, NCAA March Madness, Tiger Woods PGA Tour, NHL, NASCAR and Rugby.[citation needed] In 2011, Forbes ranked EA Sports eighth on their list of most valuable sports brands, with a value of $625 million.[170]

EA All Play

EA All Play is a mobile-oriented label that, since 2012, publishes digital titles like The Simpsons', Tetris, and Battlefield, as well as Hasbro board games like Scrabble.[171]

EA Competitive Gaming Division

The EA Competitive Gaming Division (CGD), founded in 2015 by Peter Moore and currently headed by Todd Sitrin, is the group dedicated on enabling global eSports competitions on EA's biggest franchises including FIFA, Madden NFL, Battlefield and more.[172]

SEED

The Search for Extraordinary Experiences Division (SEED) was revealed at the 2017 Electronic Entertainment Expo as a technology research division and incubator, using tools like deep learning and neural networks to bring in player experiences and other external factors to help them develop more immersive narratives and games.[173][174] SEED has offices in Los Angeles and Stockholm.[175]

Former labels

  • EA Kids — A label for educational titles. In January 1995, EA sold the label to and in conjunction with Capital Cities/ABC formed the independent ABC/EA Home Software, which was later absorbed into Creative Wonders in that year's May.[176][177][178] In October 1997, EA and ABC sold Creative Wonders to The Learning Company for $40 million.[179]
  • EA Sports Big — A label used from 2000 to 2008 for arcade-styled extreme sports.
  • EA Sports Freestyle — A short-lived replacement for EA Sports Big used from 2008 to 2009, which focused exclusively on casual sports games, regardless of genre. The label was used for only three games before being retired.[31][180]
  • Electronic Arts Studios
  • EA Games

Partnership and initiatives

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 were acquired by EA as part of the EA DICE family.[181] 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 rebranded the label as EA Partners in 2003, Riccitiello left EA the following year, which disrupted the direction the label had been aiming to go.[182][181]

Oddworld 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.[181] The situation with EA Partners switched gears in 2005 after EA and Valve signed an 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.[181] 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.[181] 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 subscription game, Funcom had to switch their monetization model to free-to-play to improve their revenues, which further affected EA Partners.[better source needed][183]

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,[184] but the program remained active as the company refocused its efforts.[185] 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,[186] the label was revived on the March 2019 with a publishing deal with Velan Studios, formed from the former heads of Vicarious Visions.[187]

Notable publishing/distribution agreements include:

EA Originals label (2017–present)

EA Originals is a label within Electronic Arts own EA Partners program to help support independently developed video games. EA funds the money for development, and once it recoups that, all additional revenue goes to the partner studio that created the game. That studio also gets to keep the intellectual property rights for whatever it creates, and even has creative control over the project. The program was announced at EA's press event at the 2016 E3 Conference, and builds upon the success they had with Unravel from Coldwood Interactive in 2015. The first game to be supported under this program was Fe by Zoink, released in 2018.[190][191] It was followed by A Way Out from Hazelight Studios, Unravel Two from Coldwood Interactive and Sea of Solitude from Jo-Mei Games.[192]

In 2019, during its EA Play event, EA teased three new titles. Among the games featured were Lost in Random from Zoink and an unnamed title from Hazelight Studios. It was also announced that Glowmade would be entering the initiative with a title called RustHeart.[193] In June 2020, Hazelight Studios' untitled project was revealed as It Takes Two and was released the following year.

In February 2023, Jeff Gamon, general manager of EA Partners, which oversees the Originals label, said the label will now invest on bigger games, although for those cases, the deal won't be as generous as the smaller games, for obvious reasons, as those are larger companies. Gamon said though, that the company still plans to release smaller and niche games and don't want to completely abandon its roots.[194]

List of EA Originals games
Year Title Developer Platform(s)
2016 Unravel Coldwood Interactive Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One
2018 Fe Zoink Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One
A Way Out Hazelight Studios Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One
2019 Unravel Two Coldwood Interactive Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One
Sea of Solitude Jo-Mei Games
2020 Rocket Arena Final Strike Games Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One
2021 It Takes Two[195] Hazelight Studios Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch
Knockout City[196][a] Velan Studios Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S
Lost in Random Zoink Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S
2023 Wild Hearts[197] Omega Force Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S
Immortals of Aveum[198] Ascendant Studios
TBA RustHeart Glowmade

Criticism and controversies

Main article: Criticism of Electronic Arts

Since the mid-2010s, 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.

Notes

  1. ^ Publishing duties moved to Velan Studios in 2022

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Further reading

  • Sinclair, Brendan (January 4, 2006). "Innovation: does size matter?". GameSpot. CBS Interactive.
  • Becker, David (March 8, 2005). "Game makers see workplace changes". CNET. CBS Interactive.
  • Totilo, Stephen (September 12, 2006). "What's The 'Coolest Job Ever'? Electronic Arts' Summer Interns Tell Their Story". MTV. Viacom International.
  • Deck, Stewart (December 19, 2000). "Six Degrees of Hire Learning". ITworld. IDG Communications.
  • Varney, Allen (October 11, 2005). . The Escapist. Defy Media. Archived from the original on January 4, 2018. Retrieved January 22, 2017.

External links

 
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March 21, 2023
electronic, arts, redirects, here, other, uses, disambiguation, this, article, about, video, game, company, form, electronic, american, video, game, company, headquartered, redwood, city, california, founded, 1982, apple, employee, trip, hawkins, company, pion. EA redirects here For other uses see EA disambiguation This article is about the video game company For the art form see Electronic art Electronic Arts Inc EA is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City California Founded in May 1982 by 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 EA published numerous games and some productivity software for personal computers all of which were developed by external individuals or groups until 1987 s Skate or Die The company shifted toward internal game studios often through acquisitions such as Distinctive Software becoming EA Canada in 1991 Electronic Arts Inc The EA headquarters building at Redwood City California in May 2011TypePublicTraded asNasdaq EANasdaq 100 componentS amp P 500 componentIndustryVideo gamesFoundedMay 27 1982 40 years ago 1982 05 27 in San Mateo California USFounderTrip HawkinsHeadquartersRedwood City California USArea servedWorldwideKey peopleAndrew Wilson CEO and chairman Laura Miele COO Chris Suh CFO ProductsSee list of Electronic Arts gamesRevenueUS 6 99 billion 1 2022 Operating incomeUS 1 13 billion 1 2022 Net incomeUS 789 million 1 2022 Total assetsUS 13 8 billion 1 2022 Total equityUS 7 63 billion 1 2022 Number of employeesc 12 900 1 2022 SubsidiariesSee Development studiosWebsiteea wbr comCurrently EA develops and publishes games of established franchises including Battlefield Need for Speed The Sims Medal of Honor Command amp Conquer Dead Space Mass Effect Dragon Age Army of Two Apex Legends and Star Wars as well as the EA Sports titles FIFA Madden NFL NBA Live NHL and EA Sports UFC 2 Their desktop titles appear on self developed Origin an online gaming digital distribution platform for PCs and a direct competitor to Valve s Steam and Epic Games Store EA also owns and operates major gaming studios such as EA Tiburon in Orlando EA Vancouver in Burnaby EA Romania in Bucharest DICE in Stockholm Motive Studio in Montreal BioWare in Edmonton and Austin and Respawn Entertainment in Los Angeles and Vancouver 3 4 Contents 1 History 1 1 1982 1991 Trip Hawkins era founding and early success 1 2 1991 2007 Larry Probst era continuous expansion and success into the new millennium 1 3 2007 2013 John Riccitiello era 1 4 2013 present Andrew Wilson era Disney partnership and monetization 2 Games 3 Company structure 3 1 Development studios 3 1 1 Former 3 2 Labels 3 2 1 EA Worldwide Studios 3 2 2 EA Sports 3 2 3 EA All Play 3 2 4 EA Competitive Gaming Division 3 2 5 SEED 3 2 6 Former labels 4 Partnership and initiatives 4 1 EA Partners program 1997 present 4 2 EA Originals label 2017 present 5 Criticism and controversies 6 Notes 7 References 8 Further reading 9 External linksHistory1982 1991 Trip Hawkins era founding and early success Electronic Arts founder Trip Hawkins in 2013 Trip Hawkins had been an employee of Apple 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 5 In February 1982 Trip Hawkins arranged a meeting with Don Valentine of Sequoia Capital 6 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 7 Trip Hawkins incorporated and established the company with a personal investment of an estimated US 200 000 5 8 89 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 the employee headcount rose to 11 including Tim Mott Bing Gordon David Maynard and Steve Hayes 9 5 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 and Richard Hilleman citation needed 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 and it changed its name to Electronic Arts in November 1982 9 He scheduled an off site meeting in the Pajaro Dunes where the company once held such off site meetings 10 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 11 Electronic Arts original corporate logo designed by Barry Deutsch 1982 1999 9 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 11 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 12 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 leveraged to leapfrog its early competitors 5 13 Promoting its developers was a trademark of EA s early days Games were sold in square packages modeled after album covers such as those for 1983 s M U L E and Pinball Construction Set 14 Hawkins thought the packaging would both save costs and convey an artistic feeling 14 EA routinely referred to their developers as artists and gave them photo credits in their games and 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 13 EA shared lavish profits with their developers which added to their industry appeal The Amiga will revolutionize the home computer industry It s the first home machine that has everything you want and need for all the major uses of a home computer including entertainment education and productivity The software we re developing for the Amiga will blow your socks off We think the Amiga with its incomparable power sound and graphics will give Electronic Arts and the entire industry a very bright future Trip Hawkins 1985 Amiga advertisement 15 6 In the mid 1980s Electronic Arts aggressively marketed products for the Amiga a home computer introduced in 1985 Commodore had given EA development tools and prototype machines before Amiga s actual launch 15 56 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 soon became an Amiga standard 16 45 Other Amiga programs released by EA included Deluxe Music Construction Set Instant Music 17 and Deluxe Paint Animation 18 Some of them most notably Deluxe Paint were ported to other platforms For Macintosh EA released a black amp white animation tool called Studio 1 19 and a series of Paint titles called Studio 8 and Studio 32 1990 20 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 continued 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 led to EA s developing and releasing annual Madden NFL games 21 8 21 10 In 1988 EA published a flight simulator game exclusively for Amiga F A 18 Interceptor with filled polygon graphics that were advanced for the time 22 23 Another significant Amiga release also initially available for Atari ST later converted for other platforms was Populous 1989 developed by Bullfrog Productions It was a pioneering title in the genre that was later called god games 24 282 In 1990 Electronic Arts began producing console games for the Nintendo Entertainment System after previously licensing its computer games to other console game publishers 25 1991 2007 Larry Probst era continuous expansion and success into the new millennium In 1991 Trip Hawkins stepped down as EA s CEO and was succeeded by Larry Probst 24 186 Hawkins went on to found the now defunct 3DO Company but still remained EA s chair until July 1994 In October 1993 3DO developed the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer which at the time was the most powerful game console Once a critic of game consoles Hawkins had 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 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 equivalent to 1 313 08 in 2021 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 developed video games for other consoles and the IBM PC until it folded in 2003 5 11 26 79 24 283 24 646 27 EA headquarters in October 2007 In 1995 Electronic Arts won the European Computer Trade Show award for best software publisher of the year 28 As the company was still expanding they opted to purchase space in Redwood Shores California in 1995 for construction of a new headquarters 29 which was completed in 1998 5 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 30 In 1999 EA replaced their long running Shapes logo with one based on the EA Sports logo used at the time EA also started to use a brand specific structure around this time with the main publishing side of the company rebranding 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 9 31 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 32 In 2009 EA acquired the London based social gaming startup Playfish 33 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 34 On June 20 2006 EA purchased Mythic Entertainment who are finished making Warhammer Online 35 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 36 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 37 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 38 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 39 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 40 2007 2013 John Riccitiello era In February 2007 Probst stepped down from the CEO job while remaining on the board of directors His handpicked successor is John Riccitiello who had worked at EA for several years previously departed for a while and then returned 41 Riccitiello previously worked for Elevation Partners Sara Lee and PepsiCo In June 2007 new CEO John Riccitiello announced that EA would reorganize itself into four labels each with responsibility for its own product development and publishing the city state model The goal of the reorganization was to empower the labels to operate more autonomously streamline decision making increase creativity and quality and get games into the market faster 42 This reorganization came after years of consolidation and acquisition by EA of smaller studios which some in the industry blamed for a decrease in quality of EA titles In 2008 at the DICE Summit Riccitiello called the earlier approach of buy and assimilate a mistake often stripping smaller studios of its creative talent Riccitiello said that the city state model allows independent developers to remain autonomous to a large extent and cited Maxis and BioWare as examples of studios thriving under the new structure 43 44 Also in 2007 EA announced that it would be bringing some of its major titles to the Mac EA has released Battlefield 2142 Command amp Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars Crysis Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Madden NFL 08 Need for Speed Carbon and Spore for the Mac All of the new games have been developed for the Macintosh using Cider a technology developed by TransGaming that enables Intel based Macs to run Windows games inside a translation layer running on Mac OS X They are not playable on PowerPC based Macs 45 It was revealed in February 2008 that Electronic Arts had made a takeover bid for rival game company Take Two Interactive After its initial offer of US 25 per share all cash stock transaction offer was rejected by the Take Two board EA revised it to US 26 per share a 64 premium over the previous day s closing price and made the offer known to the public 46 Rumours had been floating around the Internet prior to the offer about Take Two possibly being bought over by a bigger company albeit with Viacom as the potential bidder 47 48 In May 2008 EA announced that it will purchase the assets of Hands On Mobile Korea a South Korean mobile game developer and publisher The company will become EA Mobile Korea 49 In September 2008 EA dropped its buyout offer of Take Two No reason was given 50 As of November 6 2008 it was confirmed that Electronic Arts is closing their Casual Label amp merging it with their Hasbro partnership with The Sims Label 51 EA also confirmed the departure of Kathy Vrabeck who was given the position as former president of the EA Casual Division in May 2007 EA made this statement about the merger We ve learned a lot about casual entertainment in the past two years and found that casual gaming defies a single genre and demographic With the retirement and departure of Kathy Vrabeck EA is reorganizing to integrate casual games development and marketing into other divisions of our business We are merging our Casual Studios Hasbro partnership and Casual marketing organization with The Sims Label to be a new Sims and Casual Label where there is a deep compatibility in the product design marketing and demographics In the days and weeks ahead we will make further announcements on the reporting structure for the other businesses in the Casual Label including EA Mobile Pogo Media Sales and Online Casual Initiatives Those businesses remain growth priorities for EA and deserve strong support in a group that will complement their objectives 52 This statement comes a week after EA announced it was laying off 6 about 600 of their staff positions and had a US 310 million net loss for the quarter 53 Due to the 2008 economic crisis Electronic Arts had a poorer than expected 2008 holiday season moving it in February 2009 to cut approximately 1100 jobs which it said represented about 11 of its workforce It also closed 12 of their facilities Riccitiello in a conference call with reporters stated that their poor performance in the fourth quarter was not due entirely to the poor economy but also to the fact that they did not release any blockbuster titles in the quarter In the quarter ending December 31 2008 the company lost US 641 million On February 2 2009 Ludlum Entertainment had inked a deal with Electronic Arts to grant exclusive rights to bring the work of Robert Ludlum into video gaming 54 As of early May 2009 the subsidiary studio EA Redwood Shores was known as Visceral Games 55 56 On June 24 2009 EA announced it will merge two of its development studios BioWare and Mythic into one single role playing video game and MMO development powerhouse The move will actually place Mythic under control of BioWare as Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk will be in direct control of the new entity 57 By fall 2012 both Muzyka and Zeschuk had chosen to depart the merged entity in a joint retirement announcement 58 59 60 On November 9 2009 EA announced layoffs of 1 500 employees representing 17 of its workforce across a number of studios including EA Tiburon Visceral Games Mythic and EA Black Box Also affected were projects and support activities that according to Chief Financial Officer Eric Brown don t make economic sense 61 resulting in the shutdown of popular communities such as Battlefield News and the EA Community Team These layoffs also led to the complete shutdown of Pandemic Studios 62 Chillingo redirects here Not to be confused with Chilango In October 2010 EA announced the acquisition of England based iPhone and iPad games publisher Chillingo for US 20 million in cash Chillingo published the popular Angry Birds for iOS and Cut the Rope for all platforms but the deal did not include those properties 63 so Cut the Rope became published by ZeptoLab and Angry Birds became published by Rovio Entertainment On May 4 2011 EA reported 3 8 billion in revenues for the fiscal year ending March 2011 and on January 13 2012 EA announced that it had exceeded 1 billion in digital revenue during the previous calendar year 64 In a note to employees EA CEO John Riccitiello called this an incredibly important milestone for the company 65 In June 2011 EA launched Origin an online service to sell downloadable games for personal computers directly to consumers 66 Around this time Valve which runs Steam in direct competition with Origin announced changes to storefront policy disallowing games that used in game purchases that were not tied to Steam s purchasing process and removed several of EA s games including Crysis 2 Dragon Age II and Alice Madness Returns in 2012 67 Though EA released a new packaged version of Crysis 2 that including all the downloadable content without the storefront features EA did not publish any additional games on Steam until 2019 instead selling all personal computer versions of games through Origin 68 In July 2011 EA announced that it had acquired PopCap Games the company behind games such as Plants vs Zombies and Bejeweled 69 EA continued its shift toward digital goods in 2012 folding its mobile focused EA Interactive EAi division into other organizations throughout the company specifically those divisions led by EA Labels president Frank Gibeau COO Peter Moore and CTO Rajat Taneja and EVP of digital Kristian Segerstrale 64 2013 present Andrew Wilson era Disney partnership and monetization On March 18 2013 John Riccitiello announced that he would be stepping down as CEO and a member of the Board of Directors on March 30 2013 Larry Probst was also appointed executive chairman on the same day 70 Andrew Wilson was named as the new CEO of EA by September 2013 71 In April 2013 EA announced a reorganization which was to include dismissal of 10 of their workforce consolidation of marketing functions which were distributed among the five label organizations and subsumption of Origin operational leadership under the President of Labels 72 73 EA acquired the lucrative exclusive license to develop games within the Star Wars universe from Disney in May 2013 shortly after Disney s closure of its internal LucasArts game development in 2013 EA secured its license from 2013 through 2023 and began to assign new Star Wars projects across several of its internal studios including BioWare DICE Visceral Games Motive Studios Capital Games and external developer Respawn Entertainment 74 75 In April 2015 EA announced that it would be shutting down various free to play games in July of that year including Battlefield Heroes Battlefield Play4Free Need for Speed World and FIFA World 76 The reorganization and revised marketing strategy lead to a gradual increase in stock value In July 2015 Electronic Arts reached an all time high with a stock value of US 71 63 surpassing the previous February 2005 record of 68 12 This is also up 54 from 46 57 in early January 2015 The surge was partly attributed to EA s then highly anticipated Star Wars Battlefront reboot which released one month before Star Wars The Force Awakens also highly anticipated 77 During E3 2015 vice president of the company Patrick Soderlund announced that the company will start investing more on smaller titles such as Unravel so as to broaden the company s portfolio 78 On December 10 2015 EA announced a new division called Competitive Gaming Division which focuses on creating competitive game experience and organizing ESports events It was once headed by Peter Moore 79 In May 2016 Electronic Arts announced that they had formed a new internal division called Frostbite Labs The new department specializes in creating new projects for virtual reality platforms and virtual humans The new department is located in Stockholm and Vancouver 80 EA announced the closure of Visceral Games in October 2017 Prior Visceral had been supporting EA s other games but was also working on a Star Wars title named Project Ragtag since EA s acquisition of the Star Wars license even hiring Amy Hennig to direct the project While EA did not formally give a reason for the closure industry pundits believed that EA was concerned about the principally single player game which would be difficult to monetize as well as the slow pace of development 81 EA s original approach to the microtransactions in Star Wars Battlefront II sparked an industry wide debate on the use of random content loot boxes While other games had used loot boxes EA s original approach within Battlefront II from its early October 2017 launch included using such mechanics for pay to win gameplay elements as well as locking various Star Wars characters behind expensive paywalls leading several gaming journalists and players to complain EA modified some of the costs of these elements in anticipation of the game s full November 2017 launch but they were reportedly told by Disney to disable all microtransactions until they could come up with a fairer monetization scheme 82 Ultimately by March 2018 EA had developed a fairer system that eliminated the pay to win elements and drastically reduced costs for unlocking characters The controversy over Battlefront II s loot boxes led to an 8 5 drop in stock value in one month about 3 1 billion and impacted EA s financial results for the following quarters Further the visibility of this controversial led to debate at government levels around the world to determine if loot boxes were a form of gambling and if they should be regulated 83 84 85 86 In January 2018 EA announced eMLS a new competitive league for EA Sports FIFA 18 through its Competitive Gaming Division CGD and MLS 87 That same month EA teamed up with ESPN and Disney XD in a multi year pact to broadcast Madden NFL competitive matches across the world through its Competitive Gaming Division arm 88 On August 14 2018 Patrick Soderlund announced his departure from EA as its vice president and chief design officer after serving twelve years with the company With Soderlund s departure the SEED group was moved as part of EA s studios while the EA Originals and EA Partners teams were moved under the company s Strategic Growth group 89 On February 6 2019 Electronic Arts stock value was hit by a decline of 13 3 the worst decline since Halloween 2008 This was largely due to the marketing of their anticipated title Battlefield V which was released after the holiday season of October 2018 Stocks were already declining since late August when EA announced that Battlefield V s release would be delayed until November Upon release the game was met with a mixed reception and EA sold one million fewer copies than their expected figure of 7 3 million Also attributed to the stock plunge was the game s lack of the game mode Battle Royale popularized by PlayerUnknown s Battlegrounds and then Fortnite 90 Stocks then surged 9 6 with the surprise release of Apex Legends which garnered 25 million players in just one week smashing Fortnite s record of 10 million players in two weeks 91 92 In advance of the end of its financial quarter ending March 31 2019 Wilson announced they were cutting about 350 jobs or about 4 of its workforce primarily from their marketing publishing and operations divisions Wilson stated the layoffs were necessary to address our challenges and prepare for the opportunities ahead 93 EA announced in October 2019 that it would be returning to release games on Steam starting with the November 2019 release of Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order as well as bringing the EA Access subscription service to Steam While EA plans to continue to sell games on Origin the move to add Steam releases was to help get more consumers to see their offerings 94 Due to COVID 19 lockdowns and growing demand for online games EA s revenue grew to 1 4bn in the first quarter of 2020 95 EA rebranded both EA Access and Origin to EA Play on August 18 2020 but otherwise without changing the subscription price or services offered as part of a streamlining effort 96 In December 2020 EA placed a bid to buy Codemasters a British developer of racing games in a deal worth 1 2 billion outbidding an earlier offer placed by Take Two Interactive 97 The acquisition agreed to by Codemasters was completed by February 18 2021 with all shares of Codemasters transferred to Codex Games Limited a subsidiary of EA Wilson stated that the franchises in our combined portfolio will enable us to create innovative new experiences and bring more players into the excitement of cars and motorsport 98 99 In January 2021 Disney announced it had revived the Lucasfilm Games label for its licensed video game properties and announced new games including a new Star Wars game that would be developed by Ubisoft aimed for release in 2023 indicating that EA s ten year exclusive license in 2013 to the Star Wars property was likely not extended 100 EA still maintained a non exclusive license to Star Wars games affirming more titles will be coming following this announcement 101 As of February 2021 EA s Star Wars games had sold more than 52 million copies and brought in more than 3 billion in revenue 101 After a six year absence from producing college sports based game due to legal issues related to student athlete likenesses with the NCAA EA announced in February 2021 that it was returning to college sports with a planned EA Sports College Football title to likely be released in 2023 102 The company announced its plans to extend its mobile commitment in February 2021 by acquiring Glu Mobile in an deal estimated worth 2 1 billion 103 The acquisition was completed by the end of April 2021 104 The Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia acquired 7 4 million shares of EA valued at 1 1 billion in February 2021 105 Former CEO and current chairman Probst stated in May 2021 he was retiring from the company Current EA CEO Wilson took over as chairman 106 In June 2021 EA confirmed that they had suffered a data breach with game and engine source code taken from their servers including the source for the Frostbite Engine and FIFA 21 though assuring no player or user data had been obtained Hackers that had taken the code had started selling it around on the dark web 107 The perpetuators of this breach began to extort EA for money in July releasing small portions of the data to public forums and threatening to release more if their demands were not met 108 EA acquired mobile game developer Playdemic Studios in Manchester England from Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment in June 2021 for 1 4 billion following the merger of Discovery Inc with WarnerMedia The acquisition is expected to complete by 2022 109 In their SEC filings in September 2021 the company said that current CFO and COO Blake Jorgensen will be stepping down by mid 2022 The company s COO role will be taken over by Chief Studios Officer Laura Miele while a search for a new CFO will be launched 110 Longtime Microsoft executive Chris Suh was later appointed as CFO in March 2022 Industry reports around May 2022 asserted that EA had been looking to be acquired by larger media firms including Disney Apple and Comcast NBCUniversal These reports said that EA had been nearing a final deal that would have had NBCUniversal spun out from Comcast before bringing EA within it Amazon was also mentioned as a possible customer for EA though CNBC reported in late August that Amazon is no longer interested in a takeover 111 GamesMain article List of Electronic Arts gamesCompany structureSee also List of acquisitions by Electronic Arts EA is headed by CEO Andrew Wilson All of the studios group general managers from EA respond to Laura Miele previous head of EA Worldwide Studios as Chief Studios Officer and currently COO 112 One of the group general managers is Samantha Ryan who is Group General Manager for studios like BioWare Motive Studio Full Circle Maxis and an unnamed studio in Seattle 113 Development studios BioWare in Edmonton Canada acquired in October 2007 114 BioWare Austin in Austin Texas acquired in October 2007 114 Codemasters in Southam England founded in October 1986 acquired by EA in February 2021 115 Codemasters Birmingham in Birmingham England Codemasters Kuala Lumpur in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia Codemasters India in Pune India Slightly Mad Studios in London England founded in 2009 acquired by Codemasters in November 2019 Criterion Games in Guildford England acquired in August 2004 116 DICE in Stockholm Sweden acquired in October 2006 117 Frostbite Labs in Stockholm Sweden and Vancouver Canada founded in May 2016 118 EA Baton Rouge in Baton Rouge Louisiana founded in September 2008 119 EA Chillingo in Macclesfield England acquired in October 2010 120 reduced to bare staff in 2017 to primarily support mobile publishing 121 EA Galway in Galway Ireland EA Gothenburg in Gothenburg Sweden founded in March 2011 122 From March 2011 to November 2012 the studio was named EA Gothenburg From November 2012 to January 2020 the studio was named Ghost Games until the original name came back 123 EA Mobile in Los Angeles California founded in 2004 EA Capital Games in Sacramento California acquired in 2011 124 From 2011 to 2014 the studio was named BioWare Sacramento 125 EA Redwood Studios in Redwood City California founded in 2016 Firemonkeys Studios in Melbourne Australia acquired in July 2012 Glu Mobile in San Francisco California acquired in April 2021 104 PlayFirst in Delaware acquired by Glu in September 2014 126 Playdemic in Manchester England acquired by EA in June 2021 from WarnerMedia 109 Slingshot Games in Hyderabad India Tracktwenty Studios in Helsinki Finland founded in 2012 EA Sports in Redwood Shores California founded in 1991 EA Cologne in Cologne Germany EA Madrid in Madrid Spain founded in October 2018 127 EA Romania in Bucharest Romania acquired in 2006 EA Tiburon in Maitland Florida acquired in April 1998 EA Vancouver in Burnaby Canada acquired in 1991 Metalhead Software in Victoria British Columbia acquired in May 2021 128 Full Circle in Vancouver Canada opened in 2021 129 Maxis in Redwood City California acquired in July 1997 130 Maxis Texas in Austin Texas was opened in 2019 working on a new IP 131 Maxis Europe in multiple locations in Europe was opened in 2021 132 Motive Studio in Montreal Canada founded in July 2015 133 Motive Studio Vancouver in Burnaby Canada founded in June 2018 134 Pogo Studios in Redwood City California acquired in March 2001 135 Pogo Studios Shanghai in Shanghai China PopCap Games in Seattle Washington acquired in July 2011 136 PopCap Shanghai in Shanghai China acquired in July 2011 PopCap Hyderabad in Hyderabad India acquired in July 2011 Respawn Entertainment in Sherman Oaks California acquired in December 2017 137 Respawn Vancouver established in 2020 in Vancouver 138 Respawn Wisconsin established in 2023 in Madison Wisconsin 139 Ridgeline Games in Seattle Washington led by Marcus Lehto former creative director of Bungie founded in October 2021 140 Ripple Effect Studio in Los Angeles California established in May 2013 previously a subsidiary of DICE called DICE Los Angeles 141 and a support studio before becoming its own company and being renamed in 2021 142 Some of the staff were originally from Danger Close Games 143 Spearhead in Seoul South Korea founded in 1998 From 1998 to July 2004 the studio was named EA Korea Unnamed studio in Seattle Washington led by Kevin Stephens formerly vice president of Monolith Productions founded in May 2021 144 Former BioWare Montreal in Montreal Canada founded in March 2009 the studio merged into Motive Studio in August 2017 145 BioWare San Francisco in San Francisco California founded as EA2D the studio was renamed in August 2011 and closed in March 2013 146 147 Bullfrog Productions in Guildford England acquired in January 1995 the studio closed in 2001 Danger Close Games in Los Angeles California acquired in February 2000 the studio closed in June 2013 148 EA Baltimore in Baltimore Maryland founded in 1998 the studio closed in 2002 EA Black Box in Burnaby Canada acquired in June 2002 as Black Box Games later rebranded as EA Black Box The studio closed in April 2013 149 150 EA Bright Light in Guildford England founded in 1995 as EA UK the studio was renamed in 2008 and closed in October 2011 EA Chicago in Hoffman Estates Illinois founded in February 2004 the studio closed in November 2007 EA North Carolina in Morrisville North Carolina the studio closed in September 2013 151 EA Pacific in Irvine California the studio was acquired in August 1998 as Westwood Pacific the studio was renamed in 2002 and closed in 2003 EA Phenomic in Ingelheim am Rhein Germany the studio was acquired in August 2006 and closed in July 2013 152 153 EA Salt Lake in Salt Lake City Utah the studio was acquired in December 2006 and closed in April 2017 154 EA Seattle in Seattle Washington the studio was acquired in January 1996 and closed in 2002 Easy Studios in Stockholm Sweden the studio was founded in 2008 and closed in March 2015 Codemasters Cheshire in Cheshire England merged with Criterion Games in May 2022 Firemint in Melbourne Australia the studio was acquired in May 2011 and merged with Iron Monkey Studios to become Firemonkeys Studios in July 2012 Hypnotix in Little Falls New Jersey acquired in July 2005 the studio was merged into EA Tiburon 155 Iron Monkey Studios in Sydney Australia the studio was acquired in May 2011 and merged with Firemint to become Firemonkeys Studios in July 2012 Industrial Toys in Pasadena California acquired in July 2018 shut down in January 2023 156 Kesmai in Charlottesville Virginia the studio was acquired in 1999 and closed in 2001 Mythic Entertainment in Fairfax Virginia acquired in July 2006 as EA Mythic the studio became Mythic Entertainment in July 2008 then BioWare Mythic in June 2009 and again Mythic Entertainment in 2012 The studio closed in May 2014 157 158 NuFX in Hoffman Estates Illinois the studio was acquired in February 2004 and closed in the same year Origin Systems in Austin Texas the studio was acquired in September 1992 and closed in February 2004 Pandemic Studios in Los Angeles California and Brisbane Australia the studio was acquired in October 2007 and closed in November 2009 114 159 62 Playfish in London England the studio was acquired in 2009 and closed in June 2013 160 Quicklime Games closed in April 2013 161 Uprise in Uppsala Sweden founded as Uprise and acquired in 2012 as ESN From 2014 the studio was named Uprise again It merged into DICE Stockholm in 2019 162 Victory Games in Los Angeles California founded in February 2011 as BioWare Victory the studio was renamed in November 2012 and closed in October 2013 Visceral Games in Redwood City California founded in 1998 as EA Redwood Shores the studio was renamed in 2009 and closed in October 2017 163 164 Waystone Games in Los Angeles California the studio closed in November 2014 165 Westwood Studios in Las Vegas Nevada the studio was acquired in August 1998 and closed in March 2003 166 167 Labels EA Worldwide Studios Formerly EA Games EA Worldwide Studios is home to many of EA s studios which are responsible for action adventure role playing racing and combat games marketed under the EA brand In addition to traditional packaged goods games EA Worldwide Studios also develops massively multiplayer online role playing games citation needed As of April 2018 the division is led by Laura Miele 168 EA Sports Main article EA Sports First introduced in 1991 as the Electronic Arts Sports Network before being renamed due to a trademark dispute with ESPN 169 EA Sports publishes all the sports games from EA including FIFA Football Madden NFL Fight Night NBA Live NCAA Football Cricket NCAA March Madness Tiger Woods PGA Tour NHL NASCAR and Rugby citation needed In 2011 Forbes ranked EA Sports eighth on their list of most valuable sports brands with a value of 625 million 170 EA All Play EA All Play is a mobile oriented label that since 2012 publishes digital titles like The Simpsons Tetris and Battlefield as well as Hasbro board games like Scrabble 171 EA Competitive Gaming Division The EA Competitive Gaming Division CGD founded in 2015 by Peter Moore and currently headed by Todd Sitrin is the group dedicated on enabling global eSports competitions on EA s biggest franchises including FIFA Madden NFL Battlefield and more 172 SEED The Search for Extraordinary Experiences Division SEED was revealed at the 2017 Electronic Entertainment Expo as a technology research division and incubator using tools like deep learning and neural networks to bring in player experiences and other external factors to help them develop more immersive narratives and games 173 174 SEED has offices in Los Angeles and Stockholm 175 Former labels EA Kids A label for educational titles In January 1995 EA sold the label to and in conjunction with Capital Cities ABC formed the independent ABC EA Home Software which was later absorbed into Creative Wonders in that year s May 176 177 178 In October 1997 EA and ABC sold Creative Wonders to The Learning Company for 40 million 179 EA Sports Big A label used from 2000 to 2008 for arcade styled extreme sports EA Sports Freestyle A short lived replacement for EA Sports Big used from 2008 to 2009 which focused exclusively on casual sports games regardless of genre The label was used for only three games before being retired 31 180 Electronic Arts Studios EA GamesPartnership and initiativesEA 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 were acquired by EA as part of the EA DICE family 181 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 rebranded the label as EA Partners in 2003 Riccitiello left EA the following year which disrupted the direction the label had been aiming to go 182 181 Oddworld 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 181 The situation with EA Partners switched gears in 2005 after EA and Valve signed an 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 181 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 181 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 subscription game Funcom had to switch their monetization model to free to play to improve their revenues which further affected EA Partners better source needed 183 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 184 but the program remained active as the company refocused its efforts 185 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 186 the label was revived on the March 2019 with a publishing deal with Velan Studios formed from the former heads of Vicarious Visions 187 Notable publishing distribution agreements include Alice Madness Returns Spicy Horse APB Realtime Worlds Brutal Legend Double Fine Productions Bulletstorm Epic Games Crysis series Crytek DeathSpank Hothead Games Fuse Insomniac Games 188 Hellgate London Flagship Studios Kingdoms of Amalur Reckoning 38 Studios Big Huge Games Rock Band series Harmonix and MTV Games The Secret World Funcom 189 Shadows of the Damned Grasshopper Manufacture Shank series Klei Entertainment Syndicate Starbreeze Studios Warp TrapdoorEA Originals label 2017 present EA Originals is a label within Electronic Arts own EA Partners program to help support independently developed video games EA funds the money for development and once it recoups that all additional revenue goes to the partner studio that created the game That studio also gets to keep the intellectual property rights for whatever it creates and even has creative control over the project The program was announced at EA s press event at the 2016 E3 Conference and builds upon the success they had with Unravel from Coldwood Interactive in 2015 The first game to be supported under this program was Fe by Zoink released in 2018 190 191 It was followed by A Way Out from Hazelight Studios Unravel Two from Coldwood Interactive and Sea of Solitude from Jo Mei Games 192 In 2019 during its EA Play event EA teased three new titles Among the games featured were Lost in Random from Zoink and an unnamed title from Hazelight Studios It was also announced that Glowmade would be entering the initiative with a title called RustHeart 193 In June 2020 Hazelight Studios untitled project was revealed as It Takes Two and was released the following year In February 2023 Jeff Gamon general manager of EA Partners which oversees the Originals label said the label will now invest on bigger games although for those cases the deal won t be as generous as the smaller games for obvious reasons as those are larger companies Gamon said though that the company still plans to release smaller and niche games and don t want to completely abandon its roots 194 List of EA Originals games Year Title Developer Platform s 2016 Unravel Coldwood Interactive Microsoft Windows PlayStation 4 Xbox One2018 Fe Zoink Microsoft Windows Nintendo Switch PlayStation 4 Xbox OneA Way Out Hazelight Studios Microsoft Windows PlayStation 4 Xbox One2019 Unravel Two Coldwood Interactive Microsoft Windows Nintendo Switch PlayStation 4 Xbox OneSea of Solitude Jo Mei Games2020 Rocket Arena Final Strike Games Microsoft Windows PlayStation 4 Xbox One2021 It Takes Two 195 Hazelight Studios Microsoft Windows PlayStation 4 PlayStation 5 Xbox One Xbox Series X S Nintendo SwitchKnockout City 196 a Velan Studios Microsoft Windows Nintendo Switch PlayStation 4 PlayStation 5 Xbox One Xbox Series X SLost in Random Zoink Microsoft Windows Nintendo Switch PlayStation 4 PlayStation 5 Xbox One Xbox Series X S2023 Wild Hearts 197 Omega Force Microsoft Windows PlayStation 5 Xbox Series X SImmortals of Aveum 198 Ascendant StudiosTBA RustHeart GlowmadeCriticism and controversiesMain article Criticism of Electronic Arts Since the mid 2010s 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 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2019 Retrieved March 25 2019 EA Partners signs new Insomniac game Games Industry MCV Mcvuk com May 25 2010 Archived from the original on May 11 2011 Retrieved March 19 2011 Funcom and Electronic Arts to co publish The Secret World MMO The Secret World Official Forums Darkdemonscrygaia com January 10 2011 Archived from the original on May 11 2011 Retrieved March 19 2011 Fahey Mike June 12 2016 EA Originals Gives Big Support To Small Games Kotaku Archived from the original on June 12 2016 Retrieved June 12 2016 Frank Allegra August 23 2017 The breathtaking Fe could be 2018 s most moving game Polygon Archived from the original on August 23 2017 Retrieved August 23 2017 Announcing EA Originals June 12 2016 Archived from the original on July 17 2020 Retrieved May 11 2020 Bankhurst Adam June 9 2019 New EA Originals Games From A Way Out Fe Devs Announced E3 2019 IGN Archived from the original on July 30 2020 Retrieved June 9 2020 EA Originals We are moving away from niche GamesIndustry biz February 6 2023 Retrieved February 18 2023 Fingas Jon June 18 2020 It Takes Two is a co op platformer from the creator of A Way Out Engadget Archived from the original on July 26 2020 Retrieved July 17 2020 Peters Jay February 17 2021 Knockout City is a new dodgeball game from the makers of Mario Kart Live The Verge Archived from the original on February 18 2021 Retrieved February 17 2021 Robinson Andy September 28 2022 EA and Koei Tecmo premiere Wild Hearts trailer and confirm Feb release VGC Retrieved September 29 2022 Immortals of Aveum is a magic shooter from the minds behind Dead Space and Call of Duty Polygon Retrieved December 9 2022 Further readingSinclair Brendan January 4 2006 Innovation does size matter GameSpot CBS Interactive Becker David March 8 2005 Game makers see workplace changes CNET CBS Interactive Totilo Stephen September 12 2006 What s The Coolest Job Ever Electronic Arts Summer Interns Tell Their Story MTV Viacom International Deck Stewart December 19 2000 Six Degrees of Hire Learning ITworld IDG Communications Varney Allen October 11 2005 The Conquest of Origin The Escapist Defy Media Archived from the original on January 4 2018 Retrieved January 22 2017 External links Wikimedia Commons has media related to Electronic Arts company Official website Business data for Electronic Arts Inc GoogleSEC filingsYahoo Portals Companies San Francisco Bay Area Video games Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Electronic Arts amp oldid 1145708284, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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