Shopping on line can be easy, simple and save you lots of money. It can also take a lot of your time, frustrate you, and result in unwanted purchases. Now the same can be said for regular high street shopping, but with the vast opportunity presented by the Internet it will pay you to spend a few minutes reading this and understanding how to better optimize your Electronic Arts shopping experience:

1. Compare - without doubt the biggest advantage that the Electronic Arts offers shoppers today is the ability to compare thousands of Electronic Arts at a time. This is a great thing, but not necessarily all the time! Too much can be daunting at times so take advantage of the great comparison sites and where possible let them do the hard work for you.

2. Research - if it has been said it will be on the internet. Ignorance is no longer a justifiable reason for buying the wrong thing. Take the time to research in detail everything that you could possible want to know about

3. Testimonials - don't know anybody that has bought a Electronic Arts? Wrong! If the Electronic Arts is good the internet will let you know. Use the Internet as a friend and get testimonials before you buy.

4. Questions - Got a question about Electronic Arts then search the Forums, FAQ's, Blogs etc. Don't be afraid to ask .....

5. Reputation - Never heard of the company selling Electronic Arts? Don't worry, no reason why you should know every company in the world, but you know someone that does! Use the internet to find out what people are saying about Electronic Arts and build up a picture of their reputation for sales, returns, customer service, delivery etc.

6. Returns - still worried that even after all of the above your Electronic Arts wont be what you want? Check out the returns policy. There is so much competition now that someone, somewhere is bound to offer the terms that you are comfortable with.

7. Feedback - happy with your Electronic Arts then let people know, after all you are depending on others people input in your buying decision, so why not give a little back.

8. Security - check for the yellow padlock on the Electronic Arts site before you buy, and the s after http:/ /i.e. https:// = a secure site

9. Contact - got a question about Electronic Arts, or want to leave a comment then check out the sites contact page. Reputable companies have them and respond.

10. Payment - ready to pay for your Electronic Arts, then use your credit card or PayPal! Be aware of companies that don't accept them, there may be genuine reasons but given the huge amount of choice you have when buying online there is no reason at all not to buy via credit card or PayPal.

"EA" redirects here. For Electronic Arts' sports label, see EA Sports. For other uses, see EA (disambiguation).

{{Infobox Company| company_name = Electronic Arts, Inc| company_logo = | company_type = Public company ()| foundation = 1982| location_city = Redwood City, California| location_country = United States| location =| key_people = Trip Hawkins, Founder and CEO to 1991
Larry Probst, current chairman of the board and CEO from 1991-2007
John Riccitiello, current CEO]| products =| revenue = $2.951 billion United States dollar (2006)|operating_income = $325.00 million United States dollar (2006)|net_income = $236.00 million United States dollar (2006)| num_employees = 7,200 (2006)| homepage = www.ea.com-->

Electronic Arts (EA) () is an United States video game developer, marketer, video game publisher, and distributor of Video game. Established in 1982 by Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer games industry and was notable for promoting the designers and programmers responsible for their games. EA was just a publisher for its first few years and exclusively published for home computers, but began developing games in-house in the late 1980s and started supporting video game console in the early 1990s. Also in the 1990s, EA began to expand by acquiring several successful developers and, as of the early 2000s, EA has become the world's largest third-party publisher, with a net revenue of United States dollar$3.129 billion for its fiscal year March 31, 2005. SEC EDGAR Filing Information Currently, the company's most successful products are sports games published under their EA Sports label, games based on popular movie licenses and games from long-running franchises like Need for Speed series, Medal of Honor series, The Sims, Command & Conquer series and the later games in the Burnout (video game) series.

History In February 1982, Trip Hawkins arranged a meeting with Don Valentine of Sequoia Capital to discuss financing his new venture, Amazin' Software. Valentine encouraged Hawkins to leave Apple Inc., in which Hawkins served as Director of Product Marketing, and allowed Hawkins use of Sequoia Capital's spare office space to start the company. On May 28, 1982, Trip Hawkins incorporated and established the company with a personal investment of an estimated United States dollar$200,000. Seven months later in December 1982, Hawkins secured US$2 million of venture capital from Sequoia Capital, Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers, and Sevin Rosen Funds.

For more than seven months, Hawkins had refined his Electronic Arts business plan. With aid from his first employee (whom he worked in marketing with 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 game producers. The business plan was again refined in September and reissued on October 8, 1982.

Between September and November, employee headcount rose to 11, including Tim Mott, Bing Gordon, David Maynard, and Steve Hayes. Having outgrown the office space provided by Sequoia Capital, the company relocated to a San Mateo, California office that overlooked the San Francisco International Airport landing path. Headcount rose rapidly in 1983, including Don Daglow, Richard Hilleman, Stewart Bonn, David Gardner, and Nancy Fong.

Sales strategy 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. Despite this, revenue was $5 million in the first year and $11 million the next. Former CEO Larry Probst arrived as VP of Sales in late 1984 and helped the company sustain growth into $18 million in its third full year. Teaming with the existing sales staff that included Nancy Smith, David Klein, and David Gardner, Probst built the largest sales force of any American game publisher. This policy of dealing directly with retailers gave EA higher margins and better market awareness, key advantages the company would leverage to leapfrog its early competitors.

In December of 1986 David Gardner and Mark Lewis moved to the UK to open a European headquarters. Up until that point publishing of Electronic Arts Games, and the conversion of many of their games to compact cassette versions in Europe was handled by Ariolasoft. A small company in Wales was already called Electronic Arts, and until 1997 Electronic Arts in the UK was known legally as EOA, a name derived from its square/circle/triangle logo. The Welsh company ceased trading in 1997 and Electronic Arts acquired the rights to the name.

Name change Some of the early employees of the company disliked the Amazin' Software name that Hawkins had originally chosen when he incorporated the company. While at Apple, Hawkins had enjoyed company offsite meetings at Pajaro, California and organized such a planning offsite for EA in October 1982. After a long business day at the offsite, the dozen employees and advisers who were present agreed that they would stay up that night and see if they could agree unanimously on a new name for the company.

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. But 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 best-selling book about the film studio, United Artists, and liked the reputation that company had created. Early advisers Andy Berlin, Jeff Goodby, and Jeff Silverstein (who would soon form their own ad agency) were also fans of that approach, and the discussion was led by Hawkins and Berlin. Hawkins said everyone had a vote but they would lose it if they went to sleep.

Hawkins liked the word "electronic", and various employees had considered the phrases "Electronic Artists" and "Electronic Arts". Other candidates included Gordon's suggestion of "Blue Light", a reference from the movie "Tron".

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 are..." meaning that the developers whose games EA would publish were the artists. This statement from Hayes immediately tilted sentiment towards Electronic Arts and the name was unanimously endorsed.

Sharing credit A novel approach to giving credit to its developers was one of EA's trademarks in its early days. EA was the first video game publisher to treat its developers like rock music stars in an industry where developers were more prone to be treated like nameless factory workers. This characterization was even further reinforced with EA's packaging of most of their games in the "album cover" format of the late 1980s and 1990s. This format was pioneered by EA because Hawkins thought that a record album style would both save costs and convey an artistic feeling. EA routinely referred to their developers as "artists" and gave them photo credits in their games and numerous full-page magazine ads. EA also shared lavish profits with their developers, which added to their industry appeal. Because of this novel treatment, EA was able to easily attract the best developers.

The square "album cover" boxes were a popular packaging concept by Electronic Arts, which wanted to represent their video game developer as "rock music stars". Many games of the era were released in the album covers of identical size and shape.

In May 1983 EA shipped:



Three of these five—Archon, Pinball Construction Set, and M.U.L.E.—are still considered cornerstone products in the history of video games. Worms? is unrelated to the Worms (series) series of turn-based artillery games; it is a computer toy in which the user trains worms—represented as lines—to move in patterns on a network of nodes.

Trip exits After a very successful run on home computers, Electronic Arts later branched out and produced console games as well. Eventually Trip Hawkins moved on to found the now defunct The 3DO Company company. In 2003 he founded a new mobile phone software company, Digital Chocolate, that also began life in the Sequoia offices and had Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins as its lead investors.

In 2004, EA made a multimillion dollar donation to fund the development of game production curriculum at USC Interactive Media Division. In addition to the funds, EA staff members have been actively teaching and lecturing at the school.

EA under Probst EA is currently headquartered in Redwood City, California, California. Following the departure of Trip Hawkins, Larry Probst took over the reins and led the company to its current size and stature.

was an enormous hit for EA. The original version for the Apple II family by Bill Budge was quickly porting to other popular home computer of the era.Probst considered himself a man of principle and has refused to follow the M-rated example set by Take Two Interactive, whose violent Grand Theft Auto (series) franchise became the dominant brand in many key demographics from 2000 through 2003. As a result, Probst was heavily criticized by Wall Street analysts, who believe that because of this policy, EA's stock price is lower than it should be. In late March 2005, Electronic Arts issued its first ever mid-quarter profit warning blaming hardware shortages and lower than expected fourth quarter sales.

Not that M-rated games are new to EA: in 1999 EA approved its first M-rated game, System Shock II for the PC. Recently, Probst has changed his overall stance on M-rated games, and now EA has several titles that compete in the M-rated, adult game arena.

On February 1, 2006, Electronic Arts announced that it would cut worldwide staff by 5 percent. Electronic Arts cuts staff by 5 percent from GameSpot

On June 20 2006 EA purchased Mythic Entertainment, currently working on Warhammer Online.

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. Riccitiello previously worked for Elevation Partners, Sara Lee and Pepsico.

Also, in 2007, EA announced that it would be bringing some of its major titles (such as Madden 08, Need for Speed: Carbon, etc.) to the Macintosh. EA has released Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Need for Speed Carbon, Battlefield 2142 and Command & Conquer: Tiberium Wars 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. EA ships four Mac games from MacWorld

In October 2007, EA purchased the company that owned BioWare and Pandemic Studios.http://www.ea.com/article.jsp?id=bio1011

EA development strategy 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. GameSpy comments on EA's yearly update strategyRecognizing 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. EA moves towards new IP's from Gamesindustry.biz

Criticism EA is often criticized for buying smaller development studios primarily for their intellectual property assets, and then making the developers produce mediocre games on these same franchises. For example, Origin Systems-produced Ultima VIII and Ultima IX were developed quickly under EA's ownership, over the protests of Ultima creator Richard Garriott, Ultima VIII and IX rushed into production and these two are considered by many Many believe Ultima IX was unfairly maligned because of rushed development schedule as not up to the standard of the rest of the series. Ultima VIII received poorly by fans Ultima IX received poorly by fans

EA is also criticized for shutting down its acquired studios after a poorly performing game.http://news.softpedia.com/news/EA-Closes-Down-Warrington-Studio-38110.shtml http://www.gamespot.com/news/6159448.htmlhttp://www.gamepro.com.au/index.php/id;476539124;fp;4;fpid;4 The historical pattern of poor sales and ratings of the first game shipped after acquisition suggests EA's control and direction as being primarily responsible for the game's failure rather than the studio. Magic Carpet 2 was rushed to completion over the objections of designer Peter Molyneux and it shipped during the holiday season with several major bugs. Studios such as Origin, Westwood Studios, and Bullfrog Productions had previously produced games attracting a significant fanbase, and when they were closed down many top designers and programmers refused to stay with EA and formed rival studios. Many fans also became annoyed that their favourite developers were closed down, but some developers, for example the EALA studio, have stated that they try to carry on the legacy of the old studio, in this case Westwood Studios. EA has also received harsh fire from labor groups for its dismissals of large groups of employees during the closure of a studio (see below). Such was the case with the game GoldenEye: Rogue Agent.http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3137918

After releasing many products, the lack of support is notable in many games, assured by the fact that EA declared openly that it would no longer support relatively new but still buggy titles, like Need for Speed: Most Wanted, Need for Speed: Underground and some of the latest Command & Conquer (series)http://www.gamepro.com/news.cfm?article_id=127348 games.

Electronic Arts declined to support the Dreamcast in favor of Sony's PlayStation 2.http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?section_name=pub&aid=3482

EA has also been criticized for other aggressive business methods like the acquisition of 19.9 percent of shares of its competitor Ubisoft in what was called a "hostile act" by Ubisoft CEO, Yves Guillemot. Ubisoft CEO Speaks on Takeover - TotalGaming.net news, 22 September, 2005 However, this has not materialized into anything hostile and Guillemot later indicated that a merger with EA was a possibility.http://www.joystiq.com/2007/05/29/ubisoft-president-still-considering-ea-acquisition/

Criticism for server shutdowns EA has also received criticism for shutting down their servers for many of their games. The reasons for these server shutdowns are still relatively unclear. It is safe to assume that the reason for the shutdowns is because of the lack of use some of these servers receive and the cost to keep them running. Games like Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06, older games from the Madden series, and Burnout Revenge for both the original Xbox and Playstation 2 (The Xbox 360 version of Burnout Revenge is unaffected) have all had their servers shut down both in 2006, and again in 2007. Servers for many games were shutdown on September 1, 2007, and will happen again on November 1, 2007.

It is notable to point out that some of EA's older games, for example Burnout 3: Takedown, for the original Xbox, have not had its Xbox Live server(s) shutdown, even though this game is over three years old. This is most likely due to its popularity online and its frequent use of the servers.

Employment policy Electronic Arts has been criticized for employees working extraordinarily long hours—up to 80 hours per week— and not just at "crunch" times leading up to the scheduled releases of products. The publication of the EA Spouse blog, with criticisms such as "The current mandatory hours are 9 a.m. to 10 p.m.—seven days a week—with the occasional Saturday evening off for good behaviour (at 6:30 p.m.)". The original ea_spouse blog entry at LiveJournal The company has since settled a class action lawsuit brought by game artists to compensate for "unpaid overtime". "Employees readying class-action lawsuit against EA" from GameSpot The class was awarded $15.6 million. As a result, many of the lower-level developers (artists, programmers, producers, and designers) are now working at an hourly rate. A similar suit brought by game programmer was settled for $14.9 million. "Programmers Win EA Overtime Settlement, EA_Spouse Revealed" from Gamasutra

Exclusive licenses After Sega's ESPN NFL Football 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 National Football League, and in January 2005, a 15-year deal with ESPN, much as with Take Two Interactive's exclusive licensing deal with baseball's Major League.http://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/12/13/news_6114977.html The ESPN deal gives 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.http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/sportsbusiness/news/story?id=1945691

Online strategy EA originally decided against allowing its games on Microsoft's Xbox Live online service due to arguments between Microsoft and EA about the distribution of revenue from online play. EA finally agreed to release games on Xbox Live on the condition that Microsoft allow the games to connect to the EA servers in order to play them online.http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3703109.stm EA has also received criticism from many gamers in that EA refuses to patch many of its games (usually the older ones) that are in many cases glitchy and/or imbalanced (one player side has more advantages over the other and thus the game matches are unfair).

Game quality For 2006, the games review aggregation site Metacritic gives the average of EA games as 72.0 (out of 100); 2.5 points behind Nintendo (74.5) but ahead of the other first-party publishers Microsoft (71.6) and Sony (71.2). The closest third-party publisher is Take 2 (publishing as 2K Games and Rockstar) at 70.3. The remaining top 10Game publisher publishers (Sega, Konami, THQ, Ubisoft, Activision) all rate in the mid 60's.

However, EA's aggregate review performance has shown a downward trend in quality over recent years and is expected to affect market shares during competitive seasons. Pacific Crest Securities analyst Evan Wilson has said, "Poor reviews and quality are beginning to tarnish the EA brand. According to our ongoing survey of GameRankings.com aggregated review data, Electronic Arts' overall game quality continues to fall...Although market share has not declined dramatically to date, in years such as 2007, which promises to have tremendous competition, it seems likely if quality does not improve." Analyst: EA brand tarnished EA brand "tarnished" according to analyst

EA has also received criticism for developing games that lack innovation vis-à-vis the number of gaming titles produced under the EA brand that show a history of yearly updates, particularly in their sporting franchises. These typically retail as new games at full market value and feature only updated team rosters in addition to incremental changes to game mechanics, the user interface, and graphics. One critique compared EA to companies like Ubisoft and concluded that EA's innovation in new and old IPs, "Crawls along at a snail's pace." EA innovation crawls along at "snail's pace"., while even the company's own CEO, John Riccitiello, acknowleded the lack of innovation seen in the industry generally, saying, "We're boring people to death and making games that are harder and harder to play. For the most part, the industry has been rinse-and-repeat. There's been lots of product that looked like last year's product, that looked a lot like the year before." EA CEO John Riccitiello: More innovation is needed in videogames.

Editing of Wikipedia On August 15, 2007 it was revealed that IP addresses registered to EA had made changes to its Wikipedia entry favoring EA. "EA staffer plays history revisionist on Wikipedia" from Joystiq.com "EA Staffer Attempts to Alter Wiki History" from ShackNews.com The changes made included downplaying the importance of the founder of EA, Trip Hawkins, as well as playing up the importance of former CEO, Larry Probst. Other changes included attempts to remove information regarding the infamous EA Spouse scandal, which involved the poor treatment of workers. In addition, several paragraphs under criticism were removed completely.


EA's response was that "Many companies routinely post updates on websites like Wikipedia to ensure accuracy of their own corporate information." "EA responds to Wikipedia revision controversy" article from GamesIndustry.biz It did not, however, address the specifics of the changes.

Notable games published studio Maxis, EA obtained the rights to publish the lucrative SimCity series and the spin-off game The Sims. It went on to develop its sequel The Sims 2. "The Sims overtakes Myst" article from GameSpotSome of the most notable and popular games of video game history have been published by EA, and many of these are listed below. Though EA published these titles, they did not always develop them; some were developed by independent game development studios. EA developed their first game in 1987.



Electronic Arts also published a number of non-game titles. The most popular of these was closely related to the video game industry and was actually used by several of their developers. Deluxe Paint premiered on the Amiga in 1985 and was later ported to other systems. The last version in the line, Deluxe Paint V, was released in 1994. Other non-game titles include Music Construction Set (and Deluxe Music Construction Set), Deluxe Paint Animation and Instant Music (software).EA also published a series of Paint titles on the Macintosh: Sudio/8, Studio/1 and Studio/32 (1990).

Label architecture Electronic Arts release titles under the following Record label:













Studios and subsidiaries

Current studios

Former studios

Corporate affairs Logos The Electronic Arts logo has undergone few changes in the company's history.

1982 to 1999 EA's classic Square/Circle/Triangle corporate logo, adopted shortly after its founding and phased out in 1999, was devised by Barry Deutsch of Steinhilber Deutsch and Gard design firm. The three shapes were meant to stand for the "basic alphabet of graphic design." The shapes were rasterized to connote technology.

Many customers mistook the square/circle/triangle logo for a stylized "EOA." Though they thought the "E" stood for "Electronic" and "A" for "Arts," they had no idea what the "O" could stand for, except perhaps the o in "Electronic." An early newsletter of EA, Farther, even jokingly discussed the topic in one issue, claiming that the square and triangle indeed stood for "E" and "A", but that the circle was merely "a Nerf ball that got stuck in a floppy drive and has been popping up on our splash screens ever since." This was, in part, true. In the early days at Electronic Arts, nerf balls imprinted with the square/circle/triangle shapes could be found floating around the office, in cubicles and elsewhere.

Nancy Fong and Bing Gordon came up with the idea to hide the three shapes on the cover of every game, borrowing the idea from the urban legends concerning the placement of the bunny symbols on the covers of Playboy magazine. Finding the logo's hidden placement on early EA titles was a ritual for employees whenever a new cover was displayed outside Fong's cubicle.

1999 to present The current EA logo was derived from the logo used by sub-brand EA Sports. It was first used, in a different form, in 1992, when Electronic Arts introduced the "EASN" brand (later changed to "EA Sports" due to legal difficulties with ESPN). The logo was modified and adopted company-wide around 1999.

In-game logo introductions

Slogans

See also

References Further reading | last = Varney | first = Allen | title = The Conquest Of Origin, Origin created worlds, EA shipped games, EA won. | url=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/14/4 | accessdate = 2006-09-25 -->

External links

{{Finance links| name = Electronic Arts, Inc.| symbol = ERTS| sec_cik = 712515| hoovers = 14059-->

"EA" redirects here. For Electronic Arts' sports label, see EA Sports. For other uses, see EA (disambiguation).

{{Infobox Company| company_name = Electronic Arts, Inc| company_logo = | company_type = Public company ()| foundation = 1982| location_city = Redwood City, California| location_country = United States| location =| key_people = Trip Hawkins, Founder and CEO to 1991
Larry Probst, current chairman of the board and CEO from 1991-2007
John Riccitiello, current CEO]| products =| revenue = $2.951 billion United States dollar (2006)|operating_income = $325.00 million United States dollar (2006)|net_income = $236.00 million United States dollar (2006)| num_employees = 7,200 (2006)| homepage = www.ea.com-->

Electronic Arts (EA) () is an United States video game developer, marketer, video game publisher, and distributor of Video game. Established in 1982 by Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer games industry and was notable for promoting the designers and programmers responsible for their games. EA was just a publisher for its first few years and exclusively published for home computers, but began developing games in-house in the late 1980s and started supporting video game console in the early 1990s. Also in the 1990s, EA began to expand by acquiring several successful developers and, as of the early 2000s, EA has become the world's largest third-party publisher, with a net revenue of United States dollar$3.129 billion for its fiscal year March 31, 2005. SEC EDGAR Filing Information Currently, the company's most successful products are sports games published under their EA Sports label, games based on popular movie licenses and games from long-running franchises like Need for Speed series, Medal of Honor series, The Sims, Command & Conquer series and the later games in the Burnout (video game) series.

History In February 1982, Trip Hawkins arranged a meeting with Don Valentine of Sequoia Capital to discuss financing his new venture, Amazin' Software. Valentine encouraged Hawkins to leave Apple Inc., in which Hawkins served as Director of Product Marketing, and allowed Hawkins use of Sequoia Capital's spare office space to start the company. On May 28, 1982, Trip Hawkins incorporated and established the company with a personal investment of an estimated United States dollar$200,000. Seven months later in December 1982, Hawkins secured US$2 million of venture capital from Sequoia Capital, Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers, and Sevin Rosen Funds.

For more than seven months, Hawkins had refined his Electronic Arts business plan. With aid from his first employee (whom he worked in marketing with 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 game producers. The business plan was again refined in September and reissued on October 8, 1982.

Between September and November, employee headcount rose to 11, including Tim Mott, Bing Gordon, David Maynard, and Steve Hayes. Having outgrown the office space provided by Sequoia Capital, the company relocated to a San Mateo, California office that overlooked the San Francisco International Airport landing path. Headcount rose rapidly in 1983, including Don Daglow, Richard Hilleman, Stewart Bonn, David Gardner, and Nancy Fong.

Sales strategy 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. Despite this, revenue was $5 million in the first year and $11 million the next. Former CEO Larry Probst arrived as VP of Sales in late 1984 and helped the company sustain growth into $18 million in its third full year. Teaming with the existing sales staff that included Nancy Smith, David Klein, and David Gardner, Probst built the largest sales force of any American game publisher. This policy of dealing directly with retailers gave EA higher margins and better market awareness, key advantages the company would leverage to leapfrog its early competitors.

In December of 1986 David Gardner and Mark Lewis moved to the UK to open a European headquarters. Up until that point publishing of Electronic Arts Games, and the conversion of many of their games to compact cassette versions in Europe was handled by Ariolasoft. A small company in Wales was already called Electronic Arts, and until 1997 Electronic Arts in the UK was known legally as EOA, a name derived from its square/circle/triangle logo. The Welsh company ceased trading in 1997 and Electronic Arts acquired the rights to the name.

Name change Some of the early employees of the company disliked the Amazin' Software name that Hawkins had originally chosen when he incorporated the company. While at Apple, Hawkins had enjoyed company offsite meetings at Pajaro, California and organized such a planning offsite for EA in October 1982. After a long business day at the offsite, the dozen employees and advisers who were present agreed that they would stay up that night and see if they could agree unanimously on a new name for the company.

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. But 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 best-selling book about the film studio, United Artists, and liked the reputation that company had created. Early advisers Andy Berlin, Jeff Goodby, and Jeff Silverstein (who would soon form their own ad agency) were also fans of that approach, and the discussion was led by Hawkins and Berlin. Hawkins said everyone had a vote but they would lose it if they went to sleep.

Hawkins liked the word "electronic", and various employees had considered the phrases "Electronic Artists" and "Electronic Arts". Other candidates included Gordon's suggestion of "Blue Light", a reference from the movie "Tron".

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 are..." meaning that the developers whose games EA would publish were the artists. This statement from Hayes immediately tilted sentiment towards Electronic Arts and the name was unanimously endorsed.

Sharing credit A novel approach to giving credit to its developers was one of EA's trademarks in its early days. EA was the first video game publisher to treat its developers like rock music stars in an industry where developers were more prone to be treated like nameless factory workers. This characterization was even further reinforced with EA's packaging of most of their games in the "album cover" format of the late 1980s and 1990s. This format was pioneered by EA because Hawkins thought that a record album style would both save costs and convey an artistic feeling. EA routinely referred to their developers as "artists" and gave them photo credits in their games and numerous full-page magazine ads. EA also shared lavish profits with their developers, which added to their industry appeal. Because of this novel treatment, EA was able to easily attract the best developers.

The square "album cover" boxes were a popular packaging concept by Electronic Arts, which wanted to represent their video game developer as "rock music stars". Many games of the era were released in the album covers of identical size and shape.

In May 1983 EA shipped:



Three of these five—Archon, Pinball Construction Set, and M.U.L.E.—are still considered cornerstone products in the history of video games. Worms? is unrelated to the Worms (series) series of turn-based artillery games; it is a computer toy in which the user trains worms—represented as lines—to move in patterns on a network of nodes.

Trip exits After a very successful run on home computers, Electronic Arts later branched out and produced console games as well. Eventually Trip Hawkins moved on to found the now defunct The 3DO Company company. In 2003 he founded a new mobile phone software company, Digital Chocolate, that also began life in the Sequoia offices and had Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins as its lead investors.

In 2004, EA made a multimillion dollar donation to fund the development of game production curriculum at USC Interactive Media Division. In addition to the funds, EA staff members have been actively teaching and lecturing at the school.

EA under Probst EA is currently headquartered in Redwood City, California, California. Following the departure of Trip Hawkins, Larry Probst took over the reins and led the company to its current size and stature.

was an enormous hit for EA. The original version for the Apple II family by Bill Budge was quickly porting to other popular home computer of the era.Probst considered himself a man of principle and has refused to follow the M-rated example set by Take Two Interactive, whose violent Grand Theft Auto (series) franchise became the dominant brand in many key demographics from 2000 through 2003. As a result, Probst was heavily criticized by Wall Street analysts, who believe that because of this policy, EA's stock price is lower than it should be. In late March 2005, Electronic Arts issued its first ever mid-quarter profit warning blaming hardware shortages and lower than expected fourth quarter sales.

Not that M-rated games are new to EA: in 1999 EA approved its first M-rated game, System Shock II for the PC. Recently, Probst has changed his overall stance on M-rated games, and now EA has several titles that compete in the M-rated, adult game arena.

On February 1, 2006, Electronic Arts announced that it would cut worldwide staff by 5 percent. Electronic Arts cuts staff by 5 percent from GameSpot

On June 20 2006 EA purchased Mythic Entertainment, currently working on Warhammer Online.

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. Riccitiello previously worked for Elevation Partners, Sara Lee and Pepsico.

Also, in 2007, EA announced that it would be bringing some of its major titles (such as Madden 08, Need for Speed: Carbon, etc.) to the Macintosh. EA has released Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Need for Speed Carbon, Battlefield 2142 and Command & Conquer: Tiberium Wars 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. EA ships four Mac games from MacWorld

In October 2007, EA purchased the company that owned BioWare and Pandemic Studios.http://www.ea.com/article.jsp?id=bio1011

EA development strategy 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. GameSpy comments on EA's yearly update strategyRecognizing 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. EA moves towards new IP's from Gamesindustry.biz

Criticism EA is often criticized for buying smaller development studios primarily for their intellectual property assets, and then making the developers produce mediocre games on these same franchises. For example, Origin Systems-produced Ultima VIII and Ultima IX were developed quickly under EA's ownership, over the protests of Ultima creator Richard Garriott, Ultima VIII and IX rushed into production and these two are considered by many Many believe Ultima IX was unfairly maligned because of rushed development schedule as not up to the standard of the rest of the series. Ultima VIII received poorly by fans Ultima IX received poorly by fans

EA is also criticized for shutting down its acquired studios after a poorly performing game.http://news.softpedia.com/news/EA-Closes-Down-Warrington-Studio-38110.shtml http://www.gamespot.com/news/6159448.htmlhttp://www.gamepro.com.au/index.php/id;476539124;fp;4;fpid;4 The historical pattern of poor sales and ratings of the first game shipped after acquisition suggests EA's control and direction as being primarily responsible for the game's failure rather than the studio. Magic Carpet 2 was rushed to completion over the objections of designer Peter Molyneux and it shipped during the holiday season with several major bugs. Studios such as Origin, Westwood Studios, and Bullfrog Productions had previously produced games attracting a significant fanbase, and when they were closed down many top designers and programmers refused to stay with EA and formed rival studios. Many fans also became annoyed that their favourite developers were closed down, but some developers, for example the EALA studio, have stated that they try to carry on the legacy of the old studio, in this case Westwood Studios. EA has also received harsh fire from labor groups for its dismissals of large groups of employees during the closure of a studio (see below). Such was the case with the game GoldenEye: Rogue Agent.http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3137918

After releasing many products, the lack of support is notable in many games, assured by the fact that EA declared openly that it would no longer support relatively new but still buggy titles, like Need for Speed: Most Wanted, Need for Speed: Underground and some of the latest Command & Conquer (series)http://www.gamepro.com/news.cfm?article_id=127348 games.

Electronic Arts declined to support the Dreamcast in favor of Sony's PlayStation 2.http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?section_name=pub&aid=3482

EA has also been criticized for other aggressive business methods like the acquisition of 19.9 percent of shares of its competitor Ubisoft in what was called a "hostile act" by Ubisoft CEO, Yves Guillemot. Ubisoft CEO Speaks on Takeover - TotalGaming.net news, 22 September, 2005 However, this has not materialized into anything hostile and Guillemot later indicated that a merger with EA was a possibility.http://www.joystiq.com/2007/05/29/ubisoft-president-still-considering-ea-acquisition/

Criticism for server shutdowns EA has also received criticism for shutting down their servers for many of their games. The reasons for these server shutdowns are still relatively unclear. It is safe to assume that the reason for the shutdowns is because of the lack of use some of these servers receive and the cost to keep them running. Games like Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06, older games from the Madden series, and Burnout Revenge for both the original Xbox and Playstation 2 (The Xbox 360 version of Burnout Revenge is unaffected) have all had their servers shut down both in 2006, and again in 2007. Servers for many games were shutdown on September 1, 2007, and will happen again on November 1, 2007.

It is notable to point out that some of EA's older games, for example Burnout 3: Takedown, for the original Xbox, have not had its Xbox Live server(s) shutdown, even though this game is over three years old. This is most likely due to its popularity online and its frequent use of the servers.

Employment policy Electronic Arts has been criticized for employees working extraordinarily long hours—up to 80 hours per week— and not just at "crunch" times leading up to the scheduled releases of products. The publication of the EA Spouse blog, with criticisms such as "The current mandatory hours are 9 a.m. to 10 p.m.—seven days a week—with the occasional Saturday evening off for good behaviour (at 6:30 p.m.)". The original ea_spouse blog entry at LiveJournal The company has since settled a class action lawsuit brought by game artists to compensate for "unpaid overtime". "Employees readying class-action lawsuit against EA" from GameSpot The class was awarded $15.6 million. As a result, many of the lower-level developers (artists, programmers, producers, and designers) are now working at an hourly rate. A similar suit brought by game programmer was settled for $14.9 million. "Programmers Win EA Overtime Settlement, EA_Spouse Revealed" from Gamasutra

Exclusive licenses After Sega's ESPN NFL Football 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 National Football League, and in January 2005, a 15-year deal with ESPN, much as with Take Two Interactive's exclusive licensing deal with baseball's Major League.http://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/12/13/news_6114977.html The ESPN deal gives 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.http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/sportsbusiness/news/story?id=1945691

Online strategy EA originally decided against allowing its games on Microsoft's Xbox Live online service due to arguments between Microsoft and EA about the distribution of revenue from online play. EA finally agreed to release games on Xbox Live on the condition that Microsoft allow the games to connect to the EA servers in order to play them online.http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3703109.stm EA has also received criticism from many gamers in that EA refuses to patch many of its games (usually the older ones) that are in many cases glitchy and/or imbalanced (one player side has more advantages over the other and thus the game matches are unfair).

Game quality For 2006, the games review aggregation site Metacritic gives the average of EA games as 72.0 (out of 100); 2.5 points behind Nintendo (74.5) but ahead of the other first-party publishers Microsoft (71.6) and Sony (71.2). The closest third-party publisher is Take 2 (publishing as 2K Games and Rockstar) at 70.3. The remaining top 10Game publisher publishers (Sega, Konami, THQ, Ubisoft, Activision) all rate in the mid 60's.

However, EA's aggregate review performance has shown a downward trend in quality over recent years and is expected to affect market shares during competitive seasons. Pacific Crest Securities analyst Evan Wilson has said, "Poor reviews and quality are beginning to tarnish the EA brand. According to our ongoing survey of GameRankings.com aggregated review data, Electronic Arts' overall game quality continues to fall...Although market share has not declined dramatically to date, in years such as 2007, which promises to have tremendous competition, it seems likely if quality does not improve." Analyst: EA brand tarnished EA brand "tarnished" according to analyst

EA has also received criticism for developing games that lack innovation vis-à-vis the number of gaming titles produced under the EA brand that show a history of yearly updates, particularly in their sporting franchises. These typically retail as new games at full market value and feature only updated team rosters in addition to incremental changes to game mechanics, the user interface, and graphics. One critique compared EA to companies like Ubisoft and concluded that EA's innovation in new and old IPs, "Crawls along at a snail's pace." EA innovation crawls along at "snail's pace"., while even the company's own CEO, John Riccitiello, acknowleded the lack of innovation seen in the industry generally, saying, "We're boring people to death and making games that are harder and harder to play. For the most part, the industry has been rinse-and-repeat. There's been lots of product that looked like last year's product, that looked a lot like the year before." EA CEO John Riccitiello: More innovation is needed in videogames.

Editing of Wikipedia On August 15, 2007 it was revealed that IP addresses registered to EA had made changes to its Wikipedia entry favoring EA. "EA staffer plays history revisionist on Wikipedia" from Joystiq.com "EA Staffer Attempts to Alter Wiki History" from ShackNews.com The changes made included downplaying the importance of the founder of EA, Trip Hawkins, as well as playing up the importance of former CEO, Larry Probst. Other changes included attempts to remove information regarding the infamous EA Spouse scandal, which involved the poor treatment of workers. In addition, several paragraphs under criticism were removed completely.


EA's response was that "Many companies routinely post updates on websites like Wikipedia to ensure accuracy of their own corporate information." "EA responds to Wikipedia revision controversy" article from GamesIndustry.biz It did not, however, address the specifics of the changes.

Notable games published studio Maxis, EA obtained the rights to publish the lucrative SimCity series and the spin-off game The Sims. It went on to develop its sequel The Sims 2. "The Sims overtakes Myst" article from GameSpotSome of the most notable and popular games of video game history have been published by EA, and many of these are listed below. Though EA published these titles, they did not always develop them; some were developed by independent game development studios. EA developed their first game in 1987.



Electronic Arts also published a number of non-game titles. The most popular of these was closely related to the video game industry and was actually used by several of their developers. Deluxe Paint premiered on the Amiga in 1985 and was later ported to other systems. The last version in the line, Deluxe Paint V, was released in 1994. Other non-game titles include Music Construction Set (and Deluxe Music Construction Set), Deluxe Paint Animation and Instant Music (software).EA also published a series of Paint titles on the Macintosh: Sudio/8, Studio/1 and Studio/32 (1990).

Label architecture Electronic Arts release titles under the following Record label:













Studios and subsidiaries

Current studios

Former studios

Corporate affairs Logos The Electronic Arts logo has undergone few changes in the company's history.

1982 to 1999 EA's classic Square/Circle/Triangle corporate logo, adopted shortly after its founding and phased out in 1999, was devised by Barry Deutsch of Steinhilber Deutsch and Gard design firm. The three shapes were meant to stand for the "basic alphabet of graphic design." The shapes were rasterized to connote technology.

Many customers mistook the square/circle/triangle logo for a stylized "EOA." Though they thought the "E" stood for "Electronic" and "A" for "Arts," they had no idea what the "O" could stand for, except perhaps the o in "Electronic." An early newsletter of EA, Farther, even jokingly discussed the topic in one issue, claiming that the square and triangle indeed stood for "E" and "A", but that the circle was merely "a Nerf ball that got stuck in a floppy drive and has been popping up on our splash screens ever since." This was, in part, true. In the early days at Electronic Arts, nerf balls imprinted with the square/circle/triangle shapes could be found floating around the office, in cubicles and elsewhere.

Nancy Fong and Bing Gordon came up with the idea to hide the three shapes on the cover of every game, borrowing the idea from the urban legends concerning the placement of the bunny symbols on the covers of Playboy magazine. Finding the logo's hidden placement on early EA titles was a ritual for employees whenever a new cover was displayed outside Fong's cubicle.

1999 to present The current EA logo was derived from the logo used by sub-brand EA Sports. It was first used, in a different form, in 1992, when Electronic Arts introduced the "EASN" brand (later changed to "EA Sports" due to legal difficulties with ESPN). The logo was modified and adopted company-wide around 1999.

In-game logo introductions

Slogans

See also

References Further reading | last = Varney | first = Allen | title = The Conquest Of Origin, Origin created worlds, EA shipped games, EA won. | url=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/14/4 | accessdate = 2006-09-25 -->

External links

{{Finance links| name = Electronic Arts, Inc.| symbol = ERTS| sec_cik = 712515| hoovers = 14059-->



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