| Electronic Arts |
Article Index for Electronic |
Articles about Electronic Arts |
Website Links For Electronic Arts |
Information AboutElectronic Arts |
Electronic Arts (EA) () is an label, games based on popular movie licenses and games from long-running franchises like '' Need For Speed '', '' Medal Of Honor '', '' The Sims '', '' Command & Conquer '' and the later games in the Burnout series. HISTORY In 1982, EA, then known as Amazin' Software, was established by Trip Hawkins and incorporated with a US$2 million Venture Capital investment from Sequoia Capital, Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers and Sevin Rosen Funds. By the end of the year, Amazin’ Software had grown to 11 employees, necessitating the establishment of the company’s first headquarters in San Mateo , California . According to the 1982 business plan, the company’s original business goals were to grow to a billion-dollar company within its first six years and to "make software that makes a personal computer worth owning." At the time, Electronic Arts was the 136th game publisher in the U.S. EA eventually attained its goal of becoming a billion-dollar company, though it took 12 years to do so. Since its inception, EA has taken a unique approach to the industry. On the business side, EA pioneered the strategy of developing direct relationships with retailers and selling its games directly to retail, which was something no other computer software company had done. This strategy, coupled with the fact that the company was selling new, unproven titles, made sales growth difficult at first because retailers typically sought established brands from existing distribution partners. In spite of this challenge, EA achieved revenue of US$5 million in the company’s first year and US$11 million the next. Current CEO Larry Probst arrived as vice president of sales in 1984 and helped grow revenue to $18 million. Probst expanded the sales team to create the largest sales force of any American game publisher. The strategy of working directly with retailers paid off, rewarding EA with higher margins and better market awareness. EA leveraged these key advantages to leapfrog its early competitors. The company also adopted the novel approach of treating videogame developers like Rock stars. This characterization was reinforced by the company’s packaging—most of its games were packaged in an "album cover" format in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The company felt this style of packaging would help to convey an artistic feeling. EA routinely referred to its developers as "artists," acknowledging them with photo credits on game packaging and in advertising. EA also shared profits with its developers, which enhanced the company’s industry reputation and appeal. It was due in part to this unique philosophy that EA was able to attract the best creative talent. 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 Dunes 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 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 Developers as " Rock 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 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 3DO 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 The University Of Southern California's 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 . 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 by Bill Budge was quickly Ported to other popular Home Systems 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 '' 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 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 '' 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 strategy Recognizing the risk of franchise fatigue among consumers, EA announced in 2006 that it would concentrate more of its effort on creating new original 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, '' were developed quickly under EA's ownership, over the protests of 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 recieved poorly by fans Ultima IX recieved 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;4The 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. ''''. 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 they would no longer support relatively new but still buggy titles, like '''' and some of the latest '' Command & Conquer ''http://www.gamepro.com/news.cfm?article_id=127348 games. Electronic Arts declined to support the Dreamcast in favour 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 their competitor news, 22 September , 2005 However, this has not materialized into anything hostile and Yves Guillemot later indicated that a merger with EA was a possibility.http://www.joystiq.com/2007/05/29/ubisoft-president-still-considering-ea-acquisition/ 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 Exclusive licenses After Sega's 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 their 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 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 10 Top 10 Publishers According To Game Develop Magazine 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. Compared to companies like Ubisoft, EA's innovation in new and old IPs, "Crawls along at a snail's pace." EA innovation crawls along at "snail's pace". Acknowledging the lack of innovation seen in the industry generally and thus within his own company by proxy, EA CEO John Riccitiello has said, ''"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 , as well as playing up the importance of the new (at the time) 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 They did not, however, address the specifics of the changes. NOTABLE GAMES PUBLISHED studio ]] Some 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.
See Also: List of Electronic Arts games 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 . 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 Labels :
STUDIOS Current studios
Former studios
CORPORATE AFFAIRS Logos The Electronic Arts logo has undergone few changes in the company's history. Compared to, for example, late game publisher TSR's Logo , it has been nearly static. 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 Legend s 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
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|