Electronic Arts

Electronic Arts, commonly known as EA, was founded on May 28, 1982, by Trip Hawkins, a former Apple executive who had worked on the Macintosh team. Hawkins left Apple to start his own game company, initially calling it Amazin' Software before settling on Electronic Arts. The company's founding philosophy treated game developers as software artists, a novel concept that elevated the status of designers in an industry that had previously treated them as anonymous programmers. EA went public in 1989 and began an aggressive acquisition strategy in the 1990s, purchasing studios like Origin Systems (1992), Bullfrog Productions (1995), and Westwood Studios (1998). The 2000s saw major acquisitions including Maxis (1997), Criterion Games (2004), BioWare (2007), and Pandemic Studios (2007). In 2011 EA acquired PopCap Games, maker of Plants vs. Zombies, and in 2021 it acquired Codemasters, the racing game specialist.

EA is best known for its major franchises. Its sports division, EA Sports, produces the world's best-selling soccer game EA Sports FC (formerly FIFA), the dominant American football game Madden NFL, the NHL hockey simulation, and the UFC mixed martial arts title. Beyond sports, the company's portfolio includes The Sims, one of the best-selling game series of all time; the Battlefield first-person shooter; the free-to-play battle royale Apex Legends, which has over 130 million players; the Star Wars Jedi action-adventure games; the Need for Speed racing series; the Mass Effect and Dragon Age role-playing games; the Dead Space survival horror series; and the Plants vs. Zombies tower defense and shooter games. EA also operates the EA Play subscription service and the EA App digital storefront, which replaced Origin in 2022.

EA has been one of the most controversial companies in gaming. It won the Consumerist's Worst Company in America award in 2012 and 2013, reflecting widespread player dissatisfaction with its business practices. The 2017 launch of Star Wars Battlefront II, which featured pay-to-win loot boxes, sparked a global backlash and led to investigations by gambling regulators in Belgium and the Netherlands. EA's FIFA Ultimate Team packs have been investigated by gambling authorities in multiple countries, and in 2020 the Netherlands fined EA €10 million for violating gambling laws, though the fine was later overturned on appeal. The company has also faced criticism for acquiring and then closing studios, including Westwood, Pandemic, Bullfrog, Origin Systems, Maxis Emeryville, and Visceral Games. The always-online requirement for the 2013 SimCity reboot caused server failures at launch and massive player backlash. In 2022 EA ended its 30-year partnership with FIFA, rebranding its soccer franchise to EA Sports FC after FIFA reportedly demanded over $1 billion for the naming rights over four years. The company has also been criticized for crunch culture, particularly at BioWare during the development of Anthem and Mass Effect: Andromeda, and for layoffs that affected about 800 employees in 2023 and 670 in 2024.[edit]