Electronic Arts (EA) (NASDAQ: ERTS) is an international developer, marketer, publisher and distributor of video games. Founded and incorporated on May 28, 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 its games. Originally, EA was a home computing game publisher. In the late 1980s, the company began developing games in-house and supported consoles by the early 1990s. EA later grew via acquisition of several successful developers. By the early 2000s, EA had become one of the world's largest third-party publishers. In May 2008, the company reported net annual revenue of US$4.02 billion in fiscal year 2008. Currently, EA's most successful products are sports games published under its EA Sports label, games based on popular movie licenses such as Harry Potter and games from long-running franchises like Need for Speed, Medal of Honor, The Sims, Battlefield and the later games in the Burnout and Command & Conquer series. They are also the distributors of the Rock Band series.
Company structure:
The following are the Electronic Arts labels, with the studios that fall under each label
• EA Games—Home to the largest number of studio and development teams, this label is responsible for action-adventure, role playing, racing and combat games, marketed under the EA brand. In addition to traditional packaged-goods games, EA Games also develops massively-multiplayer online role-playing games. Led by Frank Gibeau.
o Visceral Games (formerly EA Redwood Shores)
o EA Los Angeles (formerly Westwood Studios)
o EA Montreal
o BioWare
o EA Digital Illusions CE
o Pandemic Studios
o EA Black Box (formerly Black Box Games)
o Maxis
o EA Phenomic
o Criterion Games
o Mythic Entertainment
• EA Sports—Publishes all the realistic, casual, and freestyle sports-based titles from EA, including FIFA Soccer, Madden NFL, Fight Night, NBA Live, NCAA Football, NCAA March Madness, Tiger Woods PGA Tour, NHL Hockey, NASCAR and Rugby. Led by Peter Moore.
o EA Tiburon (Florida)
o EA Canada (Vancouver)
o EA Sports Big (San Francisco)
o EA-NC (North Carolina)
• EA Casual Entertainment—Creates and publishes casual games for gamers and non-traditional gamers. Includes EA's Pogo online service Pogo.com (online games site, with numerous EA brand tie-ins), EA Hasbro, and EA Mobile (mobile phone and iPod games, previously JAMDAT). Led by Kathy Vrabeck.
• "The Sims (series)" Label—develops and markets life-simulation games and online communities, including those with "Sims" titles. Led by Rod Humble.
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