Ea.com Biography & Web Analysis

American video game developer Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is based in Redwood City, California. Trip Hawkins, an Apple employee, founded the business in May 1982. It was a pioneer in the early home computer gaming market and referred to the designers and programmers behind its games as "software artists." Up until 1987's Skate or Die!, EA published a number of computer games and some productivity software that was created by outside parties. The firm began to focus more on internal game companies, frequently through acquisitions, including the 1991 transformation of Distinctive Software into EA Canada.

Aside from the EA Sports games FIFA, Madden NFL, NBA Live, NHL, and EA Sports UFC, EA now develops and publishes games of well-known properties like Battlefield, Need for Speed, The Sims, Medal of Honor, Command & Conquer, Dead Space, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Army of Two, and Star Wars. Their desktop games are available via self-developed Origin, a PC gaming digital distribution network that competes directly with Epic Games Store and Valve's Steam. The likes of EA Tiburon in Orlando, EA Vancouver in Burnaby, EA Romania in Bucharest, DICE in Stockholm and Los Angeles, BioWare in Edmonton and Austin, and Respawn Entertainment in Los Angeles and Vancouver are among the notable gaming studios that it owns and runs.

Trip Hawkins has worked for Apple since 1978, when there were just about fifty people employed by the company. The home personal computer market exploded during the following four years. Apple had completed its initial public offering (IPO) by 1982 and had more over a thousand workers, making it a Fortune 500 corporation.

Trip Hawkins set up a meeting with Don Valentine of Sequoia Capital in February 1982 to talk about financing his brand-new business, Amazin' Software. Valentine pushed Hawkins to leave Apple, where he was Director of Product Marketing, and gave him permission to use Sequoia Capital's extra office space to launch his own business. Trip Hawkins launched the business on May 27, 1982, with a personal investment of roughly US$200,000.

Hawkins worked on his business plan for Electronic Arts for more than seven months. The original business plan was drafted in August 1982 on an Apple II in the Sequoia Capital office, primarily by Hawkins with assistance from Rich Melmon, his first employee (with whom he worked in marketing at Apple). During that time, Hawkins also hired two of his old Apple employees, Dave Evans and Pat Marriott, as producers, as well as an Atari employee from Jeff Burton's class at Stanford University for developing international business. The business plan was updated on October 8th, 1982, after being revised once more in September. The number of staff members reached 11, including Tim Mott, Bing Gordon, David Maynard, and Steve Hayes, by November.

The business moved to a San Mateo office with a view of the San Francisco Airport landing path after outgrowing the Sequoia Capital-provided workspace. In 1983, there was a sharp increase in personnel, including Don Daglow and Richard Hilleman.

Hawkins originally named his business Amazin' Software when he established it, but the name was rejected by all of the other early workers, and in November 1982 the business changed its name to Electronic Arts. He set up an off-site meeting at the Pajaro Dunes, where the business has previously hosted such gatherings. Hawkins created the notions of considering software as an artistic medium and referring to programmers as "software artists." As a result, the name "SoftArt" had been offered in the most recent version of the company plan. However, Hawkins and Melmon believed that authorization should be sought from Software Arts' founders, who developed VisiCalc, as they were acquainted. Dan Bricklin did not want the name to be used because it sounded too much like Software Arts—perhaps "confusingly similar."

However, everyone in attendance approved of the name idea. Hawkins admired the reputation that United Artists had built after reading a popular book about the film studio recently. Everyone got a vote, according to Hawkins, but they would forfeit it if they went to sleep.

Employees had suggested the terms "Electronic Artists" and "Electronic Arts" because Hawkins liked the word "electronic." Steve Hayes argued against the idea of "Electronic Artists," which Gordon and others had proposed as a tribute to the film studio United Artists, by saying, "We're not the artists, they [the coders] are." As soon as Hayes made this declaration, the tide of opinion shifted in favor of Electronic Arts, and the name was later overwhelmingly accepted and adopted in 1982. From Apple, Atari, Xerox PARC, and VisiCorp, he hired his original staff members. He also persuaded Steve Wozniak to join the board of directors.

Hawkins was adamant about dealing with customers directly. This made sales growth more difficult because Hawkins was establishing new gaming brands at the same time. Retailers wanted to purchase well-known brands through their current distributors. Larry Probst, a former CEO, joined the organization as VP of Sales in the latter part of 1984 and contributed to its growth. Dealing directly with merchants provided EA bigger margins and better market awareness, two crucial advantages it used to outpace its early rivals.