EA Sports

EA Sports is a brand name used by Electronic Arts since 1993 to distribute games based on sports. Formerly a gimmick inside Electronic Arts sports games, that tried to mimic real-life sports networks, calling themselves "EA Sports Network" (EASN) with pictures or endorsements of real comentators such as Ron Barr and John Madden, soon grew up to become a sub-label on its own, releasing games such as FIFA, NHL, Madden NFL, and NCAA Football. EA Sports' early motto, If it's in the game, it's in the game reflects the aim of the early games to portrait reality as best as the technology would allow.

32 bit era to present

As the 16-bit era came to a close, and powerful 3D-capable consoles appeared, EA had to reinvent their franchises, and some of the earliest titles failed to live up to their 2D predecessors' reputation. However, in 1998 two games received very positive feedback - FIFA 98: Road to World Cup and NHL 98. Later that year, World Cup 98 broke the bad reputation of "official videogames" by receiving high marks almost unanimously. As fluidity in gameplay caught up with graphics, EA soon had to face another problem: the lack of improvement over previous titles, or as fans dubbed it, "sequelitis". The first years of the 21st Century were problematic, with many fans left wondering about why they should bother with the next release, when few new features are added, gameplay was not improved (it was more action-oriented than some of their newer competitors) and their long-asked requests were not answered.

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A new sublabel also appeared, dubbed EA Sports BIG, which specialized on extreme sports or unconventional takes on sports, such as Def Jam Vendetta, NFL Street, NBA Street, SSX, FIFA Street and Freekstyle.

Related Topics:
Extreme sports - Def Jam Vendetta - NFL Street - NBA Street - SSX - FIFA Street - Freekstyle

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