Electronic Arts

Electronic Arts {{nasdaq|ERTS}} is a leading video game developer and publisher. It was founded in 1982 by Trip Hawkins. It is the largest video game publisher in the world, with annual sales exceeding USD$3 billion. EA's success over the years was built upon a huge library of popular video games. In the early days of home computers, EA routinely ported their most popular titles across all platforms.

Criticism

EA is sometimes criticized as "the Microsoft of the games industry", specifically that they buy smaller development studios primarily for their intellectual property assets, and then make the developers produce run-of-the-mill games on these same franchises. For example, Origin produced ' and ' under EA's ownership, and these two are considered among the worst of the series, obviously aimed at lowest common denominator audience (Richard Garriott, the originator of the Ultima series, wasn't fond of EA at all, and previous Ultima games contained some subtle attacks on EA). Late productions generally have not been known for their originality; the latest Madden title, of which it is said that it does not improve on the previous version, except the player updates, is a prime example. EA is also criticized for shutting down studios that it acquires. Studios such as Origin, Westwood Studios, and Bullfrog had previously produced games attracting a significant fanbase, and when they were closed down many top designers and programmers refused to stay with EA and formed rival studios.

Related Topics:
Microsoft - Origin - Richard Garriott - Westwood Studios

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EA's online strategy is also criticized. Many EA sports games for the PC and PS2 are only supported by EA's servers for one year, forcing gamers to buy the next increment in the series (at full price) to continue playing online afterwards, even though the improvements may be minor outside of roster changes. EA also earned much ill-will for refusing to publish for the highly-touted Xbox Live online service, which is run through Microsoft's own servers and which charges a monthly flat fee, regardless of the number of titles. EA would not be able to retain use of its own servers for Xbox games and thus could not charge a monthly fee for every game as they could on the PS2. Ending up, EA capitulated in 2004 and started publishing for Xbox Live since their absence did not slow down the growth of Live as significantly as they had hoped.

Related Topics:
PS2 - Xbox Live

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Some think Electronic Arts' sports licenses are threatening the game market. After Sega's ESPN NFL 2K5 successfully grabbed market share away from EA's dominant NFL Madden series during the 2004 holiday season, EA has secured itself large sports licensing deals such as an exclusive agreement with the NFL, and in January 2005, a 15-year deal with ESPN. The ESPN deal gives EA exclusive first rights to all ESPN content for sports simulation games. On April 11 2005, EA announced a similar, 6-year licensing deal with the Collegiate Licensing Company (CLC) for exclusive rights to college football content.

Related Topics:
ESPN NFL 2K5 - NFL - ESPN - April 11 - 2005 - Collegiate Licensing Company - College football

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EA has also been criticized for other aggressive business methods like the acquisition of 19.9 percent of shares of their competitor Ubisoft in what was called a hostile act by Ubisoft. Many believe that Electronic Arts' has begun the process that will lead to another industry crash.

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Electronic Arts has from time to time been criticized for its employment policy of requiring employees to work extraordinarily long hours—up to 85 hours per week—as a general rule and not just at "crunch" times leading up to the scheduled releases of products. "The current mandatory hours are 9am to 10pm—seven days a week—with the occasional Saturday evening off for good behavior (at 6:30pm)"http://www.livejournal.com/users/ea_spouse/. The company, as of late 2004, is facing a class action suit to pay for "unpaid overtime" it demanded of its employeeshttp://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/11/11/news_6112998.html.

Related Topics:
2004 - Class action

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They have also received harsh fire from labor groups for their dismissals of large groups of employees if a certain title doesn't succeed. Such was the case with '.

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Lastly, they dislike fan-made patches and mods, and have shut down popular fan-made game modifications, resulting in criticism that they could transform the gaming industry into one that is hostile towards fan modifications.

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