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.

Trivia

EA's classic Square/Circle/Triangle corporate logo was devised by Barry Deutsch of Steinhilber Deutsch and Gard design firm. The three shapes were meant to stand for the "basic alphabet of graphic design." The shapes were rasterized to connote technology.

Related Topics:
Barry Deutsch - Steinhilber Deutsch and Gard

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Many customers mistook the square/circle/triangle logo for a stylized "EOA." Though they thought the "E" stood for "Electronic" and "A" for "Arts," they had no idea what the "O" could stand for, except perhaps the o in "Electronic." An early newsletter of EA, Farther, even jokingly discussed the topic in one issue, claiming that the square and triangle indeed stood for "E" and "A", but that the circle was merely "a Nerf ball that got stuck in a floppy drive and has been popping up on our splash screens ever since." This was, in part, true. In the early days at Electronic Arts, nerf balls in the square/circle/triangle shapes could be found floating around the office, in cubicles and elsewhere.

Related Topics:
Newsletter - Nerf

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Fong and Gordon came up with the idea to hide the three shapes on the game covers, borrowing the idea from the urban legends concerning the placement of the bunny symbols on the covers of Playboy magazine.

Related Topics:
Urban legend - Playboy

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