1. Greg Filla

2. Early Years of the Company 1982- Founded by Trip Hawkins Set out to publish and distribute games 1983- First line of games released Considered a major success Developed Marketing strategy Doctor J and Larry Bird Go One on One

3. Early Years (continued) Aggressive tactics used to get an edge on competition 1984- Larry Probst joins the company Hawkins decided to avoid the console market Missed out on the Nintendo Entertainment System 1987- Developed first game: Skate or Die! Had an advantage over competition with the Sega Genesis Published many games for the Genesis and Super Nintendo

4. The Early 90s at EA Hawkins started a new company in 1991 Larry Probst takes over as CEO Time of great expansion Great success with SNES Rapid Acquisition of game developers Many successful franchises were developed

5. Next Generation of Consoles o 1995- Nintendo 64, Sony Playstation, and Sega Saturn o New franchises with great success o EA had to choose which consoles to publish games for

6. Maxis and The Sims 1997- EA acquired Maxis Popular for its Simulation titles like SimCity 2000- It released The Sims First video game to have success with teenage girl market There have been many follow-ups to the original game Mostly successes in the franchise, but also some failures

7. EA and Online Gaming 1997- Ultima Online was EA’s First MMORPG Great success 2002- Majestic, was a failure for EA The game incorporated e-mails and phone calls to immerse the player in the game

8. Another Generation of Consoles Sega Dreamcast, Sony’s Playstation 2, the Nintendo Gamecube, and Microsoft’s Xbox Many different platforms offered EA more freedom and also challenges EA had grown with the industry and had become one of the biggest video game publishers

9. EA Sports gets Competitive 2004- EA made an exclusive contract with the NFL 5 years of exclusive rights cost EA $300 million 2005- a contract with ESPN was signed A step ahead of Sega Has received a lot of criticism for its aggressive business tactics

10. EA Incorporating more Realism in Games Has always been a leader in motion-capture technology Recent contracts with ESPN and the Weather Channel will add many elements of real life into the games. By using the internet, players can see up to date statistics about real sports teams

11. Poor Working Conditions EA employees have reported working as many as 65 hours a week A class-action lawsuit was filed in 2004, because the company had not paid overtime A wife of one EA employee posted a blog complaining about her husband working 80 hours a week EA has tried to counteract the problem, but it still has crunch times It offers some bonuses for employees but many still think it is not enough

12. Restructuring at EA June of 2007, EA announced it would break down into four categories: EA Games, EA Casual Entertainment, EA Sports, and The Sims There have also been many layoffs recently and several studios have closed This has been related to the high cost of developing games for the latest generation of consoles