Electronic Arts

Electronic Arts

Basic information
Founded	1982
Type	Public
Industry	Video Games
Official website	https://ea.com/

Electronic Arts (EA) was a game developer and now publisher founded in 1982 by Trip Hawkins. It is well known for its simulator titles under the Sim series (The Sims, SimCity, MySims, etc.), titles published under their EA Sports division (Madden, FIFA, etc.), and their Battlefield series.

EA has received criticism for its reliance on microtransactions, its focus on downloadable content (DLC), and other business practices that some consumers perceive as excessively unfavorable (predatory and anti-consumer).

Controversial practices

Origin shutdown

On April 17, 2025, EA will shut down their Origin client, which was the final option for 32-bit hardware to run EA-published titles. While most consumers have already switched to using 64-bit hardware, the end-of-life of 32-bit support means that vintage enthusiasts, tech historians, and users who previously did not need to upgrade their 32-bit hardware are unable to either install or run the libraries that they paid for.

Lootboxes

See also: EA Lootbox Controversies

Multiple games published by EA in recent years have garnered significant controversy over what is essentially legal gambling. This is most commonly seen in EA sports titles and their "Ultimate Team" modes, which has players using in-game currency that can be purchased with real-world money to buy card packs, in order to potentially get high-value player cards. This monetization method, considered by many to be "predatory", most notably introduced controversy within the modern release of Star Wars Battlefront 2, wherein the most powerful character in-game, Darth Vader, could only be obtained through this lootbox system. It was not until several weeks after the backlash that EA would tone down these lootboxes by changing loot pools. Lootboxes remained within the title until Disney directly instructed EA to stop because of gambling concerns.

DRM

EA holds the record for most pirated game with the title Spore, which was directly because of EA's usage of SecuROM, and was one of the earlier known titles to introduce always-online digital rights management (DRM). While their use of SecuROM died off in the mid-2010s, they merely switched to a piece of DRM that has been far worse for consumers, Denuvo. One significant EA title that has used this DRM is Star Wars: Jedi Survivor.

License exclusivity

With various intellectual properties, from Star Wars to the NFL, EA has forced their way into holding what is essentially an artificial monopoly over large genres of the industry. Their exclusive licenses with various football organizations, such as the AFL, NFL, and NCAA, resulted in an antitrust lawsuit against EA. This ended in a $600K settlement, but did not resolve the primary problems caused by EA's exclusive deals. NCAA players brought additional lawsuits against EA, alleging that it was not authorized to use their likeness in their games. These suits were also settled out of court.

Buyouts and closures

In order for EA to hold its high position, it has been known to buy out its competition. Often, this has led to the detriment of the companies they buy out, and by extension, the media which they release. A historical example, Westwood Studios, which pioneered the RTS genre with the Command & Conquer series, was shut down about 5 years after its purchase by EA, and its notable franchise was left abandoned years later, with entries either delisted or broken after GameSpy-based DRM were broken circa 2014. While their habit of buying and closing studios has thinned since 2008, it similarly closed Visceral Games, the developer of Dead Space, in 2017.