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 DLC, and other business practices that some consumers perceive as excessively unfavorable, AKA predatory and anti-consumer.

Controversial practices

Origin Shutdown

In 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 transitioned to using 64-bit hardware, the EOL 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 pulled 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 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 via this loot box system. It was not until several weeks after the backlash that EA would tone down these lootboxes via changing loot pools. Lootboxes remained within the title until Disney had to tell EA to stop directly due to gambling concerns.

DRM

EA holds the record for most pirated game with the title Spore, which was directly due to EA's usage of SecuROM, which was one of the earlier known titles to introduce always-online DRM. While their usage of SecuROM died off in the mid-2010s, they merely transitioned to a piece of DRM which has been far worse for consumers; Denuvo. Significant EA titles that used this DRM include Star Wars: Jedi Survivor.

License exclusivity

With various IP, 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 had gone on to necessitate an antitrust lawsuit against EA. This unfortunately only ended in a $600K settlement rather than resolve the primary problems caused by EA's exclusivity deals. EA had additional lawsuits from NCAA players who claimed that EA was not authorized to use their likeness in their games, these suits were additionally only settled.

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, who pioneered the RTS genre with the Command & Conquer series, was shut down about 5 years after their purchase by EA, and their notable franchise was left abandoned years later, and entries either delisted or broken after GameSpy-based DRM were broken circa 2014. While their habits of buying studios and soon after closing them have thinned since 2008, their closure of Dead Space developer Visceral Games in 2017 has made consumers question whether they would return to these old habits.