Electronic Arts is an video game company headquartered in Redwood City, CA. Founded and incorporated on May 28, 1982 by Trip Hawkins.
As of September 2017, Electronic Arts is the second-largest gaming company in the Americas and Europe by revenue and market capitalization after Activision Blizzard and ahead of Take-Two Interactive and Ubisoft.
The company began developing games in-house and supported consoles by the early 1990s. By the early 2000s, EA had become one of the world’s largest third-party publishers. In 2001, EA began to move toward direct distribution of digital games and services with the acquisition of the popular online gaming site Pogo.com. In 2009, EA acquired the London-based social gaming startup Playfish, and in June 2011, EA launched Origin, an online service to sell downloadable games directly to consumers. In July 2011, EA announced that it had acquired PopCap Games, the company behind hits such as Plants vs. Zombies and Bejeweled.
Currently, EA develops and publishes games under several labels including EA Sports titles FIFA, Madden NFL, NHL, NCAA Football, NBA Live, and SSX. Other EA labels produce established franchises such as Battlefield, Need for Speed, The Sims, Medal of Honor, Command & Conquer, as well as newer franchises such as Crysis, Dead Space, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Army of Two, Titanfall and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, produced in partnership with LucasArts.
EA also owns and operates major gaming studios: EA Tiburon in Orlando, EA Vancouver in Burnaby, BioWare in Edmonton and Austin, TX, and DICE in Sweden and Los Angeles.