A Short History of Electronic Arts
The game company known for ruthlessly guarding its market dominance through franchise purchase and protection -- though it began life with a noble mission to foster and reward 'art'
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After the Activision story, the tale of EA may sound kind of familiar – but its vastly amplified and simplified. When Trip Hawkins founded EA, he did it under the then-novel premise of an independent publisher; EA would run no internal studios, would produce no development of its own. Instead it would scout out, publish, and distribute the work of outside developers, operating under the early Activision principle of promoting programmers and designers nearly as much as the games they developed.
The name itself (based in part on United Artists) is telling; EA existed to proselytize the burgeoning art of electronic games; to act as a popular outlet for the voiced, yet scattered and unheard "software artists".