If you want to rank all the game companies in the world, then "EA" is definitely the worst batch. However, the EA that is spurned by thousands of people is actually a real love of the game, at least in the beginning. How did EA create this evil game empire, and why did it earn the title of "Game Studio Killer"? This time, we will talk about EA, a strange game company.
EA's founder, Trip Hawkins, was born in California in 1954 and was born with a keen interest in video games. Like many big names who founded game companies, he studied computer programming in school, the famous Harvard University. But the difference is that he is very serious about learning, and the most important thing is that he did not drop out of school, but successfully graduated, and then went to Stanford University to get an MBA.
In 1978, he entered a company that was not well known at that time, but in just 4 years, he personally experienced this company, from 50 people to 4,000 people, annual revenue soared to 1 billion US dollars, becoming the world's top 500 companies, this company is still legendary "Apple". But in the end, he chose to leave it and go out to create his own "game empire".
Trip Hawkins left Apple in April 1982 after he had earned enough capital to pursue his childhood dream. In May of the same year, he teamed up with 12 people from college days and colleagues who worked at Apple to create a game company, which we now know as EA. Originally, the name was Amazon' Software, but Hawkins proposed to change the company name to "SoftArt", but was stopped by another company, Software Arts, as an infringement warning.
In October 1982, he gathered his original 12 employees and did not come up with a better idea, but he was very firm in his concept and eventually named the company "Electronic Arts". In 1983 EA released its first games: Hard Hat Mack, Pinball Construction Set, Archon, M.U.L.E., Worms, and Murder on the Zinderneuf.
The biggest difference between EA and other distributors at that time was the use of cross-border thinking, the use of special packaging and the developer's name written on the cover, and the exquisite appearance of the album design, which was well received by the media.
The first batch of released games, both in word of mouth and sales were very successful, have become the hottest games of the year, after all, everyone has games, but my marketing is stronger than you than your eyes, it is always easier to be seen. EA packaged the developers who made the games as stars and even shot ads for them. No one did this at all in those days, and even if you take this set to the present, it is still a very novel operation.
In 1984, Larry Probst joined EA as Vice President of Marketing, where he developed a new business strategy for the company, bypassing middlemen and going directly to publishing and retailing, and EA has since become a vast game empire that combines game production and game publishing business. In terms of marketing, EA is really very good, so it can become one of the top publishers in North America.
In 1983, the cornerstone of EA's sports dynasty, the first popular sports game, was invited to participate in NBA star players Dr. J. and Larry Bird, so it sold quite well. After tasting the sweetness, EA invited Michael Jordan, the god of basketball, and then drew the gourd as it was, began to ask sports stars in different fields to endorse, and then came up with a related game in the field, which also became the foundation for EA Sports.
If the above games are the basis for the birth of EA Sports, then the game we will talk about next can be said to be the biggest promoter of establishing the EA movement dynasty, and this work is "Madden NFL". In the beginning, EA found the legend of the Professional Football Ball of Fame and tournament reviewer, "John Madden" of the Oakland Raiders, and EA wanted to use his name to make an American football game.
Madden agreed and put all his expertise into development, and then he put forward a condition for the game, that is, to be as realistic as possible, and EA agreed. In 1988, the "Madden NFL" with the name of John Madden was officially released, and this game was also as originally said, whether in the weather, format, the state of the players, the judgment of the rules, it was a great restoration of the state of the game, and it can be said that it was the most realistic sports simulation game at that time.
With the praise, in 1993 EA also went further, with the world's largest professional American football organization, the NFL obtained official authorization, every year to get the players the latest detailed data and portrait rights, until now will launch a model every year. Madden NFL, which has the same kernel content but updates data with the professional arena, is a method that has not changed much but still has a lot of revenue, allowing EA to apply this method to other sports games.
Such as the football "FIFA", basketball "NBA Live", and even ice hockey, golf, cricket, baseball, mixed martial arts and other series, laid the foundation for EA in sports games, making EA an electronics factory that makes sports games.
But even so, it is only a proof that EA is good at using the factory to produce sports games, this development model that can reduce the cost of the game, Ubisoft's open world is also very happy, how can it become the current evil empire? In the next issue, I'll reveal it to you.