Electronic Arts

Electronic Arts, Inc. (abbreviated EA) (NASDAQ: ERTS) is an international developer, marketer, publisher and distributor of video games. Founded and incorporated on 28 May 1982 by Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer games industry and was notable for promoting the designers and programmers responsible for its games. Originally, EA was a home computing game publisher. In the late 1980s, the company began developing games in-house and supported consoles by the early 1990s.

EA later grew via acquisition of several successful developers and formation of entirely new studios. By the early 2000s, EA had become one of the world's largest third-party publishers. In May 2008, the company reported net annual revenue of US$4.02 billion in fiscal year 2008. Currently, EA's most successful products are sports games published under its EA Sports label, games based on popular movie licenses such as Harry Potter and games from long-running franchises like Need for Speed, Medal of Honor, The Sims, SimCity, Battlefield and the later games in the Burnout and Command & Conquer series.

Command & Conquer series
On 17 August 1998, EA acquired Westwood Studios and Burst (later Westwood Pacific) from Virgin Interactive Entertainment that was facing bankruptcy, for US$122.5 million. Both studios made use of Electronic Arts' marketing and funds in the shift of the millennium, until Westwood Pacific was moved to Los Angeles as a team within Electronic Arts Los Angeles, while Westwood Studios proper was closed in early 2003. Electronic Arts split EA Los Angeles to Danger Close and Victory Games in 2010. The latter was closed in 2013, while the former was rebranded to DICE LA.

EA Phenomic, whom the company had acquired in 2006, worked on the browser game Command & Conquer: Tiberium Alliances as the first non-mobile Command & Conquer title given to a studio that was not linked to the Westwood-EALA-Victory Games lineage. The studio was closed in July 2013.

As Electronic Arts is attempting to enlarge its presence in the mobile market, mobile Command & Conquer titles by EA Mobile Romania were made in 2008 and 2009. A prototype mobile game by Mythic was also in the works prior to its closure in 2015. Currently, Redwood Studios is working on post-release support for Command & Conquer: Rivals, released in 2018.