Electronic Arts

Electronic Arts (EA) is an American developer, marketer, publisher, and distributor of computer and video games. Established in 1982 the company was a pioneer of the early hom computer games industry and was notable for promoting the designers and programmers responsible for their games. EA was just a publisher for its first few years and exclusively published for home computers, but began developing games in-house in the late 1980s and started supporting consoles in the early 1990s. Also in the 1990s, EA began to expand by acquiring several successful developers and, as of the early 2000s, EA has become the world's largest third-party publisher, with a net revenue of US$3.129 billion on its fiscal year March 31, 2005. Currently, the company's most successful products are sports games published under their EA Sports label, games based on popular movie licenses and games from long-running franchises like Need for Speed, Medal of Honor and The Sims. The company has also been the subject of criticism, most notably for its business tactics and its employment policy.