Electronic Arts
American video game company
Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by former Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry and promoted the designers and programmers responsible for its games as "software artists". EA published numerous games and some productivity software for personal computers, all of which were developed by external individuals or groups until 1987's Skate or Die! The company shifted toward internal game studios, often through acquisitions, such as Distinctive Software becoming EA Canada in 1991.
Into the 21st century, EA develops and publishes games of established franchises, including Army of Two, Battlefield, Command & Conquer, Dragon Age, Dead Space, Mass Effect, Medal of Honor, Need for Speed, Plants vs. Zombies, The Sims, Skate, SSX, and Star Wars, as well as the EA Sports titles College Football, Dirt Rally, FC–FIFA, Madden NFL, NASCAR, NBA Live, NHL, PGA, UFC, and WRC. Since 2022, its desktop titles appear on the self-developed EA App, an online gaming digital distribution platform for PCs and a direct competitor to Valve's Steam and Epic Games' Store. EA also owns and operates major gaming studios such as BioWare, Battlefield Studios (Criterion Games, DICE, Motive Studio, and Ripple Effect Studios), and Respawn Entertainment.
EA announced plans for a leveraged buyout by the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund (PIF), Silver Lake and Affinity Partners in September 2025 for $55 billion, including $20 billion in debt equity. The buyout was completed on August 4, 2026, making it the largest leveraged buyout to date.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Electronic Arts” is american video game company. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Electronic, Arts and American, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “american video game company” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q173941. VIAF identifies the subject as 137191582. The Library of Congress control number is n93043443. 3 of 6 selected statements include explicit references; 3 carry qualifiers and 2 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1982, 1987, 1991 and 2022.
Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
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- Event chronology
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Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Electronic Arts”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Electronic Arts primary sources, Electronic Arts archive and Electronic research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Electronic Arts” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.