List Of Acquisitions By Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts is a company that is an American developer, marketer, publisher, and distributor of computer and video games, that was founded in 1982. Products of the company include EA Sports franchises, Sims, and other titles on both handheld and home gaming consoles.
Electronic Arts often acquires new companies to expand or add to new product lines. For instance, EA chairman and chief executive officer Larry Probst said after the acquisition of JAMDAT Mobile that "we intend to build a leading global position in the business of providing games on mobile phones". EA followed through with this later, making the company into EA Mobile, and allowing people to purchase and download content produced by them directly onto their phones. After the acquisition of Origin Systems, some staff in that company claimed that Electronic Arts initially gave them more resources, but allowed little latitude if employees made a mistake, and in some cases no longer trusted them, and even worked against them. EA has shut down entire companies or the studios thereof after acquiring them, including the studio DICE Canada, Origin Systems, EA Chicago (NuFX), and Pandemic Studios. Gaming blogger Brian Crecente has said that fears that EA doesn't care about the quality of their products after they are acquired are debatable.
As of July 2011, Electronic Arts' largest acquisition is the purchase of VG Holding Corp., the then-owner of video game developers Bioware and Pandemic Studios, for $775 million. Of the 37 companies acquired by EA, 19 are based in the U.S., five in the United Kingdom, five in Continental Europe, and eight elsewhere. Some of these companies or their respective studios, however, are now defunct. Of the six companies which EA purchased a stake in, two remaining companies are based in the U.S., while three other U.S. companies are defunct. After acquiring a 19.9% stake in France-based Ubisoft in 2004, EA sold a remaining 14.8% stake in it in 2010.
Each acquisition listed is for the entire company, unless otherwise noted. The acquisition date listed is the date of the agreement between Electronic Arts (EA) and the subject of the acquisition. Unless otherwise noted, the value of each acquisition is listed in U.S. dollars, because EA is headquartered in the U.S. If the value of the acquisition is not listed, then it is undisclosed. If the EA service that is derived from the acquired company is known, then it is also listed.
Read more about List Of Acquisitions By Electronic Arts: Key, Acquisitions, Stakes
Famous quotes containing the words list of, arts, electronic and/or list:
“Every morning I woke in dread, waiting for the day nurse to go on her rounds and announce from the list of names in her hand whether or not I was for shock treatment, the new and fashionable means of quieting people and of making them realize that orders are to be obeyed and floors are to be polished without anyone protesting and faces are to be made to be fixed into smiles and weeping is a crime.”
—Janet Frame (b. 1924)
“It never was in the power of any man or any community to call the arts into being. They come to serve his actual wants, never to please his fancy.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Ideally, advertising aims at the goal of a programmed harmony among all human impulses and aspirations and endeavors. Using handicraft methods, it stretches out toward the ultimate electronic goal of a collective consciousness.”
—Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980)
“A man’s interest in a single bluebird is worth more than a complete but dry list of the fauna and flora of a town.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)