ELECTRONIC ARTS INC.

introduction

Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City,
California. It is the second-largest gaming company in the Americas and Europe by revenue and
market capitalization after Activision Blizzard and ahead of Take-Two Interactive and Ubisoft as of
March 2018.

Founded and incorporated on May 27, 1982, by Apple employee 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. EA published numerous games and productivity
software for personal computers and later experimented on techniques to internally develop games,
leading to the 1987 release of Skate or Die!

Currently, EA develops and publishes games of established franchises, including Battlefield, Need for
Speed, The Sims, Medal of Honor, Command & Conquer, Dead Space, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Army
of Two, Titanfall, and Star Wars, as well as the EA Sports titles FIFA, Madden NFL, NBA Live, NHL, and
EA Sports UFC.[5] Their desktop titles appear on self-developed Origin, an online gaming digital
distribution platform for PCs and a direct competitor to Valve's Steam and Epic Games' Store.
 history

Trip Hawkins had been an employee of Apple since 1978, at a time when the company had only
about fifty employees. Over the next four years, the market for home personal computers
skyrocketed. By 1982, Apple had completed its initial public offering (IPO) and become a Fortune 500
company with over one thousand employees.

In February 1982, Trip Hawkins arranged a meeting with Don Valentine of Sequoia Capital to discuss
financing his new venture, Amazing Software. Valentine encouraged Hawkins to leave Apple, where
Hawkins served as Director of Product Marketing, and allowed Hawkins use of Sequoia Capital's
spare office space to start the company. On May 27, 1982, Trip Hawkins incorporated and
established the company with a personal investment of an estimated US$200,000.

For more than seven months, Hawkins refined his Electronic Arts business plan. With aid from his
first employee (with whom he worked in marketing at Apple), Rich Melmon, the original plan was
written, mostly by Hawkins, on an Apple II in Sequoia Capital's office in August 1982. During that
time, Hawkins also employed two of his former staff from Apple, Dave Evans and Pat Marriott, as
producers, and a Stanford MBA classmate, Jeff Burton from Atari for international business
development. The business plan was again refined in September and reissued on October 8, 1982.
By November, employee headcount rose to 11, including Tim Mott, Bing Gordon, David Maynard,
and Steve Hayes. Having outgrown the office space provided by Sequoia Capital, the company
relocated to a San Mateo office that overlooked the San Francisco Airport landing path. Headcount
rose rapidly in 1983, including Don Daglow, Richard Hilleman, Stewart Bonn, David Gardner, and
Nancy Fong.
 main competitors

Electronic Arts (EA) competitors include Blizzard Entertainment, Niantic, Discord, Activision and
Ubisoft. Electronic Arts (EA) ranks 3rd in CEO Score on Comparably vs its competitors. See below
how Electronic Arts (EA) compares to its competitors with CEO Rankings, Overall Culture Score,
eNPS, Gender and Diversity Scores.
 current events

Apex Legends Global Series:

Major 1 of the Apex Legends Global Series | Arlington, Texas | March 13 - 15 | Postponed

EA is postponing this event and will provide a new event date and updated Apex Legends Global
Series schedule in the near future.

Apex Legends Global Series Online Tournament #2 | March 21 and 23 | Remains

Apex Legends Global Series Online Tournament #2 will take place as planned.

EA SPORTS FIFA 20 Global Series:

CONMEBOL eLibertadores Online & Live Event | March 7 - 8 | Postponed

EA is postponing this event and will provide a new date for it in the future.

eChampions League | Online Qualifiers | March 14 - 15 | Remains

EA will be holding the eChampions League online qualifier March 14th and 15th as planned, more
details for the eChampions League live event will be announced at a later date.

FUT Champions Cup Stage V | Bucharest | April 3 - 5 | Cancelled

This event is now cancelled.

PlayStation Licensed Qualifying Event | May 2 - 3 | Cancelled

The live Licensed Qualifying Event originally scheduled for May 2nd and 3rd has been cancelled.

While we don’t have any new dates to share at this point in time, we’ll look to provide more
information regarding these events and the effect on each of the Global Series as soon as we can.
 current success

EA is headquartered in the Redwood Shores neighborhood of Redwood City, California.[33] In 1999,

EA replaced their long-running Shapes logo with one based on the EA Sports logo used at the time,
and Larry Probst took over the reins. EA also started to use a brand-specific structure around this
time, with the main publishing side of the company re-branding to EA Games. The EA Sports brand
was retained for major sports titles, the new EA Sports Big label would be used for casual sports
titles with an arcade twist, and the full Electronic Arts name would be used for co-published and
distributed titles.

EA began to move toward direct distribution of digital games and services with the acquisition of the
popular online gaming site Pogo.com in 2001. In 2009, EA acquired the London-based social gaming
startup Playfish.

In 2004, EA made a multimillion-dollar donation to fund the development of game production

curriculum at the University of Southern California's Interactive Media Division. On February 1, 2006,
Electronic Arts announced that it would cut worldwide staff by 5 percent. On June 20, 2006, EA
purchased Mythic Entertainment, who are finished making Warhammer Online.

After Sega's ESPN NFL 2K5 successfully grabbed market share away from EA's dominant Madden NFL
series during the 2004 holiday season, EA responded by making several large sports licensing deals
which include an exclusive agreement with the NFL, and in January 2005, a 15-year deal with ESPN.
The ESPN deal gave EA exclusive first rights to all ESPN content for sports simulation games. On April
11, 2005, EA announced a similar, 6-year licensing deal with the Collegiate Licensing Company (CLC)
for exclusive rights to college football content.

Much of EA's success, both in terms of sales and with regards to its stock market valuation, is due to
its strategy of platform-agnostic development and the creation of strong multi-year franchises. EA
was the first publisher to release yearly updates of its sports franchises—Madden, FIFA, NHL, NBA
Live, Tiger Woods, etc.—with updated player rosters and small graphical and gameplay tweaks.
Recognizing the risk of franchise fatigue among consumers, EA announced in 2006 that it would
concentrate more of its effort on creating new original intellectual property.

In September 2006, Nokia and EA announced a partnership in which EA becomes an exclusive major
supplier of mobile games to Nokia mobile devices through the Nokia Content Discoverer. In the
beginning, Nokia customers were able to download seven EA titles (Tetris, Tetris Mania, The Sims 2,
Doom, FIFA 06, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06 and FIFA Street 2) on the holiday season in 2006. Rick
Simonson is the executive vice-president and director of Nokia and starting from 2006 is affiliated
with John Riccitiello and are partners.
 current failure

Many companies are moving forward with practices that consumers deem bad for the gaming
industry. Ubisoft has spearheaded always-on DRM. Activision continues to charge $15 for map packs
that are rehashes of old content. Yet neither of them draw quite as much hate as EA, which was
literally voted the worst company in America this year, a mantle they laughed off rather than
recognizing it as a serious issue.

There is simply a public perception that EA is not a likable brand. Yes, it happens with those other big
companies as well, but it's not nearly as virulent as when fans express their displeasure with EA.
Their new "Origin" gaming platform as done nothing but aggravate players used to the more refined
Steam, and chats with EA customer support have been so laughably unhelpful at times, screenshots
of them have gone viral.

Whether EA deserves all this hate or not is unclear. The fact is they make games people love, yet
they're perceived to be the great evil of the gaming industry based on how they treat their
customers. Or at least how the customers feel they've been treated.
 recommendations\

product quality

In fiscal year 2018, EA posted GAAP net revenue of $5.15 billion. Headquartered in Redwood City,
California, EA is recognized for a portfolio of critically acclaimed, high-quality brands such as The
Sims™, Madden NFL, EA SPORTS™ FIFA, Battlefield™, Need for Speed™, Dragon Age™ and Plants vs.
Zombies™.
 weakness

Weakness are the areas where Electronic Arts (EA) can improve upon. Strategy is about making
choices and weakness are the areas where a firm can improve using SWOT analysis and build on its
competitive advantage and strategic positioning.

The profitability ratio and Net Contribution % of Electronic Arts (EA) are below the industry average.

The marketing of the products left a lot to be desired. Even though the product is a success in terms
of sale but its positioning and unique selling proposition is not clearly defined which can lead to the
attacks in this segment from the competitors.

Investment in Research and Development is below the fastest growing players in the industry. Even
though Electronic Arts (EA) is spending above the industry average on Research and Development, it
has not been able to compete with the leading players in the industry in terms of innovation. It has
come across as a mature firm looking forward to bring out products based on tested features in the
market.

There are gaps in the product range sold by the company. This lack of choice can give a new
competitor a foothold in the market.

Need more investment in new technologies. Given the scale of expansion and different geographies
the company is planning to expand into, Electronic Arts (EA) needs to put more money in technology
to integrate the processes across the board. Right now the investment in technologies is not at par
with the vision of the company.

High attrition rate in work force – compare to other organizations in the industry Electronic Arts (EA)
has a higher attrition rate and have to spend a lot more compare to its competitors on training and
development of its employees.

Limited success outside core business – Even though Electronic Arts (EA) is one of the leading
organizations in its industry it has faced challenges in moving to other product segments with its
present culture.
 new products

Star Wars™ Battlefront™ II Play First Trial

Need for Speed Payback Play First Trial

The Sims 4 Play First Trial

Mass Effect: Andromeda

Dead Space 3