Electronic Arts are one of the worlds largest and most iconic video game companies. Founded in 1982 by American entrepreneur Trip Hawkins, EA quickly rose to become one of the largest companies in the video game industry as a pioneer for the early home computer games industry. As of March 2018, EA is the second largest gaming company in the world by revenue, just behind Activision Blizzard. Like many large media corporations, EA own many subsidiaries located around the globe. Notable examples of these include EA DICE (responsible for both the Battlefield and Star Wars Battlefront series) and EA Vancouver (responsible for the FIFA, NHL and Skate series). As of 2018, EA employ 9300 people worldwide.
Throughout the years since its creation, EA has been involved in large amounts of controversy and has received lots of criticism from large amounts of people from around the world, many of which has ties to Curran and Seaton's Media Industries theory. The first criticism that EA have faced that links with Curran and Seaton's theory is that of EA's habit of acquiring smaller, indie developers as a way to squash competition. This fits with Curran and Seaton's ideas that the media is controlled by a small number of large companies as smaller companies are unable to grow due to the fact that these larger companies see them as a threat and therefore attempt to destroy the competition. Another major criticism of EA is in the quality of their products. Many people believe that many of EA's major titles and yearly releases, such as FIFA and Madden, are far too similar to previous iterations as they either bring nothing new to the table or have little to no change at all. Instead of focusing on the quality of their games and giving consumers a memorable experience, many believe EA only care about how much revenue they can generate from game sales and in-game micro-
transactions rather than creating a game full of quality. This will usually result in a public backlash as seen with Star Wars Battlefront II and its 'pay-to-win' system. This links with Curran and Seaton's ideas on how major companies take less risks as a way to guarantee a good revenue and strong sales.
However, it can also be argued that EA are slowly drifting away from fitting in with Curran and Seaton's theory with their EA Originals program. The program aims to support more independently developed video games, something that a company that would be seen as fitting in with Curran and Seaton's ideas would tend to not do.
Коментарі