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". Since 2022, their desktop titles appear on 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 DICE, Motive Studio, BioWare, and Respawn Entertainment.

1982–1991: Trip Hawkins Era

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. In February 1982, Trip Hawkins arranged a meeting with Don Valentine of Sequoia Capital to discuss financing his new venture, Amazin' Software. Valentine encouraged Hawkins to leave Apple, where Hawkins served as Director of Product Marketing, and allowed Hawkins to use 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.

When he incorporated the company, Hawkins originally chose Amazin' Software as their company name, but his other early employees of the company universally disliked the name, and it changed its name to Electronic Arts in November 1982.

In the mid-1980s, Electronic Arts aggressively marketed products for the Amiga, a home computer introduced in 1985. Commodore had given EA development tools and prototype machines before Amiga's actual launch.  For Amiga EA published some notable non-game titles. A drawing program Deluxe Paint (1985) and its subsequent versions became perhaps the most famous piece of software available for Amiga platform. In addition, EA's Jerry Morrison conceived the idea of a file format that could store images, animations, sounds, and documents simultaneously, and would be compatible with third-party software. He wrote and released to the public the Interchange File Format, which soon became an Amiga standard.  Other Amiga programs released by EA included Deluxe Music Construction Set, Instant Music and Deluxe Paint Animation. In 1990, Electronic Arts began producing console games for the Nintendo Entertainment System, after previously licensing its computer games to other console-game publishers.

1991–2007: Larry Probst Era

In 1991, Trip Hawkins stepped down as EA's CEO and was succeeded by Larry Probst.  Hawkins went on to found the now-defunct 3DO Company, but still remained EA's chair until July 1994. In October 1993, 3DO developed the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer, which at the time was the most powerful game console. Once a critic of game consoles, Hawkins had conceived a console that unlike its competitors would not require a first-party license to be marketed, and was intended to appeal to the PC market. Electronic Arts was The 3DO Company's primary partner in sponsoring their console, showcasing on it their latest games.

In 1994, Electronic Arts and THQ signed a licensing agreement to develop and release EA's titles, like John Madden Football, FIFA International Soccer, Shaq Fu, Jungle Strike and Urban Strike for various consoles.

In 1995, Electronic Arts won the European Computer Trade Show award for best software publisher of the year. As the company was still expanding, they opted to purchase space in Redwood Shores, California in 1995 for construction of a new headquarters, which was completed in 1998.

In 1999, EA replaced their long-running Shapes logo with one based on the EA Sports logo used at the time. EA also started to use a brand-specific structure around this time, with the main publishing side of the company rebranding 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. 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.

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.

2007–2013: John Riccitiello Era In February 2007, Probst stepped down from the CEO job while remaining on the board of directors. His handpicked successor is John Riccitiello, who had worked at EA for several years previously, departed for a while, and then returned. Riccitiello previously worked for Elevation Partners, Sara Lee and PepsiCo. In June 2007, new CEO John Riccitiello announced that EA would reorganize itself into four labels, each with responsibility for its own product development and publishing (the city-state model). The goal of the reorganization was to empower the labels to operate more autonomously, streamline decision-making, increase creativity and quality, and get games into the market faster. This reorganization came after years of consolidation and acquisition by EA of smaller studios, which some in the industry blamed for a decrease in quality of EA titles.

Also, in 2007, EA announced that it would be bringing some of its major titles to the Mac. EA has released Battlefield 2142, Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars, Crysis, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Madden NFL 08, Need for Speed: Carbon and Spore for the Mac. All of the new games have been developed for the Macintosh using Cider, a technology developed by TransGaming that enables Intel-based Macs to run Windows games inside a translation layer running on Mac OS X. They are not playable on PowerPC-based Macs.

In May 2008, EA announced that it will purchase the assets of Hands-On Mobile Korea, a South Korean mobile game developer and publisher. The company will become EA Mobile Korea.

As of November 6, 2008, it was confirmed that Electronic Arts is closing their Casual Label & merging it with their Hasbro partnership with The Sims Label. EA also confirmed the departure of Kathy Vrabeck, who was given the position as former president of the EA Casual Division in May 2007.

On June 24, 2009, EA announced it will merge two of its development studios, BioWare and Mythic into one single role-playing video game and MMO development powerhouse. The move will actually place Mythic under control of BioWare as Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk will be in direct control of the new entity. By fall 2012, both Muzyka and Zeschuk had chosen to depart the merged entity in a joint retirement announcement.

In October 2010, EA announced the acquisition of England-based iPhone and iPad games publisher Chillingo for US$20 million in cash. Chillingo published the popular Angry Birds for iOS and Cut the Rope for all platforms, but the deal did not include those properties.

In June 2011, EA launched Origin, an online service to sell downloadable games for personal computers directly to consumers. Around this time, Valve, which runs Steam in direct competition with Origin, announced changes to storefront policy disallowing games that used in-game purchases that were not tied to Steam's purchasing process, and removed several of EA's games, including Crysis 2, Dragon Age II, and Alice: Madness Returns in 2012. Though EA released a new packaged version of Crysis 2 that including all the downloadable content without the storefront features, EA did not publish any additional games on Steam until 2019, instead selling all personal computer versions of games through Origin.

In July 2011, EA announced that it had acquired PopCap Games, the company behind games such as Plants vs. Zombies and Bejeweled.

2013–2022: Andrew Wilson Era

On March 18, 2013, John Riccitiello announced that he would be stepping down as CEO and a member of the Board of Directors on March 30, 2013. Larry Probst was also appointed executive chairman on the same day. Andrew Wilson was named as the new CEO of EA by September 2013.

EA acquired the lucrative exclusive license to develop games within the Star Wars universe from Disney in May 2013, shortly after Disney's closure of its internal LucasArts game development in 2013. EA secured its license from 2013 through 2023, and began to assign new Star Wars projects across several of its internal studios, including BioWare, DICE, Visceral Games, Motive Studios, Capital Games and external developer Respawn Entertainment.

On December 10, 2015, EA announced a new division called Competitive Gaming Division, which focuses on creating competitive game experience and organizing ESports events. It was once headed by Peter Moore. In May 2016, Electronic Arts announced that they had formed a new internal division called Frostbite Labs. The new department specializes in creating new projects for virtual reality platforms, and "virtual humans".

EA announced the closure of Visceral Games in October 2017. Prior, Visceral had been supporting EA's other games but was also working on a Star Wars title named Project Ragtag since EA's acquisition of the Star Wars license, even hiring Amy Hennig to direct the project.

In January 2018, EA announced eMLS, a new competitive league for EA Sports' FIFA 18 through its Competitive Gaming Division (CGD) and MLS. That same month, EA teamed up with ESPN and Disney XD in a multi-year pact to broadcast Madden NFL competitive matches across the world through its Competitive Gaming Division arm.

On August 14, 2018, Patrick Söderlund announced his departure from EA as its vice-president and chief design officer, after serving twelve years with the company. With Söderlund's departure, the SEED group was moved as part of EA's studios, while the EA Originals and EA Partners teams were moved under the company's Strategic Growth group.

EA announced in October 2019 that it would be returning to release games on Steam, starting with the November 2019 release of Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order, as well as bringing the EA Access subscription service to Steam. While EA plans to continue to sell games on Origin, the move to add Steam releases was to help get more consumers to see their offerings.

EA rebranded both EA Access and Origin to EA Play on August 18, 2020, but otherwise without changing the subscription price or services offered as part of a streamlining effort.

In December 2020, EA placed a bid to buy Codemasters, a British developer of racing games, in a deal worth $1.2 billion, outbidding an earlier offer placed by Take-Two Interactive. The acquisition, agreed to by Codemasters, was completed by February 18, 2021, with all shares of Codemasters transferred to Codex Games Limited, a subsidiary of EA.

The company announced its plans to extend its mobile commitment in February 2021 by acquiring Glu Mobile in an deal estimated worth $2.1 billion. The acquisition was completed by the end of April 2021.

Former CEO and current chairman Probst stated in May 2021 he was retiring from the company. Current EA CEO Wilson took over as chairman.

EA acquired mobile game developer Playdemic Studios in Manchester, England from Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment in June 2021 for $1.4 billion, following the merger of Discovery, Inc. with WarnerMedia.

In their SEC filings in September 2021, the company said that current CFO and COO Blake Jorgensen will be stepping down by mid-2022. The company's COO role will be taken over by Chief Studios Officer Laura Miele, while a search for a new CFO will be launched. Longtime Microsoft executive Chris Suh was later appointed as CFO in March 2022.

2023-Present Era

In June 2023, EA announced an internal reorganization of the company: CEO Andrew Wilson announced a realignment of the company into two organizations – EA Sports and EA Entertainment – both which would report directly to him, having Laura Miele, previously Chief Studios Officer and COO as the president of EA Entertainment, and Cam Weber, formerly EVP and group General Manager of EA Sports as president of EA Sports. Vince Zampella, Samantha Ryan and Jeff Karp will continue on EA Entertainment leading and overseeing specific studios under EA Entertainment. Also announced in the same day, CFO Chris Suh and chief experience officer Chris Bruzzo will be leaving the company at the end of the month, with the first leaving for another company while the other going to retire. Replacing Suh as CFO will be Stuart Canfield, a 20-year veteran of the company who has most recently been serving as SVP of enterprise finance and investor relations, while the company's new chief experiences officer will be David Tinson, previously the company's chief marketing officer.