EA Games label is home to the largest number of out studios and development teams, which together create an expansive and diverse portfolio of games, such as action-adventure, role playing, racing and combat games, marketed under the EA brands. In addition to traditional packaged-goods games, EA Games also develops massively-multiplayer online role-playing games which are persistent state virtual worlds where thousands of other players can interact with one another. For example, we expect to launch Warhammer Online in the coming fiscal year.
The EA Games portfolio includes several established franchises such as Need for Speed, Battlefield, Mercenaries and Burnout. In addition, EA Games has recently launched new franchises including SKATE and Army of two, and has additional titles in development. EA Games titles are developed primarily at the following EA studios: Bioware (located in Edmonton, Canada and Austin , Texas), Black Box (located in Vancouver, Canada), Criterion (located in Guildford, England), DICE (located in Stockholm, Sweden), EA Los Angeles, EA Montreal, EA Redwood Shores, Maxis (located in Emeryville, California), EA Mythic (located in Fairfax, Virginia), Pandemic Studios (located in Los Angeles, California and Brisbane, Australia) and Phenomic (located in Ingelheim, Germany).
EA Games also includes the EA Partners group, which teams with external game developers and third party companies, to provide these partners with a variety of services including development, publishing, and distribution. For example, in fiscal 2008, through a co-publishing agreement with Crytek, we released Crysis ® on the PC, and we signed a distribution agreement with Harmonix, a subsidiary of Viacom, to distribute Rock Band.
EA Sports
EA SPORTS Label
The EA SPORTS label brings together a wide collection of sports-based video games marketed under the EA SPORTS brand. EA SPORTS games range from simulated sports titles with realistic graphics based on real-world sports leagues, players, events and venues to more casual games with arcade-style gameplay and graphics. We seek to release new iterations of many of our EA SPORTS titles on a regular basis (often annually), in connection with the commencement of a sports league’s season or a major sporting event when appropriate. Our EA SPORTS franchises include FIFA Soccer, Madden NFL Football, Fight Night, NBA Live, NCAA Football, NCAA March Madness, Tiger Woods PGA Tour, NHL Hockey, NASCAR and Rugby. EA SPORTS games are developed primarily at our EA Canada (located in Vancouver, British Columbia) and EA Tiburon studios (located in Orlando, Florida), and, to a lesser extent, use several development studios highlighted in the EA Games label description above.
In addition to packaged goods games, the EA SPORTS label offers online-only gamers and entertainment. In Korea, EA SPORTS currently offers EA SPORTS FIFA Online, a free-to-play online game in which players may purchase additional in-game content from us (we refer to these consumer purchases of small elements of additional content as “micro-transactions”). We expect to introduce other online games under the EA SPORTS brand in the future. In fiscal 2009, EA SPORTS will also seek to increase its global presence through the introduction of new web-based communities centered on our portfolio of sports games.
The Sims
The Sims Label
The Sims label develops and markets life-simulation games and online communities with an emphasis on creativity, community and humor.
The Sims has sold over 10units world-wide since it was originally launched in 2000. A significant factor in its success has been the regular introduction of expansion pack with new content and gameplay features that can be purchased and used in connection with our core products, The Sims and The Sims 2. In fiscal 2008, the Sims label launched two expansion packs for The Sims 2.
In addition to expansion packs, the Sims label also launched several console products in fiscal 2008, most notably MySims™ -- a newly created franchise for the Wii and Nintendo DS – and The Sims 2 Castaway on the Wii, Nintendo DS, Playstation 2 and PSP.
The Sims 2 online community has 4 million unique visitors monthly, with localized communities in 15 countries. The centerpiece of this community is the user exchange, where users can download both EA and user-created content for use in their The Sims 2 core game. To date, there have been over 60 million downloads of content from The Sims 2 exchange.
The Sims label offers a variety of other online communities including The Sims On Stage –a creative community featuring karaoke, comedy, and movie mashups.
EA Casual Entertainment
EA Casual Entertainment Label
The EA Casual Entertainment label is focused on creating compelling casual games for a mass audience of core and non-core gamers alike. Casual games are intended to be easily accessible, requiring a minimum time commitment to learn, play and enjoy. EA Casual Entertainment is responsible for a broad portfolio of games designed for consoles, handhelds and PCs (including Pogo.com, our online casual games and community website), as well as cellular phones (through EA Mobile).
Pogo™. Through our Pogo online service, we offer causal games such a card games, puzzle games and word games. We had over 1.6 million paying Club Pogo subscribers as of March 31, 2008, up from 1.5 million paying subscribers as of March 2007. In addition to paid subscriptions, Pogo also generates revenue through online advertising and sales of digital content. We are continuing to expend out Pogo offerings in Europe.
EA Mobile. Through EA Mobile, we are a leading global publisher of games and other content (ringtones, images, etc.) for cellular handsets. Our customers typically purchase and download our games through a wireless carrier’s branded e-commerce server accessed directly from their cellular handsets.
We engage third parties to develop games for cellular handsets on our behalf at their own development and production studios and, to a lesser extent, we develop cellular handset games internally at our development and production studios located in the Unites States, Canada, the united Kingdom, Romania and India. In fiscal 2008, we released over 30 games for cellular handsets.
Many of our EA Mobile games are designed to take advantage of multimedia enhancements in the latest generation of cellular handsets, including high-resolution color displays, increased processing power, improved audio capabilities and increased memory capabilities. We publish games in multiple categories designed to appeal to a broad range of wireless subscribers.
Hasbro. In August 2007, we entered into a strategic relationship with Hasbro through which we can create digital games based on a significant number of Hasbro’s classic board games and toys, including MONOPOLY, SC RABBLE (North America only), YAHTZEE, TRIVIAL PURSUIT, NERF, G.I. JOE, and LITTLEST PET SHOP. We intend to develop Hasbro’s properties into video games for children, families and casual games and to publish them across a variety of platforms including cellular handsets, handhelds, PCs and consoles.
Console, Handheld and PC Games. EA Casual Entertainment works with third party developers and oversees internal studios and development teams located in Los Angeles, Montreal, Salt lake City and the United Kingdom that are responsible for console, handheld and PC games geared primarily towards children, families, and other casual games. In fiscal 2008, these games included Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix™, Boogie™, Smart pants™, For fiscal 2009, EA Casual is releasing a number of new titles, including Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince™, Boom Blox™, and ZUBO™ as well as several new titles based on well-known Hasbro games and toys.
